The weight of a State’s past stances on treaty interpretation – may good faith play a role?

As forums for the resolution of international disputes expand and international case law continues to pile up, the likelihood that a State may advance contradictory approaches to treaty interpretation increases. Since there is a uniform set of international norms on the matter – for the most part established in Articles 31 and 32 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties – such inconsistencies might be problematic when measured against the principle of good faith in treaty interpretation. This article explores the role that good faith may play in this context, suggesting that the interpretative approaches that a State has embraced in the past may have some bearing on the way future disputes in which it is involved are resolved, although (as with much in international law) important caveats apply.