Demystifying Treaty Interpretation

Helps the reader better understand what it is that international lawyers do when interpreting a treaty.

Andrea Bianchi (Author), Fuad Zarbiyev (Author)

9781108477383, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 14 March 2024

316 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 2.2 cm, 0.61 kg

Demystifying Treaty Interpretation doesn't just tell you how treaties are commonly interpreted. It helps you understand also the process of treaty interpretation and its outcomes. The idea that rules of treaty interpretation can guide us to the meaning of treaty provisions, in a simple and straightforward manner, is a myth to be dispelled. This book aims to capture some of the complex and nuanced processes involved in treaty interpretation. It spurs further reflection about how interpretation takes place against the background of concepts, categories, and insights from other disciplines. A useful tool for scholars, practitioners and researchers engaging with treaty interpretation at all levels, the book aims to enhance the reader's knowledge and mastery of the interpretive process in all its elements, with a view to making them more skilled and effective players in the game of interpretation.

1. The province of the rules of treaty interpretation
2. The Interpreter's Self: Freedom and Constraints
3. The Genealogy of the Contemporary Regime of Treaty Interpretation
4. Textualism: Its Unfulfilled Promises and Unintended Consequences
5. Intentionalism: A Lost Cause?
6. What's the Purpose of 'Object and Purpose'?
7. Supplementary Means: A Dangerous Supplement?
8. The magic of systemic integration
9. Inferential Reasoning and Its Consequences
10. Time and Treaty Interpretation
11. Text, Author, and Interpretive Control
12. Power, Persuasion, and Authority
Index.

Subject Areas: Public international law [LBB]