At the 1914 Crown Council, which decided to keep Romania neutral in 1914, former Conservative prime minister Petre Carp offered his succinct and direct opinion about the direction of Romanian foreign policy in the opening days of the Great War. He admonished the Council that, if Romania wanted to remain among the ‘civilized states’ (statele civilizate) it had to follow Germany and Austria-Hungary into war immediately. The idea of ‘civilized states’ that dominated the remainder of the Crown Council was not merely an intersubjective social construction. It was a legal term of art in fin de siècle international law that could be applied in the real world. It was only the legally-civilized states that enjoyed the full panoply of rights, privileges, and protections under international law.

This is a study of how Romania’s policy-making elite, and Ion I. C. Brătianu’s government, in particular, confronted the challenges of ‘situational sovereignty’. It asserts that, during Romania’s two-year Period of Neutrality (3 August 1914–17 August 1916), Brătianu initially used bilateral conventions as both a method to establish recognition of Romania’s status (or at least a guarantee of territorial integrity) and as a litmus test to determine which (if any) foreign powers recognized Romania as a legal equal. Although he was able to achieve a short-term victory of having an equality clause inserted into the August 1916 political convention with the Entente, it is unclear if that clause could have been durable. Ultimately, Brătianu was trapped between a desire to secure Romania’s recognition through international agreement, but confronted with the reality that Romania’s lack of recognition as a legally-civilized equal meant those very conventions could be unenforceable.

在1914年决定保持罗马尼亚中立的王室理事会上，前保守党总理彼得·卡尔普就大战初期罗马尼亚的外交政策方向提出了简洁明了的意见。他告诫安理会说，如果罗想保持“文明国家”中（statele civilizate）它必须紧跟德国和奥匈帝国陷入战争。统治王室其余部分的“文明国家”的思想不仅仅是主体间的社会建构。这是fin desiècle国际法中的一个艺术术语，可以在现实世界中应用。只有依法文明的国家才能享有国际法赋予的全部权利，特权和保护。

这是关于罗马尼亚的决策精英，尤其是离子ICBrătianu的政府如何面对“处境主权”的挑战的研究。它断言，在罗马尼亚的两年中立时期（1914年8月3日至1916年8月17日）期间，布勒塔努最初使用双边公约作为确立对罗马尼亚地位的承认（或至少是对领土完整的保证）的一种方法。石蕊测试，以确定哪些（如果有的话）外国大国认可罗马尼亚为合法平等。尽管他能够通过在1916年8月与协约国签订的政治公约中加入平等条款而取得短期胜利，尚不清楚该子句是否可以持久。最终，布里亚努（Brătianu）陷入了通过国际协议确保罗马尼亚得到承认的愿望之中，但面对这样一个现实，即罗马尼亚缺乏作为合法文明平等的承认，这意味着这些公约可能无法执行。