In international relations

International relations

International relations is the study of relationships between countries, including the roles of states, inter-governmental organizations , international nongovernmental organizations , non-governmental organizations and multinational corporations...

, an aide-mémoire is a proposed agreement or negotiating text circulated informally among delegations for discussion without committing the originating delegation's country to the contents. It has no identified source, title, or attribution and no standing in the relationship involved. Such a text is also referred to as a non-paper in many international organizations, including the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade

General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade

The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade was negotiated during the UN Conference on Trade and Employment and was the outcome of the failure of negotiating governments to create the International Trade Organization . GATT was signed in 1947 and lasted until 1993, when it was replaced by the World...

/World Trade Organization

World Trade Organization

The World Trade Organization is an organization that intends to supervise and liberalize international trade. The organization officially commenced on January 1, 1995 under the Marrakech Agreement, replacing the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade , which commenced in 1948...

  and sometimes within the European Union

European Union

The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...

.

The term also has a more general meaning, as an English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 noun

Noun

In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition .Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of...

with French influence, meaning "a memory-aid; a reminder or memorandum, especially a book or document serving this purpose."