Jurisdictional Ambiguity

A state in which legal or administrative authority boundaries are unclear between institutions, levels of government, or organizational units so that responsibility, decision rights, and enforceable duties for a given function are indeterminate or contestable.

A state of uncertainty about which legal or administrative authority has competence, responsibility, or lawful power to act in a given place, over a given subject matter, or with respect to a particular population; operationally it denotes gaps or overlaps in assigned authority that can produce conflicting directives, enforcement gaps, or inaction.