Linguistic interpretation features regularly of course in Treaty interpretation, including in Bilateral Investment Treaties – BITs. Kilic Insaat Ithalat Ihracat Sanayi ve Ticaret Anonim Sirketi v. Turkmenistan (ICSID Case No. ARB/10/1) concerned the Turkey-Kyrgyzstan BIT, which is authentic in English and Russian – neither a Turkish nor Turkmen version had been signed.
The tribunal’s analysis of the object and purpose of the Treaty, with a view to determining the procedural requirements prior to submitting to ICSID and given the inconsistencies between the two authentic versions, is a good reminder of similar issues in the EU, on which I reported extensively in previous work (since that paper, the relevance of the issue in the EU has only increased).
Geert.
gavc law - geert van calster 