a manner as they mutually understand each other. If then, they ought to speak in such a manner as to be understood, it is necessary that they should employ the words in their proper signification, in the sense which custom has given them, and that they should affix to the terms they use and to all their expressions, the received signification. They are not permitted to deviate with design, and without mentioning it from the common use, and propriety of the expression; and it is presumed that they have conformed to it, while there are no pressing reasons to presume the contrary; for the presumption is in general, that things have been done as they ought. From all these incontestable truths results this rule: In the interpretation of treaties, pacts, and promises, we ought not to deviate from the common use of the language, at least, if we have not very strong reasons for it.
Words are only designed to express the thoughts; thus the true signification of an expression in common use, is the idea which custom has affixed to that expression. It is then a gross quibble to affix a particular sense to a word in order to elude the true sense of the entire expression.
There is not perhaps any language that has not also words which signify two or many different things, or phrases, susceptible of more than one sense. Thence arise mistakes in discourse. To employ them with design in order to elude engagements, is real perfidy, since the faith of treaties obliges the contracting parties to express their intentions clearly.
We ought always to give to expressions the sense most suitable to the subject, or the matter to which they relate, for we endeavor by a true interpretation to discover the thoughts of those who speak, or of the contracting powers in a treaty.
When one can and ought to have made known his intention we may take for true against him what he has sufficiently declared. As good faith ought to preside in conventions, they are always interpreted on the supposition that it actually did preside in them.
The rule of interpretation forbids turning the sense of the words contrary to the manifest intention of the contracting powers.
The connection and relation of things themselves serve also to discover and establish the true sense of the treaty or of any other piece.[1]
- ↑ Vattel’s Law of Nations, Book II, Ch. 17, Sec. 268-286.
