12 - Power, Persuasion, and Authority

Summary

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.