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• s  producing no result or effect
  an unavailing attempt

• Haig has denied it, and here he presents his own version of his unavailing efforts to restrain Israel.
• The treatments were unavailing, His Royal Highness continued to splutter.
• And he offers in Ulysses a median figure, a brilliant yet unavailing man of the world.

• futile
• ineffectual
• otiose

Quotes

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• Henry Clay in Huffington Post (blog)
  As Henry Clay, one of John F. Kennedy's Profiles in Courage, said in 1832: "Free Trade! Free Trade! The call for free trade, is as unavailing as the cry of a spoiled child, .......... It never existed; it never will exist.........."
• John Roberts in Wall Street Journal
  On behalf of the court, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote: "All the theories plaintiffs have offered to support their standing to challenge the franchise tax credit are unavailing. Because the plaintiffs have no standing to challenge that credit, the...
• Vince Cannistraro in guardian.co.uk
  Vincent Cannistraro, who headed the CIA's counterterrorist centre in the early 90s, told me, "My view is that Laurie has an obsession with trying to link Saddam to global terrorism. Years of strenuous effort to prove the case have been unavailing."