Lex erotica? From interpretation to composition

As successive volumes and editorials of LJIL have shown,Footnote 1 interpretation has been a recurring concern for international lawyers as long as there have been texts to pour over. Amidst uncertainty, we grab tight to a familiar heuristic practice. Whether in navigating Hart’s ‘core’ and ‘penumbra’ amid court proceedings,Footnote 2 or in tracing meaning all the way down to structural or historical forces,Footnote 3 interpretation is the bread-and-butter of international legal work. In critical circles especially, it is the grindstone that keeps sharp the tools of structuralism, historicization, and the varying materialisms by which we have come to question the givens of the field. Indeed, interpretation is so axiomatic with scholarship and practice, whether doctrinal or critical, that it is almost impossible to imagine our lives without it. Indeed, why would we even want to imagine life without the heuristic that makes our profession possible?