The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics (282 page)

Literally, ‘beyond powers’.
Ultra vires
has two meanings: (1) substantive
ultra vires
where a decision has been reached outside the powers conferred on the decision taker; and (2) procedural
ultra vires
where the prescribed procedures have not been properly complied with. The doctrine of
ultra vires
gives courts considerable powers of oversight over decision-making. The range and variety of bodies amenable to the doctrine is large. Ministers, or any public body with statutory powers, may be included. The doctrine also applies to companies and corporations that are amenable to the remedies of declaration or injunction.
A local authority that enters an agreement or contract that is outside its statutory powers is said to be acting
ultra vires
. In
Hazel v. Hammersmith
[1991] 1 All ER 545, the House of Lords held that various speculative investments undertaken by local authorities lacked express statutory authorization and were void with severe consequences for those who had invested in local authority activities declared illegal by the courts.
The grounds for claiming
ultra vires
range from abuse of power, acting unreasonably (
Padfield v. Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food
[1968] AC 997), or acting not in accordance with the rules of natural justice.
Ultra vires
is a formidable doctrine for the courts to intervene and challenge the legality of decisions.
Ultra vires
may result in significant consequences for the body exercising legal powers. In many cases the decision that is
ultra vires
may be said, in law, never to have taken place, with often severe consequences from such a finding on the parties to any agreement.
JM 

 
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United Nations
.

 
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risk
.

 
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governability
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Legislatures made up of one chamber are the exception rather than the rule, most national assemblies adopting a
bicameral
form. The countries which have unicameral systems tend to be smaller countries (e.g. Finland, Greece, and Norway), or smaller states in federal systems: Nebraska has the only unicameral state legislature in the United States. There are cases of countries which have moved from a bicameral to a unicameral legislature (e.g. New Zealand, Sweden). These are both smaller unitary states, and it would be difficult to reconcile a federal system with unicameralism as a second chamber is generally seen as necessary to protect the position of the constituent units of the federation against the central government.
Second chambers
are also seen as offering a protection against arbitrary decisions by a lower chamber dominated by one party, but this objective can be achieved by other means such as charters of rights enforced through the courts.
WG 

 
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Literally ‘one-sidedness’, although unilateralists protested vigorously in the 1980s when opponents so translated it. A British movement in opposition to domestic involvement with nuclear weapons. All unilateralists have opposed British nuclear weapons, arguing
inter alia
that they are unnecessary for national security, positively destablizing to international security, a bar on progress in disarmament, or immoral. Most, though not all, unilateralists have also opposed the deployment of American nuclear weapons on British territory as part of Britain's NATO commitments, and some have interpreted their opposition to nuclear weapons to extend to withdrawal from NATO on the grounds that NATO relies on nuclear weapons, whether or not those weapons are deployed on British territory.
The most important unilateralist organization has been the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (
CND
), founded in 1958 at a time when relations between the superpowers were bad and the Macmillan government in Britain was pursuing an active policy of testing and deploying nuclear weapons.
In the 1980s European Nuclear Disarmament (END) emerged as an offshoot of CND to campaign with other European peace groups against the NATO double-track policy of deploying a new generation of American nuclear missiles in Europe. In the 1980s CND/END placed some reliance on mass political activity to force the government to abandon Britain's involvement with nuclear weapons—concentrating in particular on the new American missiles which were opposed by a majority of public opinion. However, for most of its history, unilateralism's main political strategy has been to ‘capture’ the Labour Party; CND has always had a large portion of its membership in the left wing of the Labour Party. In 1960 the unilateralists defeated the parliamentary leadership of Hugh Gaitskell at the party conference but the vote was reversed in 1961 and, though Gaitskell's successor Harold Wilson had appeared sympathetic to unilateralism, the Labour governments between 1964 and 1970 pursued a traditional pro-nuclear defence policy. The Labour manifestos of 1974 again appeared sympathetic to unilateralism, but the Wilson and Callaghan governments between 1974 and 1979 were in practice strongly pro-nuclear.
After the successful resolution of the
Cuban Missile Crisis
and the 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty, support for CND fell away and the organization tended to become an anti-American activist group. CND grew again in the late 1970s in response to the failures of
détente
and the increasingly robust reaction of NATO to perceived Soviet expansionism and rearmament. This policy, which led to missile deployments in 1983, led also to massive anti-nuclear demonstrations throughout Europe, including Britain. In the 1980s the Labour Party endorsed a strongly unilateralist defence policy and fought the 1983 and 1987 elections on this basis. Despite the unpopularity of the new American missiles, unilateralism proved to be an enormous electoral liability. Following the 1987 election Neil Kinnock , himself a prominent former unilateralist, moved Labour towards support for NATO's defence policy and British nuclear weapons.
In December 1987 the two superpowers had agreed to remove all but the shortest-range nuclear missiles from Europe. Cooperation led to the end of the Cold War and to extensive disarmament agreements. As in 1962–3, improved international relations undermined support for unilateralism and reduced public interest in defence matters. Having learned the lessons of 1983 and 1987, and as part of the ‘new realism’ by which it hoped to recapture power, the Labour Party manifesto for the 1992 general election was uncompromisingly pro-nuclear in terms of both support for British nuclear weapons (the Trident programme) and also for NATO.
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