We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Freedom and Constraints
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 March 2024
Most writings about treaty interpretation in international law are about how treaty interpretation should proceed and how treaty interpreters are constrained by various rules that discipline the interpretive exercise. Chapter 1 showed why rules by themselves cannot determine what treaty interpretation is and how it should proceed. This does not mean, however, that international lawyers are wrong in their self-perception that treaty interpretation is a constrained activity. This chapter argues that international lawyers have been looking for the source of interpretative constraints in the wrong place and that the actual interpretive constraints come from the fact that treaty interpretation is never the work of an isolated interpreter, but an exercise performed by a member of an interpretive community that determines what counts as a legitimate interpretation.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
