Obscurity and Clarity in the Law

Anne Wagner, is an Associate Professor in Applied Linguistics., Université du Littoral Côte d'Opale, France and Sophie Cacciaguidi-Fahy is a lecturer in law at the National University of Ireland, Galway

Contents: Foreword; Introduction: the chiaroscuro of legal language, Sophie Cacciaguidi-Fahy and Anne Wagner; Part 1 Crossroads Between Law and Language: The ambiguous principle of the clarity of the law, Alexandre Flückiger; Objectivity and subjectivity in interpretation, James Kessler; Rules and statements, Louis E. Wolcher; Unravelling the legislator's tapestry: judicial needlework on encroachment cases, Anne-Françoise Debruche; Customising the model law on international commercial arbitration, Maurizio Gotti; Is the Chinese legal language more ambiguous and vaguer? Deborah Cao. Part 2 An International Perspective: Conceptual and textual structure in legislative texts, Andreas Lötscher; Finland makes its statutes intelligible: good intentions and practicalities, Aino Piehl; The Swedish approach to clear legislation and clear official texts, Barbro Ehrenberg-Sundin; What, how, when and why - making laws easier to understand by using examples and notes, Ben Piper; The illusion of clarity - a critique of 'pure' clarity using examples drawn from judicial interpretations of the Constitution of the United States, M. Douglass Bellis; Between obscurity and clarity in Nigerian legal discourse: aspects of language use in selected written texts, Tunde Opeibi; Bibliography; Index.