Years ago, when I was drafting documents for a lawsuit that I had started on my own and was carrying out on my own, I contacted a local lawyer to ask him about a term. (Well, technically, he was in Fareham, I think.) He didn’t understand why I was making such a fuss about one word.
Having worked at top law firm Clifford Chance (while also working at VU University and starting my small business and convening a conference session in Boston), where we drafted and printed and edited and printed and edited and printed and edited and edited and faxed and edited and edited agreements that were usually around one hundred pages, I knew that even a comma can make a crucial difference, and as I wasn’t dealing with small-time solicitors but with the lawyers for insurance companies (and a London-based barrister), I couldn’t afford to make a mistake that might accidentally undermine the point that I wanted to make. I wanted to avoid any ambivalence.
For those of you who think that I am exaggerating, read this article about how a single comma is deciding over the fate of so many humans:
What the ICJ should have written is the following.
Instead of writing that Israel should
“Immediately halt its military offensive, and any other action in the Rafah governorate, which may inflict on the Palestinian group in Gaza conditions of life that could bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”
The ICJ should have written that Israel should
a) Immediately halt its military offensive; and
b) Immediately halt any other action in the Rafah governorate, which may inflict on the Palestinian group in Gaza conditions of life that could bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.
Why didn’t it?
Time to look into that ruling: https://static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics/documenttools/95964284e55d5c79/b0c539e2-full.pdf
Okay. It was definitely meant in the latter sense is my first impression after having taken a look, so this was sloppy writing.
