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Page Number: 11.0

8 

GE ENERGY POWER CONVERSION FRANCE SAS 
v. OUTOKUMPU STAINLESS USA, LLC 
Opinion of the Court 

agreement among sovereign powers,’ we have also consid-
ered as ‘aids to its interpretation’ the negotiation and draft-
ing history of the treaty as well as ‘the postratification un-
derstanding’ of signatory nations.”  Medellín, 552 U. S., at 
507 (quoting Zicherman v. Korean Air Lines Co., 516 U. S. 
217, 226 (1996)).  These aids confirm our interpretation of
the Convention’s text. 

1 
Our precedents have looked to the “negotiating and draft-
ing history” of a treaty as an aid in determining the shared
understanding of the treaty.  Id., at 226.  Invoking this in-
terpretive  aid,  Outokumpu  argues  that  the  Convention’s
drafting  history  establishes  a  “rule  of  consent”  that  “dis-
place[s] varying local laws.”  Brief for Respondents 27.  We 
are unpersuaded.  For one, nothing in the text of the Con-
vention imposes a “rule of consent” that displaces domestic 
law—let  alone  a  rule  that  allows  some  domestic-law  doc-
trines  and  not  others,  as  Outokumpu  proposes.    The  only 
time the Convention uses the word “consent” is in Article 
X(3),  which  addresses  ratification  and  accession  proce-
dures.  Moreover, the statements relied on by Outokumpu 
do  not  address  the  specific  question  whether  the  Conven-
tion  prohibits  the  application  of  domestic  law  that  would 
allow nonsignatories to compel arbitration.  Cherry-picked 
“generalization[s]”  from  the  negotiating  and  drafting  his-
tory cannot be used to create a rule that finds no support in 
the treaty’s text.  Zicherman, 516 U. S., at 227.  

To the extent the drafting history sheds any light on the
meaning of the Convention, it shows only that the drafters
sought  to  impose  baseline  requirements  on  contracting 
states.  As this Court has recognized, “[i]n their discussion
of  [Article  II],  the  delegates  to  the  Convention  voiced  fre-
quent concern that courts of signatory countries . . . should 
not be permitted to decline enforcement of such agreements
on the basis of parochial views of their desirability or in a