Interpreting Law

In this groundbreaking book, Scalia and Garner systematically explain all the most important principles of constitutional, statutory, and contractual interpretation in an engaging and informative style with hundreds of illustrations from actual cases. Is a burrito a sandwich? Is a corporation entitled to personal privacy? If you trade a gun for drugs, are you using a gun in a drug transaction? The authors grapple with these and dozens of equally curious questions while explaining the most principled, lucid, and reliable techniques for deriving meaning from authoritative texts. Meanwhile, the book takes up some of the most controversial issues in modern jurisprudence. What, exactly, is textualism? Why is strict construction a bad thing? What is the true doctrine of originalism? And which is more important: the spirit of the law, or the letter? The authors write with a well-argued point of view that is definitive yet nuanced, straightforward yet sophisticated.

""Interpreting Law" is an accessible introduction to statutory and constitutional interpretation by the nation's leading legislation scholar. This concise treatise not only identifies the primary "canons" or precepts that guide interpretation, but demonstrates how they operate and interact, as a matter of both practice and evolving aspiration. Unlike earlier academic treatises, which rummage through a potpourri of often arcane Supreme Court decisions, Professor Eskridge's new book focuses on a statute prohibiting "vehicles" in Lafayette Park, across the street from the White House. Each chapter engages the law student and the experienced practitioner to consider the application of the statute and its statutory and institutional context to a wide and often delightful array of situations. As the preface by Justice John Paul Stevens suggests, the reader will emerge from this book with a deeply enriched understanding of-and excitement about-legal interpretation."

"Canadian lawyers, legal academics and particularly judges face a constant challenge when interpreting bilingual federal or, in some cases, provincial legislation. While statutes are drafted in a manner that aspires to have both versions mirror one another, in practice, dual versions are often open for different interpretations, a situation that can prove extremely problematic."--pub. desc.

From the Preface: "Contemporary theory has usefully analyzed how alternative modes of interpretation produce different meanings, how reading itself is constituted by the variable perspectives of readers, and how these perspectives are in turn defined by prejudices, ideologies, interests, and so forth. Some theorists gave argued persuasively that textual meaning, in literature and in literary interpretation, is structured by repression and forgetting, by what the literary or critical text does not say as much as by what it does. All these claims are directly relevant to legal hermeneutics, and thus it is no surprise that legal theorists have recently been turning to literary theory for potential insight into the interpretation of law. This collection of essays is designed to represent the especially rich interactive that has taken place between legal and literary hermeneutics during the past ten years."

Language shapes and reflects how we think about the world. It engages and intrigues us. Our everyday use of language is quite effortless—we are all experts on our native tongues. Despite this, issues of language and meaning have long flummoxed the judges on whom we depend for the interpretation of our most fundamental legal texts. Should a judge feel confident in defining common words in the texts without the aid of a linguist? How is the meaning communicated by the text determined? Should the communicative meaning of texts be decisive, or at least influential? To fully engage and probe these questions of interpretation, this volume draws upon a variety of experts from several fields, who collectively examine the interpretation of legal texts. In The Nature of Legal Interpretation, the contributors argue that the meaning of language is crucial to the interpretation of legal texts, such as statutes, constitutions, and contracts. Accordingly, expert analysis of language from linguists, philosophers, and legal scholars should influence how courts interpret legal texts. Offering insightful new interdisciplinary perspectives on originalism and legal interpretation, these essays put forth a significant and provocative discussion of how best to characterize the nature of language in legal texts.

The importance of quality interpreting in legal and healthcare settings can never be stressed enough, when any mistake – no matter how small – can compromise the delivery of justice or put someone’s health at risk. This book addresses issues arising from interpreting in legal and healthcare settings by presenting cutting-edge research findings in interpreting and interpreter education in a number of countries around the world – including those which are relatively new to the field. It contains selected papers from a conference dedicated to such themes – the First International Conference on Legal and Healthcare Interpreting – as well as other invited papers related to the fields of legal and healthcare interpreting. This book is useful not only to scholars and educators, interpreters and translators working in legal or healthcare settings, but also to legal and healthcare professionals who work with interpreters in their day-to-day work, including judges, lawyers, police officers, doctors, midwives and nurses.

Provides an in-depth study of the theory, history, practice, and interpretation of customary international law.