Increasingly, French diplomacy is following the examples of others in employing the expression ‘strategic partnership’. However there appears to be virtually no legally binding or even practical definition of this term. Harold Hyman draws together what little exists. He retraces the history of the expression, and examines and compares some currently active strategic partnerships. What emerges from this is a preliminary definition that reflects the ‘communication’ abuses of diplomatic language.
Strategic partnerships: a public relations construct, or a legal reality?
Introduction
‘Strategic partnership’ is an expression that over the last ten years has been increasingly employed by most Western governments. The French government announces at least one a year. In the last week of September 2005, France reaffirmed the existence of a strategic partnership with Morocco, and on 15 August did the same for India. But the term ‘strategic partnership’ has no legal status. We have unearthed a few partial (unofficial) definitions from French, NATO, US and Brussels sources (the latter from the office of Javier Solana); but there is no point trying to find an official meaning, except in NATO, the only organisation that appears to have given the matter practical consideration.
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