26 de 35Anuario Mexicano de Derecho Internacional, vol. 25, núm. 25, 2025, e19025José RogelioGutiérrez ÁlvarezThe many lives of effet utile in treaty interpretationuted to every part of the text’.104 Statements as these may be contrasted with the position of the tribunal in CEMEX v. Venezuela, who affirmed that effet utile‘does not require that a maximum effect be given to a text. It only excludes interpretations which would render the text meaningless, when a meaningful interpretation is possible’.105In the law of the sea context, the good standing of effet utile seemed to be acknowledged by the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea106 and by a tribunal established under Annex VII of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.107 Inter-State arbitral tribunals have also made use of the principle of effet utile,108 as have done many high courts from Singapore,109India,110 Mexico,111 Colombia,112 and Argentina.113As this long list of judgments, awards, and decisions show, the principle of effectiveness in treaty hermeneutics is alive and well. It is routinely applied both to prevent the nullification of international agreements as a whole or their specific provisions. Moreover, this maxim is not only employed to reject interpretations that would deprive the treaty at hand or its components of 104Murphy Exploration & Production Company International vs. Republic of Ecuador, PCA Case num. 2012-16 (formerly AA 434), Partial Award on Jurisdiction, 13 november, 2013, para. 171.105CEMEX Caracas Investments B.V. and CEMEX Caracas II Investments B.V. vs. Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, ICSID Case num. ARB/08/15, Decision on jurisdiction, 30 december, 2010, para. 114.106 M/V “Norstar”, Panama vs. Italy, judgment, ITLOS Reports 2018-2019, p. 10, para. 244; Request for Advisory opinion submitted by the sub-regional Fisheries Commission, Advisory opinion, 2 april 2015, ITLOS Reports 2015, p. 4, para. 56.107 South China Sea Arbitration (Philippines vs. People’s Republic of China), PCA Case num. 2013-19, Award, 2016, para. 575.108 Affaire de l’île de Timor, Pays-Bas, Portugal (1961) XI RIAA 481, 508; Laguna del Desierto Ar-bitration, Argentina/Chile, decision, 1994, XXII RIAA 3, para. 137. See also George H. Aldrich, The Jurisprudence of the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal: An Analysis of the Decisions by the Tribunal (OUP 1996) 374.109 Singapore Court of Appeal, Sanum Investments Ltd vs. Government of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, International Law Reports, vol. 183, p. 432, para. 128.110 Supreme Court of India, Ram Jethmalani vs. Union of India, Writ Petition Civil num. 176 of 2009, order of 4 july 2011, paras. 60-64.111Mexican Supreme Court, First Chamber, Amparo en revisión 1077/2019, 2021, para. 119.112Constitutional Court of Colombia, judgment SU649/17 ‘Quimbaya’, 2017, section 5.4.1.113Supreme Court of Argentina, Copana Cornejo, Fanny s/extradición art. 52, judgment of 10 december, 2020.

27 de 35Anuario Mexicano de Derecho Internacional, vol. 25, núm. 25, 2025, e19025José RogelioGutiérrez ÁlvarezThe many lives of effet utile in treaty interpretatione-ISSN 2448-7872DOI: https://doi.org/10.22201/iij.24487872e.2025.25.19025Esta obra está bajo una Licencia Creative Commons Reconocimiento-NoComercial 4.0 Internacionaany meaning, but also to enhance or maximise its effects-although the latter version of effet utile continues to be controversial. By comparison, there are significantly less examples in which this principle has been used to determine or enlarge the scope of a treaty so as to fit a specific situation, as arguably oc-curred in the examples used in the section II above.Before the discussion moves on to a critical assessment of the soundness of the multiple versions of effet utile, it may be worth noting that the record of the many uses of this interpretative principle by international courts and tribunals might reveal small traces of fragmentation within the norms of treaty interpretation, as ap-plied to agreements of different nature or material scope.114 On this regard, while it has been argued that concerns about the fragmentation of international law are unwar-ranted —particularly so in relation to the law on treaty interpretation—115 the post-VCLT case law cited in this section suggests that enhanced/maximising approaches to effectiveness are more prevalent in human rights jurisprudence than in more generalist settings. IV. The best and worse places to wear each effet utile“hat”As the previous sections made apparent, international courts and tribunals often rely on the principle of effectiveness when elucidating treaties. The re-viewed case law offers examples of the various modalities of this maxim, al-though it also revealed that the popularity of the many ‘hats’ of effectiveness varies considerably. Indeed, while both the whole-convention and specific-provision approaches of effet utile are well represented, narrow varieties (in the sense of ut as res magis valeat quam pereat) appear to be more prevalent than maximising ones. Most often, effectiveness is used during the interpretative process to determine the general scope of an agreement, against which it is possible to determine if a specific situation at hand falls within. There are, however, a handful of examples in which the applicability of the treaty to the factual scenario under analysis is taken for granted by virtue of effet utile.114Some international legal scholars have dismissed as a ‘myth’ the view that there is a single, unifying methodology for the interpretation of treaties. See Benedict Kingsbury, ‘Internation-al courts: uneven judicialization in global order’ in James Crawford and Martti Koskenniemi (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to International Law (CUP 2012) 204; Bianchi and Zarbiyev, num. 20, 8 and 9.115Bjorge, Eirik, The evolutionary interpretation of treaties (OUP 2014) 23-55.

28 de 35Anuario Mexicano de Derecho Internacional, vol. 25, núm. 25, 2025, e19025José RogelioGutiérrez ÁlvarezThe many lives of effet utile in treaty interpretationIn the abstract, each of these varieties of effectiveness may seem more or less plausible, although their reliability becomes particularly contested in some contexts. For starters, an attempt to read the specific components of an agreement (i.e., like a chapter, section, or article) in a way that is conducive to the attainment of the overall object and purpose of the treaty might run counter to a deliberate decision of the contracting parties to leave regulatory gaps in their agreement, perhaps desiring to submit the matter to future ne-gotiations or to retain a margin of discretion in how they comply with the treaty’s obligations. Indeed, as one scholar has persuasively argued, [t]he danger with [teleological] arguments is that they can easily trespass over the intention of the parties and allow the militant judge to arrogate himself legislative functions. In other words, an interpretation may here easily shade into a revision of the treaty. Thus, for example, if an interpreter is confronted with a treaty on the protection of the environment, he could use the object and purpose (which is ‘en-vironmental protection’) in order to interpret all the provisions of the treaty so as to maximize the effectiveness of protection. However, the States adopting the treaty will in most cases have accepted such a protection only subject to many compromis-es, reservations, less-than-full-effect, trade-offs with economic constraints, and so on. In other words, they will not have wanted a full realization of the sole object and purpose of protection, but only a limited realization, balanced with other values and constraints. The interpreter is not allowed to upset this complex equilibrium and to re-write the treaty as he sees it.116Moreover, it can be difficult to determine what an effective interpretation of an agreement would require when the treaty in question pursues more than one goal. In this regard, as observed by the WTO Appellate Body in US – Shrimp, ‘most treaties have no single, undiluted object and purpose but rather a variety of different, and possibly conflicting, objects and purposes’.117Ascertaining the relevant object(s) and purpose(s) can be particularly chal-lenging when the treaty it hand is multilateral and concerned with multiple domains of international relations.118 That an international agreement may 116Kolb, Robert, num. 28, 146.117Appellate body report, United States-Import prohibition of certain shrimp and shrimp products, WT/DS58/AB/R, adopted 12 october 1998, para. 17.118Dino Kritsiotis, “The Object and purpose of a treaty’s object and purpose” in Bowman, Michael J. and Kritsiotis, Dino (eds.), Conceptual and contextual perspectives on the modern law of treaties (CUP 2018) 278-280.

29 de 35Anuario Mexicano de Derecho Internacional, vol. 25, núm. 25, 2025, e19025José RogelioGutiérrez ÁlvarezThe many lives of effet utile in treaty interpretatione-ISSN 2448-7872DOI: https://doi.org/10.22201/iij.24487872e.2025.25.19025Esta obra está bajo una Licencia Creative Commons Reconocimiento-NoComercial 4.0 Internacionapursue multiple aims, however, does not necessarily mean that each of them is equally important. A treaty may well have a main object and purpose,119which should arguably receive primary attention during the interpretative process.Things can get even more complicated when the merits of maximising versions of effet utile are assessed. The words of Sir Gerald Fitzmaurice, who was one of the ILC’s special rapporteurs on the law of treaties, are particu-larly instructive in this context:the maxim ut magis is all too frequently misunderstood as denoting that agreements should always be given their maximum possible effect, whereas its real object is merely (“quam pereat”) to prevent them failing altogether. This affords a very good pointer to the limits of a doctrine which, if allowed free play, would result in parties find-ing themselves saddled with obligations they never intended to enter into, in rela-tion to situations they never contemplated, and which often they could not have anticipated.120As elaborated in subsection III.a above, this rationale was upheld by the ICJ when it rejected a maximising interpretation of the Covenant of the League of Nations in South West Africa, Second Phase. There are other examples in the ICJ’s case law supporting the view that when there is a mismatch between the aims pursued by a treaty (as stated in its preamble) and the text of specific provisions which seem to fall short of fulfilling this goal, the latter prevails. For illustration, this rationale was endorsed by the Court in Arbitral Award of 31 July 1989, where it observed that ‘although the two States had expressed in general terms in the Preamble of the Arbitration Agreement their desire to reach a settlement of their dispute, their consent thereto had only been given in the terms laid down by Article 2’.121So, how could anyone decide if it is appropriate to adopt on a maximis-ing version of effet utile in any given situation? While it might be difficult to establish a definitive standard on the matter, it is submitted that the case law 119 Vriese, Kit de, ‘How to?: a methodological guide to identify a treaty’s object and pur-pose”, 2022, 21 The Law and Practice of International Courts and Tribunals 35, 41-44. See also Abaclat and Others vs. Argentina, Dissenting opinion to decision on jurisdiction and admissibility by Georges Abi-Saab, 21 october, 2011, para. 53.120Fitzmaurice, “Vae victis or Woe to the negotiators! Your treaty or our “Interpretation” of It?”, American Journal of International Law, 1971, vol. 65, issue 2, 358, 373.121Arbitral award of 31 july 1989, judgment, I. C. J. reports 1991,p. 53.

30 de 35Anuario Mexicano de Derecho Internacional, vol. 25, núm. 25, 2025, e19025José RogelioGutiérrez ÁlvarezThe many lives of effet utile in treaty interpretationof the ECtHR might provide some guidance. In this Court’s jurisprudence, effectiveness usually comes into play only when the ECtHR ascertains the scope of the human rights safeguarded by the European Convention —and not, contrastingly, when it interprets the grounds and conditions established therein for the limitation of these rights.122 In this regard, it has been persua-sively argued that theexamples of the Court’s treatment of limitations[...] are not so much instances of the effectiveness principle being ignored, as a demonstration of the obvious, but crucial point, that, as between rules and their exceptions, the application of the effective-ness principle depends on the overall context and relative priority accorded to each by the interpreted. The principle[...] requires a provision to be interpreted so as to give it the fullest effect consistent with the ordinary meaning and with other parts of the text[...] [L]ooking at the Convention as a whole, the articles concerned with pro-tecting rights should be treated as central and those authorising their restriction as marginal. This does not make limitations meaningless,but does remove any tendency to give such provisions their maximum effect.123It might thus be argued that other interpretative principles may assist in the determination of the appropriate measure of effectiveness that should be pursued when elucidating different components of an international agree-ment. One such assisting principle would be that, in general, exceptions must be interpreted restrictively.124On a related point, it is important to remember that every treaty provision may aim to fulfil a purpose within the whole text of the agreement which, on its turn, might have been crafted to balance competing interests and attain multiple objectives.125 In theory, then, an attempt to maximise the effects of one treaty provision could minimise those of others. Therefore, when inter-preters rely upon the principle of effectiveness to ascertain the scope of one treaty provision, they must be careful not to deprive other components of the agreement of their appropriate effects. This much is acknowledged by in-ternational case law. For instance, in United States – Standards for Reformulated 122Merrills, J. G., The development of international law by the European Court of Human Rights (2nd. ed.), Manchester University Press, 1993, 113-115.123Ibidem, 115 and 116.124Flegenheimer Case-decision number 182 of 20 september 1958, Italian-United States Concilia-tion Commission, RIAA, vol. XIV, p. 383.125Kolb, Robert, 146.

31 de 35Anuario Mexicano de Derecho Internacional, vol. 25, núm. 25, 2025, e19025José RogelioGutiérrez ÁlvarezThe many lives of effet utile in treaty interpretatione-ISSN 2448-7872DOI: https://doi.org/10.22201/iij.24487872e.2025.25.19025Esta obra está bajo una Licencia Creative Commons Reconocimiento-NoComercial 4.0 Internacionaand Conventional Gasoline, the WTO Appellate Body had to interpret Articles III and XX of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade; in so doing, it as-serted that none of them may be read so expansively as to subvert the object and purpose of the other.126 Such idea resonates with a recent observation of the ICJ, which considered that ‘in seeking to determine the meaning of the second paragraph of [a treaty’s Article], it should not adopt an interpreta-tion which renders the first paragraph of that Article devoid of purport or effect’.127Finally, perhaps the most pressing concern related to the principle of effec-tiveness was expressed by the dissenting opinion of several ICJ judges in Geor-gia v. Russia, which was mentioned in the introduction to this article. Indeed, the many roles played by effet utile throughout international case law may con-vey the impression that this maxim affords the interpreter a very wide discre-tion, to the detriment of legal certainty and the stability of treaties. It is thus vital to recall that effectiveness ‘is merely one argument which may point to-wards a particular interpretation, but it does not obviate the need to take into consideration other elements relevant to elucidating the meaning of a text’.128In other words, this maxim should not be used to displace the customary rules set forth in Articles 31 to 33 of the VCLT. Effet utile may be of assistance during the interpretative process, but an argument built upon it as its central premise will likely be weak. The narrow version of this principle (ut as res ma-gis valeat quam pereat) can certainly help to discard an implausible reading of a treaty, but by itself is unable to direct the interpreter to the right understand-ing. Moreover, recourse to maximising approaches to effectiveness should only be justified after the object and purpose that serves as guiding star in the process has been properly ascertained, and then only applied when doing so does not run against the clear meaning conveyed by the text.In addition, the employment of effet utile to determine or enlarge the scope of a treaty so as to fit a specific situation can also be problematic, because it may privilege teleological considerations over the ordinary meaning of the 126Report of the appellate body, United States-Standards for Reformulated and Conventional Gaso-line, WT/DS2/AB/R, 29 april 1996, p. 18. See also Korea-Definitive Safeguard Measure on Imports of Certain Dairy Products, AB-1999–8, WT/DS98/AB/R, p. 24, para. 81.127Alleged violations of sovereign rights and maritime spaces in the caribbean sea, Nicaragua vs. Colom-bia, Preliminary objections, judgment, I. C. J. reports 2016, p. 3, para. 44.128Georgia vs. Russia, num. 2, Joint diss cit., Owada, Simma, Abraham, Donoghue and Gaja, para. 22.

32 de 35Anuario Mexicano de Derecho Internacional, vol. 25, núm. 25, 2025, e19025José RogelioGutiérrez ÁlvarezThe many lives of effet utile in treaty interpretationtreaty terms and —some may add— it could potentially blur the boundaries of terms of art in international law (such as ‘Statehood’ and ‘nationality’). An interpreter that relies on the principle of effectiveness to elucidate an inter-national agreement without the rigorous support of the rules set forth in Ar-ticles 31 to 33 of the VCLR runs the risk of having his or her views portrayed as statement of delege ferenda instead of lata.V. Concluding thoughtsAscertaining the meaning of an international agreement can be a tricky busi-ness. To the fortune of international lawyers, there is a well-established set of rules on how to run this process; to their despair, the precise scope of such rules remains elusive. There is something about the principle of effectiveness that further complicates the matter. This is a hermeneutic principle that is not expressly included in the text of the VCLT and which, confusingly, can stand for different propositions. Throughout this article, the many lives of effet utile in treaty interpretation have been narrated. The article’s main contention is that there are three main parameters according to which the most predominant versions of this prin-ciple can be categorised. The first parameter is defined by the type of object and purpose that an interpreter intends to make effective; in other words, a distinction is made between the object and purpose of the treaty as a whole or one of its parts. The second parameter is concerned with the extent to which the relevant object and purpose is aimed to be fulfilled: is the inter-preter’s goal to prevent the treaty (or its provisions) from turning redundant or to maximise its effects? The third parameter is related to the stage of the interpretative process in which effet utile is relied upon, depending on wheth-er the principle is used to affirm the applicability of the norm to the case at hand before the general (or abstract) scope of the norm is ascertained, or otherwise. It has been argued that, even if some of its many uses are better repre-sented in international case law than others, they all have their limitations. In short, effectiveness is merely one among many instruments within the toolkit that international lawyers use to elucidate treaties. It should remain as such. Effet utile can be aid in interpretation, but, by itself, it can hardly dictate how an international agreement should be properly understood.

33 de 35Anuario Mexicano de Derecho Internacional, vol. 25, núm. 25, 2025, e19025José RogelioGutiérrez ÁlvarezThe many lives of effet utile in treaty interpretatione-ISSN 2448-7872DOI: https://doi.org/10.22201/iij.24487872e.2025.25.19025Esta obra está bajo una Licencia Creative Commons Reconocimiento-NoComercial 4.0 InternacionaVI. BibliographyBederman, David, Classical canons: Rhetoric, classicism and treaty interpretation, Ashgate, 2001.Berlia, Georges, “Contribution a l’interprétation des traités” in Collected cours-es of The Hague academy of international Law, Brill, vol. 114,1965.Bianchi, Andrea and Zarbiyev, Faud, Demystifying treaty interpretation, Cam-bridge University Press, 2024.Bjorge, Eirik, The evolutionary interpretation of treaties, Oxford University Press, 2014.Castro, Roberto, The ICSID Convention and the VCLT: Interpreting the Term “Investment’’ in Shirlow, Esmé and Nasir, Kiran (eds.), The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties in Investor-State Disputes: History, Evolution and Future, Kluwer Law International, 2022.Den Heijer, Maarten, Extraterritorial asylum under international law, Hart Pub-lishing, 2012.Dörr, Oliver, The Strasbourg approach to evolutionary interpretation, Hart Pub-lishing, 2019.Fairman, Charles, The interpretation of treaties, vol. 20: Transactions of the gro-tius society, 1934.Fitzmaurice, Malgosia and Merkouris, Panos Merkouris, “Canons of treaty interpretation: selected case studies from the World Trade Organization and the North American Free Trade Agreement” in Fitzmaurice, Malgosia et al. (eds.), Treaty interpretation and the Vienna Convention on the Law of Yreaties: 30 years on, Brill, 2010.Fitzmaurice, Sir Gerald, “Vae Victis or Woe to the Negotiators! Your Treaty or Our “Interpretation” of It?”, American Journal of International Law, 1971, vol. 65, t. 2.Grahl-Madsen, Atle, Commentary on the Refugee Convention, articles 2o.-11, 13-37, UNHCR, 1997.Grotius, Hugo, On the law of war and peace, student edition, Neff, Stephen (ed.), Cambridge University Press, 2012.Gutiérrez Álvarez, José Rogelio, “The weight of a State’s past stances on trea-ty interpretation-may good faith play a role?”, Cambridge International Law Journal, 2024, vol. 13.Jennings, Robert and Watts, Arthur, Oppenheim’s International Law, 9th ed., vol. 1: Peace, Oxford University Press, 2008.

34 de 35Anuario Mexicano de Derecho Internacional, vol. 25, núm. 25, 2025, e19025José RogelioGutiérrez ÁlvarezThe many lives of effet utile in treaty interpretationKingsbury, Benedict, “International courts: uneven judicialization in global order” in Crawford, James and Koskenniemi, Martti (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to International Law, Cambridge University Press, 2012.Kolb, Robert, Interprétation et création du droit international, Bruylant, 2006.Kolb, Robert, The law of treaties: An introduction in Edward Elgar, 2016.Kritsiotis, Dino, “The object and purpose of a treaty’s object and purpose” in Bowman, Michael and Kritsiotis, Dino (eds.), Conceptual and contextual perspectives on the modern law of treaties, Cambridge University Press, 2018.Merrills, J, The development of international law by the European Court of Human Rights (2nd. ed.), Manchester University Press, 1993.Moekli, Daniel, Interpretation of the ICESCR: Between morality and State consent’ in Moekli, Daniel et al. (eds.), The human rights covenants at 50: Their past, present and future, Oxford University Press, 2018.Moore, John, History and digest of international arbitrations to which the United States has been a Party (4a. ed.), Government Printing Office, 1898.Mortenson, Julian, ‘The travaux of travaux: is the Vienna Convention hostile to drafting history?’, American Journal of International Law, vol. 107, num. 4, 2013.Reinisch, August and Braumann, Céline, ‘Effet Utile’ in Klinger, Joseph and others (eds.), Between the lines of the Vienna Convention? Cannons and other principles of interpretation in public international law, 2018.Schlütter, Birgit, ‘Aspects of human rights interpretation by UN treaty bod-ies’ in Keller, Helen and Ulfstein, Geir (eds.), UN Human rights treaty bodies: Law and legitimacy, 2012.Sinclair, Ian, The Vienna Convention on the law of treaties (2a. ed.), Manchester University Press 1984).Van Damme, Isabelle, Treaty interpretation by the WTO appellate body, 2009.Vattel, Emer de, The law of nations in Kapossy, Béla and Whatmore, Richard (eds.), Liberty Fund, 2008.Vriese, Kit de, How to?: A Methodological Guide to Identify a Treaty’s Object and Purpose’, vol. 21: The Law and Practice of International Courts and Tribunals.Weeramantry, Romesh, Treaty interpretation in investment arbitration, 2012.Wyatt, Julian, Intertemporal linguistics in international law, Hart Publishing, 2020.

35 de 35Anuario Mexicano de Derecho Internacional, vol. 25, núm. 25, 2025, e19025José RogelioGutiérrez ÁlvarezThe many lives of effet utile in treaty interpretatione-ISSN 2448-7872DOI: https://doi.org/10.22201/iij.24487872e.2025.25.19025Esta obra está bajo una Licencia Creative Commons Reconocimiento-NoComercial 4.0 InternacionaCómo citarIIJ-UNAMGutiérrez Álvarez, José Rogelio, “The many lives of effet utile in treaty inter-pretation”, Anuario Mexicano de Derecho Internacional, México, vol. 25, núm. 25, 2025, e19148. https://doi.org/10.22201/iij.24487872e.2025.25.19025A PAGutiérrez Álvarez, J. R. (2025). The many lives of effet utile in treaty inter-pretation. Anuario Mexicano de Derecho Internacional, 25(25), e19148. https://doi.org/10.22201/iij.24487872e.2025.25.19025