The Interpretation of Acts and Rules in Public International Law: (Oxford Monographs in International Law)

There are frequent claims that the regulation of international law is uncertain, vague, ambiguous, or indeterminate, which does not support the desired stability, transparency, or predictability of international legal relations. This monograph examines the framework of interpretation in international law based on the premise of the effectiveness and determinacy of international legal regulation, which is a necessary pre-requisite for international law to be viewed as law. This study examines this problem for the first time since these questions were introduced and identified as the basic premises of the international legal analysis, in the works of JL Brierly and Sir Hersch Lauterpacht. Addressing different aspects of the effectiveness of legal regulation, this monograph examines the structural limits on, and threshold of, legal regulation, and the relationship between established legal regulation and non-law. Once the limits of legal regulation are ascertained, the analysis proceeds to examine the legal framework of interpretation that serves to maintain and preserve the object and aims of existing legal regulation. The final stage of analysis is the interpretation of those treaty provisions that embody the indeterminate conditions of non-law. Given that the generalist element of international legal doctrine has been virtually silent on the problem and implications of the effectiveness and determinacy of international legal regulation, this study examines the material accumulated in doctrine and practice for the past several decades, including the relevant jurisprudence of all major international tribunals.

Table of Contents:
Introduction Part I - The Effectiveness of International Legal Regulation 1: Doctrinal Treatment of the Effectiveness of Legal Regulation 2: Characteristics and Implications of the Effectiveness of Legal Regulation Part II - Threshold of Legal Regulation 3: The Essence of the Threshold of Legal Regulation 4: Customary Law and Inherent Rules Part III - Law and Non-law in the International Legal System 5: Fact as Non-Law and the Limits on its Relevance 6: Interest as Non-Law 7: Values as Non-law 8: Quasi-Normative Non-Law Part IV - The Regime and Methods of Interpretation in International Law 9: Conceptual Aspects of Interpretation 10: Treaty Interpretation: Rules and Methods 11: Treaty Interpretation: Effectiveness and Presumptions 12: Interpretation of Jurisdictional Instruments 13: Interpretation of Unilateral Acts and Statements 14: Interpretation of Institutional Decisions 15: Interpretation of Customary Rules 16: The Agencies of Interpretation Part V - Treaty Interpretation and Indeterminate Provisions of Non-Law 17: The Essence of and Response to the Indeterminacy of Treaty Provisions 18: Equity and Equitable Considerations in Treaties Conclusion

About the Author :
Alexander Orakhelashvili (LLM Leiden, PhD Cantab.) is a Junior Research Fellow at Jesus College, Oxford. He has previously taught international law in the Universities of London and Cambridge. His research includes all areas of international law. He has previously published Peremptory Norms in International Law (OUP, Oxford Monographs in International Law, 2006), and the wide range of articles in the leading international law journals and yearbooks.

Review :
`Dr Orakhelashvili aims to provide the ultimate antidote to claims that interpretive indeterminacy renders many international legal texts marginal in the quest to determine the applicable law. This encyclopedic study of the rules, principles and other elements of interpretation constitutes an invaluable and unique guide and reference work for all those working with international law at any level. It is all the more important as a result of the recent proliferation of international actors engaging in acts of interpretation and of the fact that no comparably exhaustive study of this type has been undertaken for decades.' Philip Alston, John Norton Pomeroy Professor of International Law, New York University School of Law `This thoughtful monograph takes head on some of the most important issues facing international law today. Dr Orakhelashvili rigorously tackles questions of general concern to practitioners and scholars of international law alike in the areas of interpretation and application of international law, raising jurisprudential questions of importance to the continued development of the discipline.' Judge Bruno Simma, International Court of Justice, The Hague `...the book is solidly written...highly recommended for mainstream scholars, critical scholars and practitioners alike, for all three groups need reliable information on what is commonly accepted-what the orthodox view is on interpretation.' Jorg Kammerhofer, University of Erlangen, EJIL 20