Draft:Pascal Lottaz

Submission declined on 10 June 2026 by Mmemaigret (talk). This draft's references do not show that the person meets Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion for people. The draft requires multiple published secondary sources that: provide significant coverage: discuss the person in detail, not brief mentions or interviews lacking independent analysis; are reliable: from reputable outlets with editorial oversight; are independent: not connected to the person, such as interviews, press releases, the subject's own website, or sponsored content. Please add references that meet all three of these criteria. If none exist, the subject is not yet suitable for Wikipedia. If you would like to continue working on the submission, click on the "Edit" tab at the top of the window. If you have not resolved the issues listed above, your draft will be declined again and potentially deleted. If you need extra help, please ask us a question at the AfC Help Desk or get live help from experienced editors. Please do not remove reviewer comments or this notice until the submission is accepted. Where to get help If you need help editing or submitting your draft, please ask us a question at the AfC Help Desk or get live help from experienced editors. These venues are only for help with editing and the submission process, not to get reviews. If you need feedback on your draft, or if the review is taking a lot of time, you can try asking for help on the talk page of a relevant WikiProject. Some WikiProjects are more active than others so a speedy reply is not guaranteed. How to improve a draft Wikipedia:Contributing to Wikipedia – a basic overview on how to edit Wikipedia. Help:Wikitext – how to use the markup Help:Referencing for beginners – how to include references Wikipedia:Article development – how to develop your article Wikipedia:Writing better articles – how to improve your article Wikipedia:Verifiability – make sure your article includes reliable third-party sources You can also browse Wikipedia:Featured articles and Wikipedia:Good articles to find examples of Wikipedia's best writing on topics similar to your proposed article. Improving your odds of a speedy review To improve your odds of a faster review, tag your draft with relevant WikiProject tags using the button below. This will let reviewers know a new draft has been submitted in their area of interest. For instance, if you wrote about a female astronomer, you would want to add the Biography, Astronomy, and Women scientists tags. Add tags to your draft Editor resources Easy tools: Citation bot (help) | Advanced: Fix bare URLs Declined by Mmemaigret 19 days ago. Last edited by Scope creep 15 days ago. Reviewer: Inform author. Resubmit Please note that if the issues are not fixed, the draft will be declined again.

• Comment: (1) To meet Wikipedia notability requirements, the subject needs significant coverage in two or more independent reliable sources, refer WP:42. Currently there is one source of the correct length but it is does not meet the requirements as independent/reliable. (2) The publications section is excessive. (3) There are source errors in almost every source. (4) Tone is an issue with unencyclopedic, flowery, prose sentences. Mme Maigret (talk) 11:22, 10 June 2026 (UTC)

This is a draft article. It is a work in progress open to editing by anyone. Please ensure core content policies are met before publishing it as a live Wikipedia article. Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL Easy tools: Citation bot (help) | Advanced: Fix bare URLs · Article logs · Draft logs. Last edited by Scope creep (talk | contribs) 15 days ago. (Update) Finished drafting? Submit for review

Pascal Lottaz (born 1985) is a Swiss political scientist and academic specializing in neutrality studies, international relations, and diplomatic history. He is an associate professor at the Graduate School of Law, Kyoto University, where he also holds an appointment through the Hakubi Center for Advanced Research.¹ He is the founder and director of the Neutrality Studies Institute.²

Lottaz was born in 1985 and grew up in a small town in the canton of Fribourg, Switzerland.³ His first encounter with Japan came through popular culture — anime, manga, and video games — though he has noted that he did not realise these were Japanese in origin until around the age of 15 or 16.³ At 18, he participated in a high school exchange programme in Hashimoto-shi, Wakayama Prefecture, Japan (2004–2005), living with a rural rice-farming family.⁴ The experience proved formative, deepening both his Japanese language skills and his interest in Japan.

He returned to Switzerland to undertake undergraduate studies at the University of Fribourg, where he studied philosophy (2007–2010).⁵ He subsequently returned to Japan for an internship at the Minato City office in Tokyo (2010),⁴ before enrolling at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS) in Tokyo, where he completed a Master of Public Policy (2011–2012) and a PhD in International Relations (2014–2018).⁵ His doctoral dissertation, titled Neutral States and Wartime Japan: The Diplomacy of Sweden, Spain and Switzerland toward the Empire, examined how neutral countries navigated their relations with Imperial Japan during the Second World War.⁶

After completing his doctorate, Lottaz joined the Waseda Institute for Advanced Study (WIAS) at Waseda University in Tokyo as an Assistant Professor (January 2017 – December 2022).⁷ Concurrently, he served as Adjunct Professor for European Politics at Temple University Japan Campus (2017–2022).⁷ He was subsequently an Adjunct Researcher at the Waseda Institute for Advanced Study (April 2022 – March 2023).⁷

In March 2023, Lottaz was appointed associate professor at the Graduate School of Law, Kyoto University, a position he continues to hold.⁵ He is affiliated with the university's Hakubi Center for Advanced Research, a programme supporting outstanding mid-career researchers.⁸ He also served as Secretary of the Diplomatic Studies Section of the International Studies Association (2019–2023).⁷

Lottaz's central research focus is neutrality as a political and legal phenomenon in international relations and diplomatic history. He argues that neutrality is a significantly understudied concept in political science — one that mainstream international relations theory, with its emphasis on balancing and bandwagoning, cannot adequately capture.⁸ His work integrates historical case studies, archival documents, literary sources, and philosophy with qualitative and quantitative political science methods, aiming to develop a comprehensive theoretical framework for understanding neutrality across periods and geographies.⁹

Lottaz leads the Neutrality Studies Institute, a research network dedicated to the academic study of neutrality and non-alignment in international relations, international law, and diplomacy.² He contributed the entry "Neutrality Studies" to the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of International Studies (2022) and "The Politics and Diplomacy of Neutrality" to Oxford Bibliographies in International Relations (2022).⁵ He also co-authored a piece in Foreign Policy magazine in June 2023 arguing for a more nuanced understanding of neutral states in the context of the Russia–Ukraine War.¹⁰ Professor Lottaz hosts a popular Youtube channel Neutrality Studies with over 1,000 videos posted and with over 345K subscribers.¹¹

A prominent direction of Lottaz's historical research concerns Switzerland's diplomatic relations with Japan during the Second World War. He has examined how neutral states navigated their relationships with belligerent powers in the Asia-Pacific theatre, drawing on archival records from Switzerland, Sweden, Spain, and Japan.¹² This work includes annotated editions of primary sources, such as the wartime diary of Camille Gorgé, Switzerland's Minister Plenipotentiary to Japan, who was responsible not only for the Swiss legation but also for dozens of Allied diplomats and civilians under Switzerland's "Good Office" mandates.¹²

Lottaz has also written on Korean reunification and neutrality, Mongolian foreign policy, Taiwan and cross-strait relations, and nuclear nonproliferation.⁵ His broader interest lies in exploring neutral solutions as components of contemporary security architectures, including proposals for a neutral Korean Peninsula and a neutral Taiwan as mechanisms for reducing great-power tensions.⁷

Selected publications, where Lottaz is an author, editor or co-editor:

• Notions of Neutralities (Lexington Books, 2019; co-edited with Herbert R. Reginbogin)⁷
• Permanent Neutrality: A Model for Peace, Security, and Justice (Lexington Books, 2020; co-edited with Herbert R. Reginbogin)¹³
• Sweden, Japan, and the Long Second World War (Routledge, 2021)¹³
• Neutral Beyond the Cold: Neutral States and the Post-Cold War International System (Lexington Books, 2022; co-edited with Heinz Gärtner and Herbert R. Reginbogin)¹³
• Neutral Europe and the Creation of the Nonproliferation Regime 1958–1968 (Routledge, 2023; co-edited with Yoko Iwama)¹⁴
• Selected Articles and Book Chapters
• "Neutrality Studies." Oxford Research Encyclopedia of International Studies (2022)⁵
• "The Politics and Diplomacy of Neutrality." Oxford Bibliographies in International Relations (2022)⁵
• "Dual-neutrality for the Koreas: A two-pronged approach toward reunification" (with Tumurjin Ganbaatar). Defense & Security Analysis, 38(3), 284–295 (2022)⁵
• "The Future of Neutrality." GCSP Policy Brief (2023)⁵ "In Defense of Neutrals: Why They're More Than Just Fence Sitters" (with Heinz Gärtner). Foreign Policy (June 2023)¹⁵
• "Going East: Switzerland's Early Consular Diplomacy toward East and Southeast Asia." Traverse: Zeitschrift für Geschichte (2020)⁷
• "Violent Conflicts and Neutral Legations: A Case Study of the Spanish and Swiss Legations in Wartime Japan." New Global Studies, 11(2), 85–100⁶

Theses

[T2] Lottaz, Pascal. Neutral States and Wartime Japan: The Diplomacy of Sweden, Spain, and Switzerland toward the Empire. (Ph.D. Thesis). Tokyo: National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, 2018. (https://grips.repo.nii.ac.jp/?action=repository_uri&item_id=1662&file_id=25&file_no=3)

[T1] Lottaz, Pascal. R2P in East and Southeast Asia. (Master Thesis). Tokyo: National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, 2012. (https://www.amazon.co.jp/East-Southeast-Asia-Pascal-Lottaz/dp/3656954887)

Monographs

[M1] Lottaz Pascal, and Ingemar Ottosson. Sweden, Japan, and the Long Second World War 1931–1945. London: Routledge, 2021. (https://www.routledge.com/Sweden-Japan-and-the-Long-Second-World-War-1931-1945/Lottaz-Ottosson/p/book/9781032021423)

Edited Books

[EB6] Lottaz, Pascal and Yoko Iwama, eds. Neutral Europe and the Creation of the Nonproliferation Regime: 1958–1968. London: Routledge, 2023. (https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/edit/10.4324/9781003310563/neutral-europe-creation-nonproliferation-regime-pascal-lottaz-yoko-iwama)

[EB5] Lottaz, Pascal, Heinz Gärtner, and Herbert Reginbogin, eds. Neutral Beyond the Cold: Neutral States and the Post-Cold War International System. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2022 (https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781666901665/Neutral-Beyond-the-Cold-Neutral-States-and-the-Post-Cold-War-International-System)

[EB4] Reginbogin, Herbert, and Pascal Lottaz, eds. Permanent Neutrality: A Model for Peace, Security, and Justice. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2020. (https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781793610294/Permanent-Neutrality-A-Model-for-Peace-Security-and-Justice)

[EB3] Lottaz, Pascal, and Herbert Reginbogin, eds. Notions of Neutralities. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2019. (https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781498582261/Notions-of-Neutralities)

[EB2] Donzé, Pierre Yves, Claude Hauser, Pascal Lottaz, and Andy Maître, eds. Journal D'un Témoin: Camille Gorgé, Diplomat Suisse Dans Le Japon En Guerre 1940–1945. In French [Journal of a Witness: Camille Gorgé, Swiss Diplomat in Wartime Japan]. In Series: Quaderni di Dodis, Vol. 10. Berne: Diplomatic Documents of Switzerland, 2018. (https://www.dodis.ch/q10)

[EB1] Müller, Xenia, Rahel Steger, Bruno Grünenfelder, and Pascal Lottaz, eds. Konflikte Wagen, Frieden Leben: Ein Manual Zur Gewaltprävention Bei Jugendlichen. In German [Daring Conflicts, Living Peace: A Manual for Violence Prevention]. Norderstedt: BoD, 2012.

Book Chapters

[BC13] Lottaz, Pascal. “The Neutralities of Austria and Switzerland: Akin but Not Alike.” In Neutrality after 1989: New Paths in the Post-Cold War World, edited by Naman Karl-Thomas Habtom. Bristol: E-International Relations, 2024.

[BC12] Lottaz, Pascal. “Neutrality, Neutralism, and Nonalignment in the Early Cold War.” In Neutral Europe and the Creation of the Nonproliferation Regime: 1958–1968, edited by Pascal Lottaz and Yoko Iwama. London: Routledge, 2023.

[BC11] Lottaz, Pascal. “The Russo-Ukrainian war, propaganda and the end of neutrality?” In Propaganda and Neutrality: Global Case Studies in the 20th Century, edited by Edward Corse and Marta García Cabrera. London: Bloomsbury, 2023. (https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/propaganda-and-neutrality-9781350325531/)

[BC10] Lottaz, Pascal. “Zum Ewigen Krieg: Von der Notwendigkeit der Deeskalation.” In German [On Perpetual War: The Necessity of Deescalation], In Die Ukraine im Krieg: Ist Frieden Möglich?, edited by Heinz Gärtner. Berlin: Lit, 2022.

[BC9] Lottaz, Pascal and Tumurjin Ganbaatar. “Mongolia: Neutralty as a Nice Horse.” In Neutral Beyond the Cold: Neutral States and the Post-Cold War International System, edited by Pascal Lottaz, Heinz Gärtner, and Herbert Reginbogin. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2022.

[BC8] Preiherman, Yauheni and Pascal Lottaz. “Belarus: Between Alliance and Neutralism.” In Neutral Beyond the Cold: Neutral States and the Post-Cold War International System, edited by Pascal Lottaz, Heinz Gärtner, and Herbert Reginbogin. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2022.

[BC7] Lottaz, Pascal. “Vatican Diplomacy and Church Realities in the Philippines during World War II.” In The Vatican and Permanent Neutrality, edited by Marshal Breger and Herbert Reginbogin. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2022.

[BC6] Lottaz, Pascal. “The Logic of Neutrality.” In Permanent Neutrality: A Model for Peace, Security, and Justice, edited by Herbert Reginbogin and Pascal Lottaz Lanham: Lexington Books, 2020.

[BC5] Lottaz, Pascal and Herbert Reginbogin. “Taiwanese Neutrality: Solving the Conundrum.” In Permanent Neutrality: A Model for Peace, Security, and Justice, edited by Herbert Reginbogin and Pascal Lottaz. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2020.

[BC4] Reginbogin, Herbert and Pascal Lottaz. “The Nomos of Neutrality in East Asia.” In Permanent Neutrality: A Model for Peace, Security, and Justice, edited by Herbert Reginbogin and Pascal Lottaz, Lanham: Lexington Books, 2020.

[BC3] Lottaz, Pascal “Neutrality and Wartime Japan.” In Notions of Neutralities, edited by Pascal Lottaz and Herbert Reginbogin. Lanham: Lexington, 2019.

[BC2] Lottaz, Pascal and Herbert Reginbogin. “'Private Neutrality' – The Bank for International Settlements.” In Notions of Neutralities, edited by Pascal Lottaz and Herbert Reginbogin. Lanham: Lexington, 2019.

[BC1] Lottaz Pascal and Florentino Rodao. “The Vatican, WWII, and Asia: Lessons of Neutral Diplomacy.” In Notions of Neutralities, edited by Pascal Lottaz and Herbert Reginbogin. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2019.

Journal Articles

[J9] Nishikawa-Pacher, Andreas and Lottaz, Pascal. “Permanent neutrality: A systems-theoretical interpretation”. Cooperation and Conflict, November 30, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1177/00108367251382785.

[J8] Lottaz, Pascal. “Neutrals and Norm Building: A Question of Size”. Small States & Territories 8, no.1, 69–71, 2025. https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/bitstream/123456789/134800/1/Neutrals_and_norm_building_a_question_of_size_2025.pdf.

[J7] Lottaz, Pascal. “Taiwan and the Necessity of Imagining Peace”. F1000Research, 2025, 14:246 DOI: doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.161050.1.

[J6] Lottaz, Pascal. “The Future of Neutrality”. Geneva Center for Security Policy, Policy Briefs, no.4, 2023. ISBN: 978-2-88947-407-3.

[J5] Lottaz, Pascal. and Heinz Gärtner. “Dual-Neutrality for the Koreas: A Two-Pronged Approach toward Reunification.” Defense & Security Analysis, 38, no.3, 284–295 2022. DOI: 10.1080/14751798.2022.2085109.

[J4] Lottaz, Pascal. “The Politics and Diplomacy of Neutrality.” Oxford Bibliographies in International Relations, New York: Oxford University Press, 2022. (DOI: 10.1093/OBO/9780199743292-0307).

[J3] Lottaz, Pascal. “Neutrality Studies.” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of International Studies, New York: Oxford University Press, 2022. (DOI: 10.1093/acrefore/9780190846626.013.680).

[J2] Lottaz, Pascal. “Going East: Switzerland’s Early Consular Diplomacy toward East and Southeast Asia.” Traverse: Zeitschrift für Geschichte 27 no. 1, 23–34, 2020. (DOI: 10.5169/seals-881084).

[J1] Lottaz, Pascal. “Violent Conflicts and Neutral Legations: A Case Study of the Spanish and Swiss Legations in Wartime Japan.” New Global Studies 11, no.2, 85–100, 2017. (DOI: 10.1515/ngs-2017-0018)

• https://www.manifold1.com/episodes/pascal-lottaz-neutrality-geopolitics-and-international-conflict-74/transcript