This unique book brings together leading experts from diverse areas of public international law to offer a comprehensive overview of the approaches to evolutionary interpretation in different international legal regimes. It begins by asking what interpretation is, offering the views of expert authors on the question, its components and definitions. It then comments on situations that have called for evolutionary interpretation in different international legal regimes, including general international law, environmental law, human rights law, EU law, investment law, international trade law, and how domestic courts have, on occasions, interpreted treaties and other international legal instruments in an evolutionary manner.

This timely, authoritative compendium offers an in-depth understanding of the processes at work in evolutionary interpretation as well as a prime selection of the current trends and future challenges.

Table Of Contents



1. About the Book

Gabrielle Marceau and Clément Marquet

2. Introduction: A Meta-Question

Georges Abi-Saab



PART I

EVOLUTIONARY INTERPRETATION IN INTERNATIONAL LAW GENERALLY

3. Evolutionary Interpretation in International Law: Some Short and Less than Trail-Blazing Reflections

Robert Kolb

4. An Interpreter's Guide to Static and Evolutive Interpretations: Solving Intertemporal Problems According to the VCLT

Christian Djeffal

5. Time Present and Time Past: The Intention of the Parties and the Evolutionary Interpretation of Treaties

Eirik Bjorge

6. Using Intertemporal Linguistics to Resolve the Problem at the Origin and Core of the Evolutionary Interpretation Debate

Julian Wyatt

7. Evolutionary Interpretation: The Relevance of Context

Donald McRae



PART II

EVOLUTIONARY INTERPRETATION IN ATYPICAL INSTITUTIONAL SETTINGS

8. Evolutionary Interpretation of International Law in National Courts

Kenneth Keith

9. The Interpretive Work of Treaty Bodies: How They Look at Evolutionary Interpretation, and How Other Courts Look at Them

Luigi Crema

10. Evolutionary Interpretation of Unilateral Acts of States and International Organisations

Paolo Palchetti



PART III

EVOLUTIONARY INTERPRETATION IN HUMAN RIGHTS AND ENVIRONMENT LAW

11. The Strength of Evolutionary Interpretation in International Human Rights Law

Gloria Gaggioli

12. The Strasbourg Approach to Evolutionary Interpretation

Oliver Dörr

13. Environmental Protection as an Object of and Tool for Evolutionary Interpretation

Nina Mileva and Marina Fortuna

14. The European Court of Human Rights and the Right to a Clean Environment: Evolutionary or Illusory Interpretation?

Malgosia Fitzmaurice

15. By Men, not Gods: The (Hidden) Evolutionary Interpretation of International Criminal Law in Light of Extrinsic Sources

Sévane Garibian



PART IV

EVOLUTIONARY INTERPRETATION IN WTO LAW

A. Systemic Approaches to Evolutionary Interpretation

16. Understanding the Choice for Evolutionary Interpretation

Isabelle Van Damme

17. The Illusion of 'Evolutionary Interpretation' in WTO Dispute Settlement

Graham Cook

18. Prospective Linguistics and Trade: The Art of the Deal

Clément Marquet

B. Evolutionary Interpretation in Practice

19. The Evolutionary Treaty Interpretation by the WTO Appellate Body

Sondre Torp Helmersen

20. Is there Evolution in the Evolutionary Interpretation of WTO Law?

Peter Van den Bossche

21. Evolutionary Interpretation and the Appellate Body's Existential Crisis

Mariana Clara de Andrade

22. Energy Trade in the WTO, Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow: The Role of Evolutionary Interpretation

Jenya Grigorova



PART V

EVOLUTIONARY INTERPRETATION IN ISDS LAW

23. Evolutionary Interpretation in Investment Arbitration: About a Judicial Taboo

Makane Moïse Mbengue and Aikaterini Florou

24. The Role of State Party Pleadings in the Evolutionary Interpretation of International Investment Agreements

Kendra Magraw

25. Investment Treaty Signatories' Joint Interpretation and the Case of the NAFTA Free Trade Commission: Evolutionary Interpretation or Modification?

Jennifer Radford, Gregory Tereposky and Kun Hui

26. History as Interpretative Context in the Evolutionary Interpretation of FET in International Investment Law 7

Charalampos Giannakopoulos and Malvika Monga



PART VI

EVOLUTIONARY INTERPRETATION IN EU LAW

27. Articulating Evolutionary Interpretation and the Rule of Law: The EU as a Composite Legal Order Based on Relative Rules of Law

Nicolas Levrat

28. Multilingualism and the Dynamic Interpretation of European Union Law

Mattias Derlén



PART VII

CONCLUSION

29. Conclusion

Kenneth Keith