Making Interpretation More Explicit: International Law and Pragmatics

Nordic Journal of International Law, p. 228-266, 2017

27 Pages Posted: 2 Aug 2017

Date Written: July 31, 2017

Abstract

In this interdisciplinary paper, a legal scholar and a linguist specialising in pragmatics aim to combine the scientific strands of linguistics and international law. We make a case for integrating modern linguistics and pragmatics into the study of legal interpretation and outline benefits such an approach could offer. In a previous article, we highlighted that international legal scholarship is increasingly focused on the interpretation of international law, which has engendered a rich set of interdisciplinary approaches. Intuitively, one might think that the field of law and language might be a good candidate for exploring the link between international law, interpretation and linguistics because law is language in the sense that it relies on language for its use. Despite the increasing recognition that “linguistics has a role to play in understanding legal interpretation[,] there is little evidence that legal scholars are developing the skills to make use of linguistic skills”, which stands in surprising contrast to their embracing the fundamentals of economics.

Given this surprising desideratum, in our previous article we presented a comprehensive programmatic overview of our joint approach to modelling legal interpretation. In this article, we focus more closely on our posited parallel between the scientific domains of pragmatics and interpretation of treaties in international law and how well they map onto – or apply to – each other.

Keywords: International Law, Legal Interpretation, Linguistics, Pragmatics, Law and Language, Cognitive Pragmatics, Cognitive Linguistics

Suggested Citation

Pirker, Benedikt Harald and Smolka, Jennifer, Making Interpretation More Explicit: International Law and Pragmatics (July 31, 2017). Nordic Journal of International Law, p. 228-266, 2017, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3011390

Benedikt Harald Pirker (Contact Author)

University of Fribourg ( email )

Institute for European Law
Avenue de Beauregard 11
Fribourg, 1700
Switzerland
0041263008362 (Phone)
0041263009776 (Fax)

HOME PAGE: http://www.unifr.ch/ius/euroinstitut_de/ueber_uns/team/team_mitarbeitende

Jennifer Smolka

Independent ( email )

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
98
Abstract Views
586
Rank
486,005
PlumX Metrics