Part V Treaty Interpretation, 19 The Vienna Convention Rules on Treaty Interpretation

Subject(s):

Good faith — Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties — Treaties, application — Rules of treaty interpretation

This chapter offers a nuanced account of one of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties’s seminal contributions to international law — a single set of interpretative ‘principles’ if not actual rules. It addresses two questions. The first is in what sense are the Vienna rules on treaty interpretation ‘rules’? The second is how are the rules to be used in interpreting treaties? The answer to the first question provides much of the answer to the second one. But the second is worth additional attention, mainly because the rules’ application in practice reveals interpretations that do not stand out from simply reading them.