The Political Interpretation Of Multilateral Treaties

States have engaged in an intensive process of multilateral treaty making since World War Two despite the fact that few multilateral treaties have fully solved the problems they were designed to address. This inter-disciplinary study of multilateral treaties offers a balanced assessment of the function of multilateral treaties in world politics that draws out the political, as distinct from the legal, meaning of a treaty text. The treaty establishing a regime is regarded as an agreement to set some negotiated limits on pursuit of a common foreign policy goal so that full-blown pursuit of that goal will not bring the States into conflict nor jeopardize any State's pursuit of that goal. States are then able to continue pursuing that goal with, if anything, renewed vigour, albeit within the agreed limits. Theorising the relationship between a treaty text and its political context establishes a basis on which to critically reconceptualize regime effectiveness and on which to develop 'treaty strategy' for use by political actors, including international lawyers.

States have engaged in an intensive process of multilateral treaty making since World War Two despite the fact that few multilateral treaties have fully solved the problems they were designed to address. This inter-disciplinary study of multilateral treaties offers a balanced assessment of the function of multilateral treaties in world politics that draws out the political, as distinct from the legal, meaning of a treaty text. The treaty establishing a regime is regarded as an agreement to set some negotiated limits on pursuit of a common foreign policy goal so that full-blown pursuit of that goal will not bring the States into conflict nor jeopardize any State's pursuit of that goal. States are then able to continue pursuing that goal with, if anything, renewed vigour, albeit within the agreed limits. Theorising that relationship between a treaty text and its political context establishes a basis on which to critically reconceptualize regime effectiveness and on which to develop 'treaty strategy' for use by political actors, including international lawyers.

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.

This book is a rarity in that it opens a genuinely creative new vista for understanding global politics as distinguished from international politics, enhancing the vision for understanding global subjects such as multilateral treaties and the Covid-19 virus. Six hundred multilateral treaties deposited in the UN are conceptualized as a bundle of quasi-social contracts by sovereign states. A state’s participation in multilateral treaties is envisaged as digitized statecraft. Using a state’s physical actions and treaties’ attributes, 193 profiles of statecraft are analyzed with the implications for the future of global politics. This book demonstrates that multilateral treaties are both a vehicle and an agency in the globalization trend; thus, both state and international actors influence a state’s joining multilateral treaties. The book represents a marriage of international law and applied information science. It provides a framework for empirical modeling based on artificial intelligence and analyzes this framework in terms of international law and international relations. This book thus creates a new understanding of global politics.

Revised and updated, this handbook by the Treaty Section of the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs is intended as a contribution to UN efforts to assist States in becoming parties to the international treaty framework. It is written in simple language and, with the aid of diagrams and step-by-step instructions, touches upon many aspects of treaty law and practice. This handbook is designed for use by States, international organizations and other relevant entities. In particular, it is intended to provide some degree of assistance to States that may have scarce resources and limited technical proficiency in treaty law and practice to participate fully in the multilateral treaty framework.

The Interpretation of International Law by Domestic Courts assesses the growing role of domestic courts in the interpretation of international law. It asks whether and if so to what extent domestic courts make use of the international rules of interpretation set forth in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. Given the expectation that rules of international law are to have a uniform interpretation and application throughout the world, the practice of domestic courts is considerably more diverse. The contributions to this book analyse three key questions: first, whether international law requires a coherent interpretive approach by domestic courts. Second, whether a common or convergent methodological outlook can be found in domestic court practice. Third, whether a common interpretive approach is desirable from a normative perspective. The book identfies a considerable tension between international law's ambition for universal and uniform application and a plurality of different approaches. This tension between unity and diversity is analysed by a group of leading international lawyers from a wide range of geographical, disciplinary and methodological approaches. Drawing on domestic practice of number of jurisdictions including, among others, Colombia, France, Japan, India, Israel, Mexico, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States, the book puts the interpretative practice of domestic courts in a wider context. Its chapters offer doctrinal, practical as well as theoretical perspectives on a central question for international law.

This book focuses on the impact of social change on the rules relating to the forms and procedures of treaty-making, but inevitably also comes to focus on the content of the norms themselves, where, as in human rights and the environment, they have had an impact on the form and procedure of the treaty. It is of great value to all practitioners, academics, and policy-makers involved with, or interested in, the treaty-making process.

This is the first comprehensive account of the modern international law of treaty interpretation expressed in 1969 Vienna Convention, Articles 31-33. As stated by the anonymous referee, it is the most theoretically advanced and analytically refined work yet accomplished on this topic. The style of writing is clear and concise, and the organisation of the book meets the demands of scholars and practitioners alike.