10 Sep 2018 - 14 Sep 2018
PhD Seminars, World Trade Institute


PhD Course on Treaty Interpretation

This course is taught by two notable academics/practitioners: Georg Nolte, member of the UN International Law Commission and Gabrielle Marceau, Senior Counsellor in the Legal Affairs Division of the WTO Secretariat.

The goal of the course is to gain an understanding of the interpretation of treaties from the perspective of general international law and in more specialised legal systems, in particular world trade law. The first part of the course will focus on the role of the Vienna Convention of the Law of Treaties in the practice of different international courts and other independent bodies. Pertinent recent work on the UN International Law Commission will be discussed, in particular in relation to WTO Appellate Body jurisprudence. The second part of the course will consist of lectures, exercises and activities applying the treaty interpretation principles discussed during the first two days. There will be a special focus on WTO disputes. In this regard, the Wednesday and Thursday morning lectures will focus on treaty interpretation applied in the specific context of WTO disputes. On Thursday afternoon, participants will be grouped into three teams for an interpretation game exercise: Each team on the basis of the interpretation principles previously discussed will prepare the relevant argumentation to support its interpretation of treaty provisions in its chosen area (e.g. trade, investment, human rights and environmental law). The results of the exercises will be discussed collectively on Friday morning / afternoon and students will be graded on the basis of their participation in this exercise.

Visit the Doctoral Programme page (link below) to learn how you can apply, and for details on other WTI PhD courses.

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