The Greatest Foreign Policy Dilemma Yet | Ex-Swiss President Micheline Calmy-Rey

## Experience of neutrality during the Iraq war The practical trial of Switzerland’s neutrality, Micheline Calmy‑Rey recalled in the conversation, came not from abstract doctrine but from hard administrative choices during the 2003 Iraq war. What sounds simple in legal textbooks — “neutrality” as a set of rules deriving from the Hague Conventions of 1907 — proved in practice to be a knot of operational and political questions: how to qualify a conflict, what restrictions to impose on overflight and transit, and how to terminate the special measures once hostilities end. That episode underscores a basic lesson: neutrality is as much an exercise in statecraft as it is an item of legal obligation. Calmy‑Rey (whose experience as a former federal councillor and two‑time Swiss president frames much of the discussion) emphasizes that the law of neutrality is narrow in its concrete prescriptions. In essence, it limits a neutral state’s obligations to military matters: defending its territory, denying transit of troops, and prohibiting belligerent overflights. Yet even those “few” obligations cascade into dozens of operational decisions — from customs and aviation control to parliamentary oversight — and demand political consensus on both the assessment of the conflict and the timing of measures. Neutrality’s seeming simplicity masks complexity in application. Equally important is the distinction between the letter of the law and the broader policy that gives neutrality credibility in peacetime. The law sets out what a neutral state must not do in war; policy shapes how that state behaves day to day so that other states will believe in its neutrality when it matters. Credibility, Calmy‑Rey stresses, is the currency of neutrality: if others cannot predict or accept how Switzerland will act, neutrality loses protective value. ## Ukraine, sanctions and the role of the United Nations The 2022 escalation in Ukraine brought these tensions into sharper relief. The conversation moved quickly from rules about territory and overflight to the murkier realm of sanctions — instruments that the Hague framework did not contemplate. Sanctions, Calmy‑Rey pointed out, are a creature of the post‑UN reality in which states join multilateral mechanisms that can qualify breaches of international law and respond economically rather than militarily. Switzerland’s entry into the UN system opened the door to sanctions as a legitimate response to violations of the charter. That shift permits a neutral state to participate in economic countermeasures decided by UN bodies, and — crucially for Switzerland — to adopt domestic measures aimed at preventing the circumvention of sanctions taken by others, most notably the European Union. The Swiss government has treated such measures as compatible with neutrality, but that compatibility is not a legal necessity; it is a political choice anchored in the country’s multilateral commitments. Calmy‑Rey’s framing clarifies a paradox: neutrality traditionally restrains military involvement, but neutrality in the 21st century often must coexist with economic solidarity. The decision to implement sanctions is less a direct act of war than a political act to uphold norms — yet that distinction can be lost in diplomatic perception. Thus the problem is not only legal coherence but also international communication: how a neutral state explains the difference between military abstention and economic sanctioning to friends and foes alike. ## Inconsistencies in Switzerland’s neutrality policy A recurring theme in the exchange is inconsistency — the way Swiss practice has sometimes deviated from principle in ways that breed confusion. Calmy‑Rey notes episodes where the federal government applied neutrality law strictly, then adapted it pragmatically, and at other times refrained altogether. Such variability undermines the very credibility neutrality seeks to cultivate. If others cannot tell whether Switzerland will restrict trade, close its skies, or maintain ties, then the protective value of neutrality diminishes. The conversation highlights specific cases that have generated public perplexity: differing treatment of sanctions vis‑à‑vis the United States, Israel, Iran, and Russia; selective application of measures to future orders versus existing contracts; and pragmatic adaptations for economic reasons. This patchwork practice fosters a perception — domestically and abroad — that neutrality may be elastic to the point of inconsistency. That perception itself has strategic effects: potential belligerents and allies will act as if Swiss neutrality is unreliable or negotiable. Calmy‑Rey’s critique is not merely doctrinal hair‑splitting. Credible neutrality requires predictable rules and transparent rationales. Without them, neutrality can be accused of bias, opportunism, or irrelevance. Political leaders may face domestic pressures to prioritize trade and economic interests; yet such short‑term calculations risk long‑term diplomatic costs if neutrality’s credibility erodes. ## What the neutrality initiative would change The proposed initiative on neutrality (the subject of an impending popular vote) attempts to freeze aspects of neutrality into constitutional language. In the conversation, Calmy‑Rey warns that this approach risks conflating different legal regimes and hardening practices that have grown out of Switzerland’s UN commitments. The initiative would explicitly place sanctions within the neutral framework, a move Calmy‑Rey sees as problematic because sanctions are not part of classical neutrality law but rather of the UN system’s tools for enforcing international order. Constitutionalizing a particular interpretation of neutrality has two main consequences. First, it creates legal rigidity: a constitutional clause is harder to adapt quickly in response to new forms of conflict, hybrid threats, or evolving alliances. Second, by embedding sanctions into the neutrality article, the initiative would recalibrate Switzerland’s obligations and discretion in ways that could restrict the government’s ability to coordinate with neighbors, adopt targeted measures to prevent circumvention, or interpret interdependence in tactical terms. That said, Calmy‑Rey recognizes that the initiative does not entirely ban cooperation or measures aligned with others’ sanctions; it reserves UN sanctions and allows anti‑circumvention steps. Nevertheless, the risk — in her view — is that the initiative institutionalizes an overly narrow conception of neutrality that reduces policy flexibility and creates new legal obligations that may limit Switzerland’s capacity to respond coherently in a crisis. ## Political and diplomatic risks of a “No” vote One of the more striking political observations in the conversation is the paradox a negative vote could produce. If voters reject the initiative decisively, the message might be read abroad not as a reaffirmation of a flexible, modern neutrality but as an abandonment of neutrality altogether. Calmy‑Rey articulates the diplomatic anxiety plainly: the meaning of a popular referendum is not only domestic law but a signal to international partners and adversaries about Swiss identity and reliability. A blunt political rejection risks alienating an international audience that reads votes as expressive of foreign policy direction. The government would then be left to explain that Switzerland remains neutral in practice despite the popular “No” — an explanation that could be less credible precisely because the popular verdict appeared to question neutrality’s parameters. Thus, the domestic politics of the referendum feed directly into diplomatic risk: the clearer and more coherent the public signal, the easier it is for ambassadors, allies, and rivals to calibrate their expectations. Calmy‑Rey goes further: the initiative’s presence in the public sphere has itself created a dilemma. She suggests that the party which sponso