The Language of International Rule of Law Work
Throughout my first year of law school, I learned how to start breaking down the “legalese” we encounter in case law or in class. As I progress through my internship at the National Center for State Courts, I continue to be exposed to an entirely new set of terminology unique to international rule of law work and to federal awards and contracts. For example, this week, I have spent a lot of time working on a subcontractor and subrecipient compliance project. Therefore, I’ve had to familiarize myself with the language the federal government uses to describe grants, contracts, and related compliance procedures. The National Center for State Courts often engages other organizations/ companies as subcontractors or subawardees to support our implementation of federally funded projects. I have been tasked with reviewing the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act (FFATA) and ensuring that we have policies/procedures in place to obtain the proper documentation from our subcontractors and subawardees in compliance with the Act. Following my research, I will draft a new FFATA compliance reporting policy and edit existing forms used to obtain information from subcontractors and subawardees related to FFATA compliance. Throughout the research process, I have encountered a great deal of terminology I was completely unfamiliar with. For example, I learned that FFATA compliance requires that first-tier subawards be reported to a website called the FSRS (the Federal Subaward Reporting System). There are many pieces of data that must be submitted to the FSRS, with one of those being the subawardee’s UEI (unique entity ID) which is generated by SAM.gov ( the System for Award Management). I have encountered so many new terms and acronyms that I created a short glossary to refer to as I work through the project!
While it is important that I use the proper terminology when working on our compliance reporting policies and procedures, it’s also important to “speak the right language” when working on funding applications. For example, I was given reading materials related to USAID’s launch of their new rule of law policy this week. The policy embraces “people-centered justice”- an approach that places the person affected by the law at the core of the policies, processes, and practices that constitute justice systems and services. This approach focuses heavily on collecting and utilizing data to respond to un-met justice meets and to improve upon existing rule of law projects. After reading the policy, my internship supervisor stressed the importance of beginning to speak in the language of “people-centered justice” because USAID is both a major source of funding for international rule of law projects and an important player in setting rule of law policy for all organizations that work within the field. While the NCSC has been effectively employing a people-centered justice approach in many of our projects, he still stressed the importance of “speaking the language of the donor.”
This week I have also been working on an exploitation and abuse policy that will be attached as an appendix to a funding opportunity released by the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs within the Department of State, and I have been careful to keep that advice in mind. I had a template to work off of, as the NCSC had existing examples of similar policies, but I was also careful to review guidance and learning materials released by the Department of State related to the topic so that I could be sure the terminology I used correlated. While I certainly still have a lot to learn when it comes to speaking the language of international rule of law work, I can confidently say that I am starting to get a grasp on common terminology used in the field! Perhaps by the end of the summer I could even claim partial fluency in the language of international rule of law work!