How Interpretation Makes International Law On Semantic Change and Normative Twists

by Venzke, Ingo

• ISBN13: 9780199657674
• ISBN10: 019965767X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-11-08
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Challenging the classic narrative that sovereign states make the law that constrains them, this book argues that treaties and other sources of international law form only the starting point of legal authority. Interpretation can shift the meaning of texts and, in its own way, make law. In the practice of interpretation actors debate the meaning of the written and customary laws, and so contribute to the making of new law. In such cases it is the actor's semantic authority that iskey - the capacity for their interpretation to be accepted and become established as new reference points for legal discourse. The book identifies the practice of interpretation as a significant space for international lawmaking, using the key examples of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and theAppellate Body of the WTO to show how international institutions are able to shape and develop their constituent instruments by adding layers of interpretation, and moving the terms of discourse.The book applies developments in linguistics to the practice of international legal interpretation, building on semantic pragmatism to overcome traditional explanations of lawmaking and to offer a fresh account of how the practice of interpretation makes international law. It discusses the normative implications that arise from viewing interpretation in this light, and the implications that the importance of semantic changes has for understanding the development of international law. The booktests the potential of international law and its doctrine to respond to semantic change, and ultimately ponders how semantic authority can be justified democratically in the normative pluriverse of sovereign legal systems.

Author Biography

Ingo Venzke is a Research Fellow and Lecturer at the Amsterdam Center for International Law, University of Amsterdam. He completed his doctorate in law at the University of Frankfurt while working at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg where he co-directed a research project on the exercise of public authority by international courts. Ingo was a Hauser Research Scholar at New York University and a Visiting Scholar at the Cegla Center for the Interdisciplinary Research of the Law, Tel Aviv University. He received his LL.M. from the University of London and his B.A. in International Relations from the University of Dresden.

Table of Contents

Table of Cases	p. xi
List of Abbreviations	p. xvii
In the Beginning was the Deed	p. 1
Problématique	p. 2
Agenda	p. 10
Programme	p. 14
The Practice of Interpretation: A Theoretical Perspective	p. 16
Lawmaking in communicative practice	p. 18
On the sources of international law	p. 19
Sovereignty, sources, and semantic change	p. 27
From sources to communicative practice	p. 29
Semantic struggles in the practice of legal interpretation	p. 37
Practice between agency and structure	p. 38
On the form and substance of legal interpretation	p. 46
Power and authority in semantic struggles	p. 57
Actors in the practice of interpretation	p. 64
Private norm entrepreneurs	p. 65
The disaggregated state	p. 67
International institutions: Bureaucracies and judicial bodies	p. 69
UNHCR and the Making of Refugee Law	p. 72
International bureaucracies as actors in legal discourse	p. 76
Delegation from principals to agents	p. 77
The authority of international bureaucracies	p. 82
The expansion of UNHCR's Statute	p. 87
Expectations and concerns	p. 90
International protection and humble beginnings	p. 95
Material assistance, good offices, and displaced persons	p. 98
Humanitarian aid and voluntary repatriation	p. 104
UNHCR and the meaning of the Convention	p. 109
UNHCR's role in developing the Convention	p. 110
Semantic change at work: Shifting elements in the meaning of 'refugee'	p. 122
Conclusions: Change and contexts	p. 130
Adjudication in the GATT/WTO: Making General Exceptions in Trade Law	p. 135
International adjudicators as actors in legal discourse	p. 139
Historiography: Longing for international adjudication	p. 140
Judicial decisions and precedents	p. 144
The GATT/WTO context	p. 147
Article XX in the era of the GATT	p. 150
General exceptions: A general prologue	p. 150
The creation of a high threshold	p. 157
A territorial limitation?	p. 163
Article XX in the era of the WTO	p. 167
Institutional changes and the working of precedents	p. 167
A new beginning with the Appellate Body	p. 172
Proportionality, interpretation, and legitimacy	p. 180
Conclusions: Adjudication, precedents, and legitimacy	p. 190
Creative Interpretations: Normative Twists	p. 196
The bittersweet taste of justice in legal discourse	p. 198
Narratives of progress and advents of justice	p. 200
Scepticism and realism	p. 207
The practice of interpretation and communicative action	p. 214
The centrality of law: Dissonances and developments in legal doctrine	p. 223
The appeal and futility of soft law	p. 225
Intertemporal law and subsequent practice: shortening the leash?	p. 230
Global administrative law and international public authority	p. 240
Evasive foundations: Semantic authority in a normative pluriverse	p. 245
Principles of democracy and ultimate authority	p. 248
Architectural renovation and institutional design	p. 252
Attitudes and interpretation at critical junctures	p. 256
Epilogue: In the End there is Eternity	p. 262
Bibliography	p. 266
Index	p. 313
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.