Glossary of Terms

Ó:SE KENHIONHATA:TIE + Our Country, Our Law, Our Future

The glossary contains plain-language definitions of key legal and technical terms used in the study. Bold and italicised words that appear in the text beneath glossarised terms are defined elsewhere in the glossary.



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A

Accountability: The obligation on the part of public officials to report on the use of public resources and responsibility for failing to meet stated performance objectives.

Agreement (international law): These legal instruments are usually less formal and deal with a narrower range of subject-matter than ‘treaties’. There is a general tendency to apply the term ‘agreement’ to bilateral or restricted multilateral treaties.

Acquisition of Territory: The expression ‘acquisition of territory’ is usually employed as meaning the establishment of sovereignty over a given piece of land. Well-known UN Security Council resolutions refer to acquisition of territory in this manner, notably Resolution 242 (1967). The expression, however, requires some precision. First, strictly speaking, ‘territory’ as a term of art comprises not only emerged land, but also airspace, the territorial sea, and internal waters.

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B

Bilateral organizations: receive funding from the government in their home countries, and use the funding to aid developing countries.

C

Charter (international law): The term ‘charter’ is used for particularly formal and solemn instruments, such as the constituent treaty of an international organization.

Commons or Public domain: Resources openly available to all. Examples include air, the ocean, and public parks, as well as cultural resources that are freely available to all. The existence of a commons is a policy issue: should particular resources be owned by private entities or by the public? Regulation of the commons also presents policy dilemmas: should one individual be restricted in his or her use of the commons, or allowed unregulated access, in which case the resource could be used up, or conflicting uses (e.g., two or more people using the same radio frequency for broadcasts) could make the commons unusable.

Convention (international law): Term generally used for formal multilateral treaties with a broad number of parties. Conventions are normally open for participation by the international community as a whole, or by a large number of states.

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D

Declaration (international law): The term ‘declaration’ is used for various international instruments. However, declarations are not always legally binding. The term is often deliberately chosen to indicate that the parties do not intend to create binding obligations but merely want to declare certain aspirations. Some instruments entitled ‘declarations’ were not originally intended to have binding force, but their provisions may have reflected customary international law or may have gained binding character as customary law at a later stage. Such was the case with the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

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Some instruments entitled ‘declarations’ were not originally intended to have binding force, but their provisions may have reflected customary international law or may have gained binding character as customary law at a later stage. Such was the case with the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

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Indigenous communities: are generally understood to be specific groups of people defined on an ethnic and cultural basis who have an association with a specific territory that they have occupied before colonization or similar territorial appropriations, and they often share a common history of oppression or marginalization. In Asia1 and Africa2 there has been considerable debate about the usefulness of such a definition, for example in the preparatory meetings for the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP, 2007). The African Commission’s Working Group recognized that most Africans could describe themselves as indigenous, and defined indigenous groups as those (especially hunter-gatherer or pastoralist communities) associated with a specific territory, self-identifying with a specific culture, identified as a group by themselves and others, and sharing a common experience of marginalization.3

Instrument (legal instrument): In legal terms, this means a law, regulations or an agreement, treaty, declaration or other legal document that prescribes certain behaviour.

International law: refers to treaty law made in and between sovereign states. This includes treaties, agreements, conventions, charters, protocols, declarations, memoranda of understanding, modus vivendi and exchange of notes between States.

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Legislation: is a term for law enacted by a legislature or other competent authority. This could include legislation at national and sub-national (e.g. provincial) level, as well as international law. Statutory law or statute law is written law (as opposed to oral or customary law) set down by a legislature (as opposed to regulatory law promulgated by the executive or common law of the judiciary) or by a legislator (in the case of an absolute monarchy).

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Minority or minority group: usually refers to groups defined on a national, or an ethnic, religious or linguistic basis (United Nations Minorities Declaration 1992), often without a specific territorial claim, whose national, ethnic, linguistic or religious identity differs from that of the majority population.4

Multilateral organizations:obtain their funding from multiple governments and spend it on projects in various countries, e.g. UNDP.

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Notification:The term “notification” refers to a formality through which a state or an international organization communicates certain facts or events of legal importance. Notification is increasingly resorted to as a means of expressing final consent. Instead of opting for the exchange of documents or deposit, states may be content to notify their consent to the other party or to the depositary. However, all other acts and instruments relating to the life of a treaty may also call for notifications. [1]

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Optional Protocol: to a treaty is an instrument that establishes additional rights and obligations to a treaty, subject to independent ratification; not all parties of the general treaty may consent to this optional protocol. The Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 1966 is a well-known example.

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Participatory democracy: A political and philosophical belief in direct involvement by affected citizens in the processes of governmental decision making essential to the existence of democratic government.

Policy implementation: A general political and governmental process of carrying out programs in order to fulfil specified policy objectives; a responsibility chiefly of administrative agencies.

Pro-poor policymaking: a process that focuses the policy design and implementation on achieving pro-poor objectives (defined in the Millennium Development Goals).

Proportionality principle: the extent of the action must be in keeping with the aim pursued. This means that when various forms of intervention are available to an institution, it must, where the effect is the same, opt for the approach which leaves the greatest freedom to other agencies.

Public policy: The broad aims, methods and principles that a government will use to guide actions including, but not restricted to, the development of more specific legislation and regulations. Also used to describe the set of programs enacted and implemented by the government.

Public-private partnership (PPP): all the formalized types of relations between the public and the private sectors which aim to ensure the realization of goals of general interest, as infrastructures and services, through the joint funding and the co-operating of public authorities and private bodies. Involvement of private enterprise (in the form of management expertise and/or monetary contributions) in the government projects aimed at public benefit.

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Ratification: Ratification defines the international act whereby a state indicates its consent to be bound to a treaty if the parties intended to show their consent by such an act. In the case of bilateral treaties, ratification is usually accomplished by exchanging the requisite instruments, while in the case of multilateral treaties the usual procedure is for the depositary to collect the ratifications of all states, keeping all parties informed of the situation. The institution of ratification grants states the necessary time-frame to seek the required approval for the treaty on the domestic level and to enact the necessary legislation to give domestic effect to that treaty. [2]

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Signatories and Parties: The term ‘Parties’, which appears in the header of each treaty, in the publication Multilateral Treaties Deposited with the Secretary-General, includes both ‘Contracting States’ and ‘Parties’. For general reference, the term ‘Contracting States’ refers to States and other entities with treaty-making capacity which have expressed their consent to be bound by a treaty where the treaty has not yet entered into force or where it has not entered into force for such States and entities; the term ‘Parties’ refers to States and other entities with treaty-making capacity which have expressed their consent to be bound by a treaty and where the treaty is in force for such States and entities.

Signature Subject to Ratification, Acceptance or Approval: Where the signature is subject to ratification, acceptance or approval, the signature does not establish the consent to be bound. However, it is a means of authentication and expresses the willingness of the signatory state to continue the treaty-making process. The signature qualifies the signatory state to proceed to ratification, acceptance or approval. It also creates an obligation to refrain, in good faith, from acts that would defeat the object and the purpose of the treaty. [3]

Sovereign state: In international law, a sovereign state is a nonphysical juridical entity that is represented by one centralized government that has sovereignty over a geographic area.

Subsidiarity: the idea that a central authority should have a subsidiary function, performing only those tasks which cannot be performed effectively at a more immediate or local level.

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Treaty (international law:) The expressions ‘treaty’ and ‘international agreement’ embrace a wide variety of instruments, including unilateral commitments. Usually the term ‘treaty’ is reserved for matters of some gravity that require more solemn agreements.

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Sample Linking Structure for footnots/endnotes

On true principles bold and italicised words that appear in “the text beneath glossarised terms are defined elsewhere in the glossary.”

These legal instruments are usually less formal and deal with a narrower range of subject-matter than ‘treaties’. [6] When the French Revolution led to a major war between France.

Footnotes:

  • [1] Arts.16 (c), 78 etc,. Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties 1969
  • [2] Arts.2 (1) (b), 14 (1) and 16, Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties 1969
  • [3] Arts.10 and 18, Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties 1969
  • [6] Mary Ellis. “His Excellency: George Washington” (2004) pg 8

Sources consulted