Demystifying Treaty Interpretation Cambridge Studies in International and Comparative Law Series

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.

1. The province of the rules of treaty interpretation; 2. The Interpreter's Self: Freedom and Constraints; 3. The Genealogy of the Contemporary Regime of Treaty Interpretation; 4. Textualism: Its Unfulfilled Promises and Unintended Consequences; 5. Intentionalism: A Lost Cause?; 6. What's the Purpose of 'Object and Purpose'?; 7. Supplementary Means: A Dangerous Supplement?; 8. The magic of systemic integration; 9. Inferential Reasoning and Its Consequences; 10. Time and Treaty Interpretation; 11. Text, Author, and Interpretive Control; 12. Power, Persuasion, and Authority; Index.

Andrea Bianchi is Professor of International Law at the Geneva Graduate Institute. His areas of interest include interpretation, international law theories, the production of knowledge, and the invisible structures and the unsaid of international law. He is the author of International Law Theories – An Inquiry into Different Ways of Thinking (2016), and the editor/co-editor of: International Law's Invisible Frames – Social Cognition and Knowledge Production in International Legal Processes (co-edited with Moshe Hirsch, 2021); Interpretation in International Law (co-edited with Dan Peat and Matt Windsor, 2015); and Transparency in International Law (co-edited with Anne Peters; CUP, 2013).
Fuad Zarbiyev is Professor of International Law at the Geneva Graduate Institute. His areas of interest include international adjudication, the concept of authority, critical theory and sociological approaches to international law.