Nowadays, the start of the current globalization era has manifested itself with the exponential increase in trade flows which go beyond the boundaries of states and are located in the ‘international’ spaces and in the interstices between the nations. This factor also characterizes the previous phases of globalization like that of the Eighteenth century. In fact, this phase has been the scene of a similar, comparatively, development of mercantile traffics especially in the fluid and hardly controllable spaces of the seas. In the context of the qualitative and quantitative increase in international and supranational trade, in both of these phases contradictions between networks and relationships and boundaries and territorialization processes arise and a hard competition between states and between economic centers develops. Moreover, this competition has ‘mercantilistic’ shapes. In this context, neutrality and its relations with the flows of goods find new relevance. Within these reflections, historians, economic historians, jurists, political scientists, and historians of thought analyze the theme of neutrality with a long-term and multidisciplinary approach and with the aim of diachronic comparisons.
