International law

German uses one noun where English needs two, and this list is where the split matters most. Die Gewalt is violence in a police report, but in public law it is power in the sense of authority. Das Gewaltverbot forbids the use of force between states; die Staatsgewalt, by contrast, is the authority a state exercises over its territory and its people. When the Basic Law states Alle Staatsgewalt geht vom Volke aus — all state authority derives from the people — nobody reading it thinks of violence. Die Hoheitsgewalt works the same way, and so does die Gewaltenteilung, the separation of powers. The test is the company the word keeps: after Staats- or Hoheits-, or in the plural die Gewalten, it is authority; with anwenden, androhen or -verbot, it is force.