This paper argues that the framework of Community of Practice is beneficial
for an understanding of the linguistic practices that international courts and
tribunals employ in their interpretative approaches. Other than the frameworks of
the social network, the speech community, and the epistemic community, the
framework of Community of Practice can be said to allow for a more critical
assessment of the social context in which international courts and tribunals function.
Such an assessment is crucial in that it is in that social context that interpretative
approaches can be said to take form and in return shape the social institutions that
international courts and tribunals comprise. That is, the framework of Community
of Practice entails the notion that any form of meaning and its subsequent reifications,
including, actual language use, are continually negotiated communally as a
result of social interaction and, hence, shape the social constellations in which such
interaction takes place accordingly.

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• International Courts and Tribunals and Their Linguistic Practices: A Communities of Practice Approach