Details
- First ever comprehensive monograph on the rules and regime of interpretation in international law
- Combines the examination of the process of interpretation in international law as a system with the analysis of all relevant practice from the 19th century onwards to the present time
- Covers the wide range of doctrinal opinion and of areas of international law regarding the process of interpretation of international acts and rules; includes the analysis of practice of all major international courts and tribunals
- Examines the interpretation of the wide range of international acts, including treaties, unilateral acts, institutional decisions, as well as the competence to interpret
- Develops the argument that combines the doctrinal and conceptual perception of international law with how it operates in practice
There are frequent claims that the regulation of international law is uncertain, vague, ambiguous, or indeterminate, which does not support the desired stability, transparency, or predictability of international legal relations. This monograph examines the framework of interpretation in international law based on the premise of the effectiveness and determinacy of international legal regulation, which is a necessary pre-requisite for international law to be viewed as law.
This study examines this problem for the first time since these questions were introduced and identified as the basic premises of the international legal analysis, in the works of JL Brierly and Sir Hersch Lauterpacht.
Addressing different aspects of the effectiveness of legal regulation, this monograph examines the structural limits on, and threshold of, legal regulation, and the relationship between established legal regulation and non-law. Once the limits of legal regulation are ascertained, the analysis proceeds to examine the legal framework of interpretation that serves to maintain and preserve the object and aims of existing legal regulation.
The final stage of analysis is the interpretation of those treaty provisions that embody the indeterminate conditions of non-law. Given that the generalist element of international legal doctrine has been virtually silent on the problem and implications of the effectiveness and determinacy of international legal regulation, this study examines the material accumulated in doctrine and practice for the past several decades, including the relevant jurisprudence of all major international tribunals.
Readership: Academics, practitioners, and specialists in the fields of public international law, jurisprudence, public law or international relations, and legal interpretation
Introduction
Part I - The Effectiveness of International Legal Regulation
1: Doctrinal Treatment of the Effectiveness of Legal Regulation
2: Characteristics and Implications of the Effectiveness of Legal Regulation
Part II - Threshold of Legal Regulation
3: The Essence of the Threshold of Legal Regulation
4: Customary Law and Inherent Rules
Part III - Law and Non-law in the International Legal System
5: Fact as Non-Law and the Limits on its Relevance
6: Interest as Non-Law
7: Values as Non-law
8: Quasi-Normative Non-Law
Part IV - The Regime and Methods of Interpretation in International Law
9: Conceptual Aspects of Interpretation
10: Treaty Interpretation: Rules and Methods
11: Treaty Interpretation: Effectiveness and Presumptions
12: Interpretation of Jurisdictional Instruments
13: Interpretation of Unilateral Acts and Statements
14: Interpretation of Institutional Decisions
15: Interpretation of Customary Rules
16: The Agencies of Interpretation
Part V - Treaty Interpretation and Indeterminate Provisions of Non-Law
17: The Essence of and Response to the Indeterminacy of Treaty Provisions
18: Equity and Equitable Considerations in Treaties
Conclusion
Alexander Orakhelashvili, Shaw Foundation Junior Research Fellow, Jesus College, Oxford
"Dr Orakhelashvili aims to provide the ultimate antidote to claims that interpretive indeterminacy renders many international legal texts marginal in the quest to determine the applicable law. This encyclopedic study of the rules, principles and other elements of interpretation constitutes an invaluable and unique guide and reference work for all those working with international law at any level. It is all the more important as a result of the recent proliferation of international actors engaging in acts of interpretation and of the fact that no comparably exhaustive study of this type has been undertaken for decades." - Philip Alston, John Norton Pomeroy Professor of International Law, New York University School of Law
"This thoughtful monograph takes head on some of the most important issues facing international law today. Dr Orakhelashvili rigorously tackles questions of general concern to practitioners and scholars of international law alike in the areas of interpretation and application of international law, raising jurisprudential questions of importance to the continued development of the discipline." - Judge Bruno Simma, International Court of Justice, The Hague
"...the book is solidly written...highly recommended for mainstream scholars, critical scholars and practitioners alike, for all three groups need reliable information on what is commonly accepted-what the orthodox view is on interpretation." - Jorg Kammerhofer, University of Erlangen, EJIL 20
