Soft Law as a distinct subtype of International Legal Discourse: On the issue of differentiation in the linguistic aspect

Abstract

The article analyzes the discourse of international soft law from the perspective of its structural, communicative, modal, lexico-semantic, and syntactic features that differentiate these quasi-legal texts from universally binding hard law. The goal of the research is to identify the linguistic and communicative parameters of soft law discourse as a distinct subtype within the realm of international legal discourse. It is found that linguistic parameters of soft law include the use of passive constructions, impersonal sentences, elaborate hedges, and the use of verbs with semantics of recommendation, desirability, and declaration, introducing legal texts. In the position of the phrasal subject, names of objects or action goals are used instead of designations of participating states. These linguistic means realize the modality of recommendation, desirability, permissiveness, and possibility, as opposed to the modality of obligation characteristic of hard law texts. The communicative parameters of soft law discourse encompass the specificity of communicative purpose and communicative structure. The communicative purpose is polycomponential, comprising an invariant component – the recommendation of coordinated rules of international conduct, and variant strategies: interpretation of norms of international law, identification of solidarity regarding states' intentions to act in a unified direction, and preparation of future documents with mandatory legal force. From the perspective of communicative structure, soft law discourse is structured through both linear and interactive communicative moves. The typical linear structure correlates with the substantive-compositional organization of soft law text and includes five components – communicative moves: Adoption, Justification, Definition of key terms, Establishment of recommended normative rules and scope of application, and means of enforcement as an optional component. The interactive structure pertains to the qualification of normative expressions based on the criterion of the function attributed to the stated norm or its components, such as clarification, commentary, reservations, etc. For texts of international soft law, two-component interactive moves are typical, where preceding moves or a series of moves contain various justifications for why the subsequent normative provision is necessary. A perspective for future research involves differentiating the genres of soft law from a linguistic perspective.