The Principles and Criteria Governing the Interpretation of International Judgments As Applied by International Courts and Tribunals

International scholarship has long focused on the interpretation of a specific type of legal instrument, treaties. With few exceptions, research on interpretative practice has not extended to another fundamental legal instrument, namely the judgments of international courts and tribunals. In view of this lacuna, this contribution aims to carry out an inductive analysis of judicial practice that seeks to identify the principles and criteria governing the interpretation of international judgments. The analysis is divided into four parts. The first part clarifies the object of the research by distinguishing the case where international courts and tribunals interpret previous judicial decisions as precedents from the case where one of the parties requests an interpretative judgment of an international judgment. The second part explains the principle of preservation of the res judicata and the limits of the latter. The third part conducts a wide-ranging analysis of judicial practice in order to inductively identify the principles and criteria governing the interpretation of international judgments, including the role of jurisprudence constante. Finally, some reflections are offered on the similarities and differences between the principles and criteria for interpreting international judgments and those provided for in Articles 31 and 32 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties.