Description
International law is usually communicated in more than one language and reflects common norms that lawyers and adjudicators across national legal cultures agree on and develop together. As a result, the negotiation of the wording and meaning of international legislative texts is an integral part of legal interpretation in international law. This book sheds light on that essential interpretation process.Language and Legal Interpretation in International Law treats the subject from the perspective of recent legal and linguistic theories of meaning. Anne Lise Kjær and Joanna Lam bring together internationally renowned experts to provide strong theoretical and practical foundations for the study of legal interpretation in such fields as human rights law, international trade, investment and commercial law, EU law, and international criminal law. The volume explains how the positivist tradition--in which interpretation is understood as an automatic process by which judges simply apply the text of legislative instruments to specific fact situations--cannot be upheld in an era of pragmatic and cognitive meaning theories. Those theories instead focus on the context of interpretation and on the interpreter as a co-producer of meaning. Through a collection of thoroughly researched and timely essays, this book explores the linguistically and culturally diversified world of meaning-making in international law.
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION The Dynamics of Law and Language in the Interpretation of International Legal SourcesAnne Lise Kjær and Joanna LamPART I: THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES 1. What is Legal interpretation: International Legal Interpretation between Law and Legal Discourse Chapter 1: Legal interpretation as an Alternative to Disputes over Validity of LawsTomasz StaweckiChapter 2: Do Legal Concepts Travel?Adam Dyrda and Tomasz Gizbert-StudnickiChapter 3: The Semantics of Openness: Why References to Foreign Judicial Decisions Do Not Infringe the Sovereignty of National Legal SystemsMarcin MatczakChapter 4: Who Forges the Tools?: The Methods of Interpretation Between Interpretive Discourse and Positive Norms of LawJulian Udich2. Who Does Legal Interpretation: Legal Interpretation as Judicial ActivityChapter 5: Balancing Interpretation Rules as an Element of Judicial DiscretionBartosz WojciechowskiChapter 6: Explaining the Interpretation of International Treaties and the Role of Articles 31 and 32 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties: a Wittgensteinian PerspectiveJaroslav VetrovskýPART II: LANGUAGE AND TRANSLATION IN THE INTERPRETATION OF INTERNATIONAL LAWChapter 7: Interpreting Multilingual Laws: Some Costs and BenefitsLawrence SolanChapter 8: Framing Legal Interpretation in Terminology StudiesMartina BajcicChapter 9: Multilingual Interpretation by the CJEU in the Area of Freedom, Security and JusticeLucie Pacho AljanatiChapter 10: Translation of Judgments of the European Court of Human Rights into Non-official Languages: The Politics and Practice of European MultilingualismAnne Lise KjærPART III: INTERPRETATION IN SPECIAL AREAS OF INTERNATIONAL LAW1. Trade Law and Commercial LawChapter 11: When and How can Certain Fundamental Values be Introduced into the Treaty Interpretation Process under the WTO?Chang-fa LoChapter 12: On Creative Aspects of Legal Interpretation in International Commercial ArbitrationJoanna LamChapter 13: Is a Legal Implicature Only in the Eye of the Beholder? On the Interpretation of the CISG ConventionIzabela SkoczenChapter 14: A Concept in Transformation: Interpretation of "Fair and Equitable Treatment" in International Investment LawGünes Ünüvar2. Human Rights Law and International Criminal LawChapter 15: Understanding the Interpretative Evolution of the Norm Prohibiting Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment under the European ConventionEzgi YildizChapter 16: Crimes Against Women in the Statutes and the Judicial Interpretation of International Tribunals and Courts - How a Feminist Critical Standpoint has Reconstructed the Meaning of Certain International Humanitarian Law's ConceptsKarolina Ristova-AasterudIndex
