Law
Treaty Interpretation Principles in International Environmental Disputes
Quick fact
In the 2014 Whaling in the Antarctic case, the International Court of Justice used a nuanced interpretation of the phrase 'for purposes of scientific research' to rule that Japan's whaling program was not genuinely scientific, effectively halting it.
Why this is interesting
Imagine two countries sign a treaty to protect a shared river, but decades later they can't agree on whether it allows building a dam. Who decides what the words really mean?