International law, interpretative fidelity and the hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer

One source of resistance to the suggestion that normative propositions may play a central role in determining what international law requires or allows is the idea that interpreters of the law should allow the interpreted texts or practice to ‘speak for themselves’, without interference from the interpreter’s own subjective beliefs and prejudices. Drawing on themes from Hans-Georg Gadamer’s work, my paper argues that this idea is doubly problematic. The aspiration to interpretation free from all pre-judgments deeply misguided, while the claim that reliance on such pre-judgments compromises the objectivity of an interpretation is mistaken.