This article analyzes the everyday interpretive practices of corporations and bureaucrats that shape the meaning and force of international economic law. To understand how common practices such as public consultation submissions, corporate threat letters, and external legal assistance influence regulators’ understanding of their “legally available” policy space, we study the contested introduction of a pioneering nutrition labeling regulation in Chile. The transnational food industry powerfully challenged the regulation’s legality under World Trade Organization law. But Chilean health bureaucrats, in coordination with segments of the country’s legally highly competent economic bureaucracy, effectively defended the legality of their proposed regulatory measure. Drawing on data from freedom-of-information requests and in-depth interviews, the article argues that the outcomes of such interpretive contests are substantially shaped by participants’ knowledge of the entitlements created by international economic law and thus by the international legal expertise they have access to. This often but not always puts transnational corporations at an advantage over national regulators in the strategic interpretation of international economic law.

中文翻译：

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国际经济法解释者：公司和官僚争夺智利营养标签

本文分析了塑造国际经济法意义和效力的公司和官僚的日常解释实践。为了解公众咨询提交、企业威胁信函和外部法律援助等常见做法如何影响监管机构对其“合法可用”政策空间的理解，我们研究了智利开创性营养标签法规的引入争议。跨国食品工业有力地挑战了该法规在世界贸易组织法律下的合法性。但智利卫生官僚与该国具有高度法律能力的经济官僚部门协调，有效地捍卫了他们提议的监管措施的合法性。利用来自信息自由请求和深度访谈的数据，文章认为，此类解释竞赛的结果在很大程度上取决于参与者对国际经济法所创造的权利的了解，从而取决于他们获得的国际法律专业知识。这通常但并不总是使跨国公司在国际经济法的战略解释中比国家监管机构更有优势。