OUVRAGE : A. Bianchi, F. Zarbiyev, Demystifying Treaty Interpretation

Andrea BIANCHI, Fuad ZARBIYEV

Demystifying Treaty Interpretation doesn't just tell you how treaties are commonly interpreted. It helps you understand also the process of treaty interpretation and its outcomes. The idea that rules of treaty interpretation can guide us to the meaning of treaty provisions, in a simple and straightforward manner, is a myth to be dispelled. This book aims to capture some of the complex and nuanced processes involved in treaty interpretation. It spurs further reflection about how interpretation takes place against the background of concepts, categories, and insights from other disciplines. A useful tool for scholars, practitioners and researchers engaging with treaty interpretation at all levels, the book aims to enhance the reader's knowledge and mastery of the interpretive process in all its elements, with a view to making them more skilled and effective players in the game of interpretation.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Figures
Preface
List of Abbreviations 

­1. The Province of the Rules of Treaty Interpretation ­

1.1. The Bias
1.2. Conventional Wisdom
1.3. The Eiffel Tower
1.4. The Game of Chess and the Illusion of Rules
1.5. Meaning and Rule Following
1.6. Mindsets and Assumptions
1.7. Humpty Dumpty’s ‘Master’

2. The Interpreter’s Self: Freedom and Constraints

2.1. Disciplining Treaty Interpretation
2.2. The Source of Interpretive Constraints: Interpretation as a Community Enterprise
2.3. Interpretive Community or Interpretive Communities ?
2.4. Determinacy versus Indeterminacy
2.5. The Power of Virtues

3. The Genealogy of the Contemporary Regime of Treaty Interpretation

3.1. Official Histories and the Myth of Origin
3.2. Genealogy
3.3. Twists and Quirks
3.4. Further Vagaries
3.5. The Road to Vienna
3.6. Victory in Context
3.7. Vae Victis!

4. Textualism: Its Unfulfilled Promises and Unintended Consequences

4.1. What We Talk about When We Talk about Textualism
4.2. Text as a Constraint on Treaty Interpretation
4.3. Why Humphrey Waldock Was at the Vienna Conference or Why Textualism Can Be Preached but Never Practised
4.4. Textuality and Intertextuality
4.5. Unintended Consequences of Textualism

5. Intentionalism: A Lost Cause ? ­

5.1. A Story of Ambivalence
5.2. The Place of Intentionalism under the VCLT
5.3. What Is Meant by Intentionalism ?
5.4 Why Intentionalism Cannot Be Repressed

6. What’s the Purpose of ‘Object and Purpose’ ?

6.1. Night Shifts and Women’s Rights
6.2. The Unexpected Consequences of Judge-Made Law
6.3. Dyad, Hendiadys, or Neither ?
6.4. Treasure Hunt
6.5. The Crucible and When Alone Is Better
6.6. Bear in Mind the Bear

7. Supplementary Means: A Dangerous Supplement ? ­

7.1. The Ranking Issue
7.2. Supplement : Dispensable Surplus or Necessary Gap Filler?
7.3. How to Identify Supplementary Means
7.4. Is There Anything Outside the Text?
7.5. What Supplementary Means Reveal about the Rules of Treaty Interpretation

8 .The Magic of Systemic Integration ­

8.1. The Unity Archetype
8.2. Fragmentation and ‘Post-modern Anxieties’
8.3. Contrivance
8.4. The Master Key
8.5. Metamorphosis
8.6. Wizardries
8.7. Inside/Outside

9. Inferential Reasoning and Its Consequences ­

9.1. Assertions and Their Inferentially Articulated Content
9.2. The Right of Access to Courts and the Doctrine of Positive Obligations
9.3. How to Recognize Implied Powers to International Organizations
9.4. Legal Effects of the Resolutions of the UN General Assembly
9.5. The Art of Inference

­10. Time and Treaty Interpretation ­

10.1. The Antidote against Time
10.2. Evolution versus Creation Theories
10.3. The VCLT on Time
10.4. The Problem with Parties
10.5. The Notorious Article
10.6. The ILC’s Subsequent Practice
10.7. Intractable Problems and Useless Distinctions

11. Text, Author, and Interpretive Control

11.1. Are Treaty Texts Orphans ?
11.2. Various Forms of Interpretive Control by the Treaty Parties
11.3. To What Extent Are States Still the Masters of Their Treaties ?
11.4. Shared Interpretive Authority ?

­12. Power, Persuasion, and Authority

12.1. The Game and Its Object
12.2. The Players and Their Relative Power
12.3. The Authority of the Skeptron
12.4. Strategies of Persuasion
12.5. Rhetoric and Its Discontents
12.6. The ‘Cash Value’ of Rules
12.7. The ‘Feel’ for the Game

Annex: Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties 1969 (Articles 31-33)
Index

Andrea BIANCHI, Fuad ZARBIYEV, Demystifying Treaty Interpretation, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2024 (316 pp.)