ENGLISH-IN-LAW. Textbook

ment, whose function is to elucidate the facts objectively and impartially and then to issue a report. The eventual report is expected to contain concrete proposals for a settlement, which, however, the parties are under no legal obligation to accept.

TASK 1 a) Read the text. Look up the following words and word combinations in a dictionary:

judgment n. coercive adj. rest v. (on smth.) multilateral adj. treaty n. convention n. machinery n.

arbitration n., arbitrate v., arbitrator n. conciliation n.

submission n., submit v. acknowledge v.

articulate v., articulation n. domestic adj.

engage v. (in smth.)

b) Fill in the correct word in the appropriate grammar form. Use the list above.

1.A committee was created to … between management and the unions.

2.The defendant struggled to … her thoughts.

3.The court has yet to pass … in this case.

4.There is no … for resolving disputes.

5.The minister refuses to … the need for reforms.

6.A … service helps to settle disputes between employers and workers.

7.… and … are formal agreements.

8.The members prepared a report for … to the council.

9.Even in prison, the man continued to … in criminal activities.

10.The UN refused to undertake … measures to reduce tension.

11.Output consists of both exports and sales on the … market.

12.The whole argument … on the false assumption.

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TASK 2 Look up which verbs collocate with the nouns judgment, treaty, convention, arbitration. Make up your own sentences with the collocations to describe international law (use the examples of your country’s policy and legislation).

TASK 3 Match the words from the box with their definitions:

coercive, machinery, multilateral, submit, acknowledge, articulate, engage, domestic

1.relating to one particular country and not involving any other countries

2.the organization or structure of smth., the system of doing smth.

3.to express or explain your thoughts or feelings clearly in words

4.in which three or more groups, nations, etc. take part

5.using force or the threat of force

6.to give a document, a proposal to smb. in authority so that they can study or consider it

7.to take part in smth.

8.to accept that smth. is true

TASK 4 a) Match the words on the left with their synonyms on the right:

b) Provide examples for the following:

a multilateral contract – a unilateral contract

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domestic policy – foreign policy

to acknowledge the authority of the court – to deny the authority of the court

TASK 5 Add at least three nouns to each of the following words to form word combinations. Use these word combinations to speak on foreign or domestic policy of your country:

multilateral, submit v., acknowledge v., articulate v., domestic, coercive

TASK 6 Replace the underlined words with synonyms:

1.The legal process that concerns relations among nations is called international law.

2.No court has the authority or power to give judgments backed by coercive sanctions.

3.Even in its most modern developments, international law is almost wholly based on custom.

4.When treaties or conventions are involved, however, machinery to enforce them exists.

5.A discernible body of rules and principles is observed or at least acknowledged in international relations.

6.Domestic courts in various nations at times also engage in the articulation of international law.

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TASK 8 a) Study the following information:

Relative clauses with who/that/which.

There are two types of relative clause.

Type 1.

The relative clause tells you which person or thing or what kind of person or thing the speaker means. You do not use commas

(,) with these clauses. In this type of clause you use who and that for people and which and that for things:

The woman that (who) lives next door is a lawyer.

The legal process that (which) concerns relations among nations is called international law.

You can leave out who/which/that when it is the object:

We stayed at the hotel (that/which) you recommended.

Type 2.

The relative clause does not tell you which person or thing the speaker means. We already know which thing or person the speaker means. It gives us extra information about the person or thing:

My brother Rob, who lives next door, is a lawyer.

We stayed at the Park Hotel, which a friend of ours recommended.

You use commas (,) with these clauses. In this type of clause you use who for people and which for things. You cannot use that and you cannot leave out who or which.

You can use whom for people when it is the object:

This morning I met Edgar, whom I hadn’t seen for two days.

b)Identify the type of the relative clauses in the text.

c)Make one sentence from two. Use the sentence in brackets to make a relative clause:

1.Members of the Commons are elected either at a general election or at a by-election. (It is held when a vacancy occurs in the House).

2.During the medieval period, law-making power lay mainly with the judges. (In theory they were supposed to declare the general and local customs of the realm).

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3.The word “parliament” entered into official language about the middle of the thirteenth century. (It meant merely a parley of conference).

4.Some parts of the governmental system are written down in Acts of Parliament, others are regulated by conventions. (They are commonly accepted assumptions about the way things should be done).

5.It has been usual to include one or more women among the members of the royal commissions and other committees. (Governments set them up to examine aspects of the national life and to make reports).

6.Students are required to write numerous essays or seminar papers. (They may be discussed in the group meetings).

7.People receive payments from the National Insurance Fund at the same rate as retirement pensioners. (They become unemployed or unable to work because of sickness).

TASK 9 a) Pair work. Put as many questions to the text as possible. Answer each other’s questions.

b) Summarise each paragraph of the text in one sentence.

TASK 10 Use the following phrases to speak on international law:

international law concerns international law dates from international law is based on

the precedents on which it rests are machinery to enforce treaties or conventions the major sources of international law are the United Nations articulates and creates domestic courts also engage in

TASK 11 Agree or disagree with the following:

1.The modern trend in law appears to be one of internationalization.

2.There are no similarities between international laws and domestic laws.

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TASK 12 a) Summarise the text:

Let’s revise why many European countries have become members of organisations such as NATO or the European Union. Countries choose to join these organisations because of the advantages they see from membership.

The European Union

The European Union is an economic and monetary union. Originally, it had six members but today it has grown to 27. There are still countries wishing to join but so far they have not been accepted and remain as ‘candidate’ countries. Advantages of European Union membership include:

•Large market for businesses to sell their products

•Access to EU funding for projects, through the Structural Funds

•Access to the Common Agricultural Policy which helps farmers and ensures supplies of food

•The option to join the Single European Currency (the EURO)

•Opportunities for people to work and study in other European countries

•Improved standards of living in all member countries

•Help to promote democracy in newly joined countries

NATO

NATO is a military organisation which combines the armed forces of the USA, Canada and Western Europe. Many Eastern European countries have joined NATO.

NATO was involved in peace keeping both in Europe, e.g. former Yugoslavia and elsewhere, e.g. Afghanistan.

There are several advantages of NATO membership:

•Shared defence costs — no one country has to finance a complete defence system of its own. Each one can specialise in particular aspects of defence, without having to have all aspects themselves.

•Since NATO is the most powerful group in the world, members feel secure.

•Should a member country be attacked, it is guaranteed help from the other member countries, including the USA which has the most powerful forces in the world.

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Text 17

GOVERNMENT. KINDS OF GOVERNMENT

The word ‘government’ is derived from a Greek verb that means ‘to pilot a ship’. It is a fitting derivation, since, in metaphorical terms, it is the responsibility of government to steer the ‘ship of state’. Governments have been a part of human history for thousands of years.

In his Gettysburg Address, Abraham Lincoln spoke about “government of the people, by the people, and for the people”. This collection of phrases implied that government was by the consent of those governed and that it operated for the good of all citizens. These notions have become so commonly accepted by residents of North America, Western Europe, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and a few other societies that it is difficult to realise that they are very modern ideas.

A much longer-held and traditional sentiment about government was enunciated by Henry David Thoreau in 1849: “That government is best which governs least”. He and other 19th-century Americans were well aware that for the thousands of years that preceded them government had been more the enemy of people, not their friend and benefactor.

Before the American and French revolutions in the late 18th century, most governments had ruled primarily for their own benefit. There was a definite difference between the rulers and the ruled. The rulers were divided by class and function from the ruled. Kings and nobles held the power in states, controlled the military, and collected taxes. The ruled — the masses of people — worked and paid the taxes to support the rulers.

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The ancient Greek writers Herodotus, Plato, Aristotle, and others theorised a great deal about the nature and function of government. They concluded that there were three possible types: rule by one, rule by the few, and rule by the many. Each of these had its corruptions. Rule by a virtuous king was a monarchy, but rule by an evil king was tyranny (commonly called dictatorship today). Rule by a few virtuous citizens was aristocracy (rule by the best). But if the few were evil, it was called simply an oligarchy (rule by the few). If the mass of the population governed and they were virtuous, it was called a timocracy. (The Greek timios means ‘worthy’.) But if the many were not virtuous, it was called a democracy. The Greeks generally had a very low opinion of democracy, equating it with mob rule.

Aristotle, when he discussed political order, came close to the modern concept of government by the consent of the governed. He had a fairly clear idea of constitutional government — a government of laws. The laws applied to the rulers as well as to the ruled. But because he limited the concept of citizenship to a few and not to the whole population of his city-state, he had no understanding of modern popular and representative government for the welfare of all.

The idea of constitutionalism is crucial to understanding the kinds of government. Monarchy, aristocracy, and timocracy can all be constitutional types of government. They can rest on the consent of the governed and operate for the benefit of all citizens. But tyrannies cannot be constitutional because those who govern consider themselves above the law, while the rest of the population must obey it.

USEFUL TERMS AND NOTIONS:

metaphorical — metaphor (from the Greek: μεταφορά —

metaphora, “a transfer”, in rhetoric “transference of a word to a new sense”, from μεταφέρω — metaphero, “to carry over, to

transfer”) is language that directly compares seemingly unrelated subjects. A metaphor is a rhetorical trope that describes a first subject as being or equal to a second subject in some way. Thus, the first subject can be economically described because implicit and explicit attributes from the second subject are used to enhance the description of the first. This device is known for usage in

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literature, especially in poetry, where with few words, emotions and associations from one context are associated with objects and entities in a different context.

Gettysburg Address — The Gettysburg Address is the most famous speech of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln and one of the most quoted speeches in United States history. It was delivered at the dedication of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on the afternoon of Thursday, November 19, 1863, during the American Civil War, four and a half months after the Union armies defeated those of the Confederacy at the decisive Battle of Gettysburg.

Abraham Lincoln — (February 12, 1809 — April 15, 1865), the sixteenth President of the United States, successfully led his country through its greatest crisis, the Civil War, only to be assassinated less than a month after the war’s end. Before his election as President, Lincoln was a lawyer, a member of the United States House of Representatives, and an unsuccessful candidate for election to the Senate. As an outspoken opponent of the expansion of slavery in the United States, Lincoln won the Republican Party nomination in 1860 and was elected president later that year. During his term, he helped preserve the United States by leading the defeat of the secessionist Confederate States of America in the American Civil War. He introduced measures that resulted in the abolition of slavery, issuing his Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and promoting the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution in 1865.

Henry David Thoreau — (July 12, 1817 — May 6, 1862) was an American author, naturalist, transcendentalist, tax resister, development critic, sage writer and philosopher. He is best known for his book Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay, Civil Disobedience, an argument for individual resistance to civil government in moral opposition to an unjust state. Though Civil Disobedience calls for improving rather than abolishing government — “I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government” — the direction of this improvement aims at anarchism: “ ‘That government is best which governs not at all;’ and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have.”

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