Towards a General Doctrine of Consistent Interpretation for International Courts?

This contribution presents a summary record of a presentation given in the panel on Parallelism before International Courts and Tribunals convened by the Interest Group on International Courts and Tribunals (IGICT). It focuses on issues posed by the possible occurrence of divergent interpretations of the same legal rule or concept in parallel proceedings, and examines whether these may be addressed by formulating a general doctrine of consistent interpretation for international courts. The term employed here does not refer to a binding obligation on international courts to abide by the rulings of their international counterparts or predecessors, but rather to a broader normative claim for consistency and harmony in the interpretation of international legal rules. This claim rest on three interconnected pillars: the interpretative authority of international courts, comity between international courts, and the
notion of res interpretata.