Language and Legal Interpretation in International Law

Language and Legal Interpretation in International Law sheds light on the complicated process of language interpretation that adjudicators (judges and arbitrators) and legal practitioners adopt when they act within international legal systems. The book also analyzes the role that language and the diversity of languages and national legal cultures plays in different international legal systems.

List of contents

• INTRODUCTION


• The Dynamics of Law and Language in the Interpretation of International Legal Sources


• Anne Lise Kjær and Joanna Lam


• PART 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 Laws


• Tomasz Stawecki


• Chapter 2: Do Legal Concepts Travel?


• Adam Dyrda and Tomasz Gizbert-Studnicki


• Chapter 3: The Semantics of Openness: Why References to Foreign Judicial Decisions Do Not Infringe the Sovereignty of National Legal Systems


• Marcin Matczak


• Chapter 4: Who Forges the Tools?: The Methods of Interpretation Between Interpretive Discourse and Positive Norms of Law


• Julian Udich


• 2. Who Does Legal Interpretation: Legal Interpretation as Judicial Activity


• Chapter 5: Balancing Interpretation Rules as an Element of Judicial Discretion


• Bartosz Wojciechowski


• Chapter 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 Perspective


• Jaroslav Vetrovský


• PART II: LANGUAGE AND TRANSLATION IN THE INTERPRETATION OF INTERNATIONAL LAW


• Chapter 7: Interpreting Multilingual Laws: Some Costs and Benefits


• Lawrence Solan


• Chapter 8: Framing Legal Interpretation in Terminology Studies


• Martina Bajcic


• Chapter 9: Multilingual Interpretation by the CJEU in the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice


• Lucie Pacho Aljanati


• Chapter 10: Translation of Judgments of the European Court of Human Rights into Non-official Languages: The Politics and Practice of European Multilingualism


• Anne Lise Kjær


• PART III: INTERPRETATION IN SPECIAL AREAS OF INTERNATIONAL LAW


• 1. Trade Law and Commercial Law


• Chapter 11: When and How can Certain Fundamental Values be Introduced into the Treaty Interpretation Process under the WTO?


• Chang-fa Lo


• Chapter 12: On Creative Aspects of Legal Interpretation in International Commercial Arbitration


• Joanna Lam


• Chapter 13: Is a Legal Implicature Only in the Eye of the Beholder? On the Interpretation of the CISG Convention


• Izabela Skoczen


• Chapter 14: A Concept in Transformation: Interpretation of "Fair and Equitable Treatment" in International Investment Law


• Günes Ünüvar


• 2. Human Rights Law and International Criminal Law


• Chapter 15: Understanding the Interpretative Evolution of the Norm Prohibiting Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment under the European Convention


• Ezgi Yildiz


• Chapter 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 Concepts


• Karolina Ristova-Aasterud


• Index

About the author

Anne Lise Kjær is an Associate Professor of Legal Linguistics (tenured) at the Centre of Excellence for International Courts (iCourts) at the Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen. Her present research focuses on the role that language plays in the development and interpretation of international law. She has investigated the European Court of Human Rights, the Court of Justice of the European Union, and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. She has also analyzed Scandinavian Supreme Courts with a view to identifying how they translate and transplant European Human Rights concepts into the languages and reasoning of their case law. She applies a combination of research methods, including, but not limited to, discourse analysis, translation studies, and corpus linguistics. She is on the steering committee of the International Language and Law Association (ILLA) and Director of the Scandinavian based international research network of Legal Linguistics,

RELINE.

Joanna Lam is Professor of International Economic Law and Director of Study Hub for International Economic Law and Development (SHIELD) at the Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen. She is also affiliated with the Centre of Excellence for International Courts (iCourts) and with Kozminski University, and serves as the Chair of the Nordic-Asian Forum for International Economic Law. Lam graduated from Harvard Law School and University of Warsaw (summa cum laude) and holds doctoral and habilitation degrees in legal studies. A former Fulbright Fellow, she completed visiting appointments at, inter alia, Harvard Law School; University of California, Berkeley; Renmin University; and UNIDROIT. Her recent research focuses on legal interpretation in international arbitration; on transformations of investor-state dispute resolution; and on the role of international economic law in the green transition.

Summary

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.

Product details

• Authors: Anne Lise (Associate Professor of Legal Lin Kjaer, Anne Lise (EDT)/ Lam Kjaer
• Assisted by: Anne Lise Kjaer (Editor), Joanna Lam (Editor)
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 31.03.2022
• EAN: 9780190855208
• ISBN: 978-0-19-085520-8
• No. of pages: 360
• Series: Oxford Studies in Language and Law; Oxford Studies in Language and
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative linguistics; Social sciences, law, business > Law > International law, foreign law; LAW / General Practice, LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Translating & Interpreting, LAW / International, International Law, Translation & interpretation, Legal skills & practice, Legal skills and practice, Translation and interpretation