Demystifying Treaty Interpretation doesn’t just tell you how treaties are commonly interpreted. It helps you understand 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.

The rules of treaty interpretation of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties have a special status in international law, dominating the vocabularies and minds of international lawyers. They are ubiquitous – they are always visible, regardless of where one stands in the international legal arena, and they also provide for a sense of community amongst scholars and practitioners, who are constantly reassured by their presence. This chapter argues that it is illusory to believe that the function of the rules of treaty interpretation is to directly bridge the gap between the signifier (treaty provision to be interpreted) and the signified (the meaning of the treaty provision). In fact, ‘rules’ are not determinative of meaning. They only aim to impose a ‘common discipline’ with respect to the admissible ‘sources of interpretive data’ that can be used in treaty interpretation. Furthermore, as there is no unmediated access to any signifier, the rules of interpretation are themselves subject to interpretation. The chapter concludes by shifting the attention from the rules of treaty interpretation to the notion of interpretive authority as a useful complement to understanding the process of treaty interpretation.

This chapter looks at interpretation as a game aimed at persuading an audience and securing its adherence to a given interpretation. Like the other chapters, it analyses certain elements that cannot be traced back to or explained by the rules of interpretation of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. Its focus is on the broader concepts of persuasion, audience, and interpretive acceptability. It argues that the acceptability (or unacceptability) of a certain interpretation is not inherent in the interpretation itself, but rather hinges on the social environment where the interpretation is articulated or received. This is why the success of a certain interpretation can be measured, to a large extent, by its ability to persuade the relevant audience. The latter, in turn, is dependent on the interpretive authority wielded by the actors involved in the process and on the latent power structures underlying the interpretative game. Interpretation constitutes a fight to speak authoritatively in and for the discipline, a process in which not all voices carry the same weight, and where different interpretive strategies can be framed as tools to control the discursive politics of interpretation in international law.