dead letter

noun

a law, ordinance, etc., that has lost its force but has not been formally repealed or abolished.
a letter that cannot reach the addressee or be returned to the sender, usually because of incorrect address, and that is sent to and handled in a special division or department dead-letteroffice of a general post office.

dead letter

a letter that cannot be delivered or returned because it lacks adequate directions
a law or ordinance that is no longer enforced but has not been formally repealed
informal.
anything considered no longer worthy of consideration

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First recorded in 1570–80

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As in the Balkans 20 years ago, the effort to preserve “recognized international borders” is already a dead letter.

There are many signs that God is a dead letter (if not actually dead), and one sign that he has a future.

A generation after the hametz law was legislated as a dead letter it was resurrected in 2007.

Sherman has always acknowledged the contact, so maybe the whole issue of precedence is a dead letter.

Senate liberals are rallying around the dead letter of the health-care reform bill.

This expectation of high dividends, I need hardly say, has not been realised, and the Act in this respect has been a dead letter.

In short, insurgency ceased to be a valid plea; if it existed in fact, officially it had become a dead letter.

Is it not a truth that even when we know what is required of us to be good, that self-knowledge is a dead letter to us?

The Articles of Confederation, as to purposes of revenue and finance, were nearly a dead letter.

A portion of the shore had been set apart for this "playing with fire," but within a year even this had become a dead letter.

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