Interpretation in International Law

Interpretation in International Law is explicitly different from much of the existing literature, and because of its perspective the book manages to add something new to that literature ... Its game analogy is an interesting and creative perspective on interpretation in international law ... [T]he different chapters show it can be employed to extract interesting results from practices that have hitherto primarily been analysed from positivist perspectives.

Autorentext

Andrea Bianchi is Professor of International Law and Head of the International Law Department at The Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva. Previously, he was a Professor at the Catholic University, Milan, Associate Professor at the University of Parma and Professorial Lecturer in International Law at the Bologna Centre of Johns Hopkins University. He has researched and published extensively on various aspects of public international law, with a particular emphasis on theoretical and methodological issues.

Daniel Peat is a PhD candidate in Law at the University of Cambridge. He is a member of Gonville & Caius College, and a recipient of the WM Tapp Studentship in Law. He is a graduate of The Graduate Institute, Geneva and the London School of Economics, and has been a visiting researcher/scholar at Harvard Law School, the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, and Sciences Po, Paris. He has taught in the Faculty of Law and Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge.

Matthew Windsor is a PhD candidate in Law at the University of Cambridge. He is a member of Gonville & Caius College, and a recipient of the WM Tapp Studentship in Law. He is a graduate of Columbia Law School and the University of Auckland. He has taught in the Faculty of Law and Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge. He has previously worked as a litigation associate at the Open Society Justice Initiative in New York City and as a judge's clerk at the Court of Appeal of New Zealand.

Klappentext

Interpretation in International Law is an innovative volume that foregrounds interpretation as central to the generation of legal meaning in international law. The book encourages international lawyers to reflect creatively on how they interpret international law, and to stimulate further research on interpretation in an innovative vein.

Zusammenfassung
International lawyers have long recognised the importance of interpretation to their academic discipline and professional practice. As new insights on interpretation abound in other fields, international law and international lawyers have largely remained wedded to a rule-based approach, focusing almost exclusively on the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. Such an approach neglects interpretation as a distinct and broader field of theoretical inquiry. Interpretation in International Law brings international legal scholars together to engage in sustained reflection on the theme of interpretation. The book is creatively structured around the metaphor of the game, which captures and illuminates the constituent elements of an act of interpretation. The object of the game of interpretation is to persuade the audience that one's interpretation of the law is correct. The rules of play are known and complied with by the players, even though much is left to their skills and strategies. There is also a meta-discourse about the game of interpretation - 'playing the game of game-playing' - which involves consideration of the nature of the game, its underlying stakes, and who gets to decide by what rules one should play. Through a series of diverse contributions, Interpretation in International Law reveals interpretation as an inescapable feature of all areas of international law. It will be of interest and utility to all international lawyers whose work touches upon theoretical or practical aspects of interpretation.

Inhalt

• Preface by James Crawford Introduction

• 1: Daniel Peat and Matthew Windsor: Playing the Game of Interpretation: On Meaning and Metaphor in International Law

• 2: Andrea Bianchi: The Game of Interpretation in International Law: The Players, The Cards, and why the Game is Worth the Candle

• The Object

• 3: Iain Scobbie: Rhetoric, Persuasion, and the Object of Interpretation in International Law

• 4: Duncan B Hollis: The Existential Function of Interpretation in International Law

• 5: Jean d'Aspremont: The Multidimensional Process of Interpretation: Content-Determination and Law-Ascertainment Distinguished

• The Players

• 6: Andraz Zidar: Interpretation and the International Legal Profession: Between Duty and Aspiration

• 7: Michael Waibel: Interpretive Communities in International Law

• 8: Gleider Hernández: Interpretative Authority and the International Judiciary

• The Rules

• 9: Eirik Bjorge: The Vienna Rules, Evolutionary Interpretation, and the Intentions of the Parties

• 10: Julian Arato: Accounting for Difference in Treaty Interpreation Over Time

• 11: Anne-Marie Carstens: Interpreting Transplanted Treaty Rules

• The Strategies

• 12: Fuad Zarbiyev: A Genealogy of Textualism in Treaty Interpretation

• 13: Harlan Grant Cohen: Theorizing Precedent in International Law

• 14: René Provost: Interpretation in International Law as a Transcultural Project

• Playing the Game of Game-Playing

• 15: Jens Olesen: Towards a Politics of Hermeneutics

• 16: Martin Wählisch: Cognitive Frames of Interpretation in International Law

• 17: Ingo Venzke: Is Interpretation in International Law a Game?

• Conclusion

• 18: Philip Allott: Interpretation- an Exact Art