Interpretation isn’t just Meaning! The Existential Function of Interpretation in International Law

Looking back at all the debates over whether the United States could have legal authority to use force in Syria, I was struck by the presence of two very different types of arguments about the Responsibility to Protect (R2P).  For some, the R2P questions were interpretative in nature — what did R2P mean (i.e., does it require Security Council authorization) and how does its meaning apply in the Syrian context?  Obviously, different interpretative methods and techniques could generate different answers to what R2P meant, and, with them, different outcomes for the Syrian intervention question. Many others, however, never made it to this interpretative stage.  For them, the R2P questions were existential — did it even exist within the corpus of international law in the first place?

Looking at R2P in Syria provides a paradigmatic example of how international legal interpretation can do more than simply explain what a legal concept “means”.  It shows that the interpretative project is not just an expository process but an existential one. The very act of interpreting validates the legal existence of that which is being interpreted. Interpretations of R2P with respect to the legality of a Syrian intervention necessarily accepted the existence of R2P within international law.  At the same time, deciding whether or not R2P exists itself constitutes a particular form of interpretative process, or what I call an existential interpretation.  I’ve written a paper about these existential aspects of international legal interpretation that’s now available on SSRN (I also presented it at this fabulous conference on interpretation in Cambridge).  Here’s the abstract:

For most international lawyers, interpretation involves acts giving meaning to a particular legal rule. Interpretative studies center largely on questions of method and technique – by what process should (or must) meaning be given to an international legal rule and how does a given meaning accord with the interpretative method employed. In recent years, increasing methodological awareness of interpretative theory has broadened – or, in the case of critical scholarship, challenged – the capacity of interpretation to give meaning to international law.

Notwithstanding the value in focusing on interpretative methods and techniques, the concept of interpretation they produce remains incomplete. International law’s interpretative processes are like an iceberg – the meaning arrived at by an interpreter is not simply a function of the method and technique employed (the visible tip) but rests on an array of earlier choices about what “exists” to be interpreted in the first place (the iceberg’s hidden, critical mass). A familiar example involves the question of what evidence counts as “State practice” for purposes of identifying customary international law. Interpreters who only count what States “do” may generate different content for a claimed rule than those who also consider what States “say” about the rule, even holding constant the method and technique employed. Similar existential questions arise throughout the international legal order. Before a treaty can be interpreted according to the 1969 Vienna Convention, for example, the interpreter must conclude the treaty actually exists. Indeed, interpretative choices lie at the core of international law’s sources doctrine, since what qualifies as international law (or not) can privilege or foreclose specific interpretative methods and outcomes.

This paper seeks to uncover the “existential function” of interpretation in international law. It explains how all interpretations have existential effects as they create, confirm, or deny the existence of the subject of interpretation. At the same time, I identify a particular structure of interpretative argument – what I call “existential interpretation” – by which interpreters ascertain the existence of their subjects. I review examples of this phenomenon in questions about the existence of interpretative authority, evidence, international law, and its sources.

Existential interpretations and the functions they serve have significant implications for international legal (a) discourse, (b) doctrine, and (c) theories of international law. Existential interpretations delineate the boundaries for interpretative discourse, narrowing it in cases of consensus on the existence of the interpreted subject, and broadening it in cases of dispute. Where interpretative resolutions of existential questions are possible, they may impact the content of international law doctrine, either directly or indirectly. And, where resolution is not possible, existential interpretations may operate as proxies for theoretical disagreement about the nature or purpose of international law (e.g., positivists may insist interpreters exclude from their toolbox the same soft law sources that naturalists insist require effectiveness as a matter of right). The paper concludes with a call for further study of existential interpretation given its importance to practice as well as its potential to provide a new lens for mapping the unity and fragmentation of the international legal order itself.

I’d welcome feedback if any of you find the paper is worth a read.