The development of Sri Lanka's policy of nonalignment, 1947-1977

Abstract

The terms "neutral.ism" and "nonalignment" are used in to the 1960s loosely to refer/the desire of a majority of Afro-Asian nations to avoid military alliances with either side in the cold war. They are associated with two most important international development of the post-World \var II era: first, the emergence of independent nations in Asia and Africa; and second, the emergence of a bipolar conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union. The term "nonalignment" lack the precision of the older notion of "neutrality" which referred to a legal condition in which a country refrained from taking sides in a war beh<een two, or more belligerents.(t) Laws of neutrality, which were formed chiefly by treaties of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries buttressed by judicial ruling in the nineteenth century delineated specific rights and responsibilities for both belligerents and neutrals. l-4eutrality was considered to be more than nonbelligerency, but nevertheless was more of a negative than a positive posture. Show more