A treaty. An international court or tribunal. Two states. The search for meaning. Submissions are made by the parties as to the ‘correct’ or ‘best’ interpretation of the treaty. Recourse is had to the canons of interpretation in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. Terms like ‘good faith’, ‘ordinary meaning’, ‘object and purpose’ are repeated like…

Professor James Crawford SC FBA is Whewell Professor of International Law at the University of Cambridge While wandering through a wadi in the wastes of Saudi I came across Mr Kadi cracking rather hardy. I said ‘you must feel blue at what they’ve done to you’; he said to me…