International and supranational law in translation: from multilingual lawmaking to adjudication

Abstract

This paper analyses the defining features of legal translation in the development of international and supranational law, taking a comparative approach between different organisations, particularly the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the European Union and their respective adjudicative bodies. The scope and communicative conditions of legal translation in such settings are first described, including processes of lawmaking, law application and adjudication. In the legal contextualisation of translational action, emphasis is placed on the interconnection between different sources of law, the hybridity of legal texts and discourses, and the interplay between international and national levels of rulemaking and enforcement. The challenges encountered by the translator in the search for maximum accuracy are then reviewed with a focus on terminological problems, quality assurance and ambiguity. Finally, the examination of linguistic concordance in adjudication procedures further highlights the special contribution of legal translators to the functioning of each international or supranational legal order, and recommendations are made to better acknowledge and benefit from this contribution.

Terminological hybridity in institutional legal translation

“…As mentioned above, the LETRINT project aims to provide empirical data on the scope and features of institutional legal translation, overcoming the limitations of previous research on specific contexts or genres, most typically legislation. To this end, based on the legal contextualization of supranational and intergovernmental institutional missions and multilingual text production, three central legal functional categories were used as common pillars for the selection of settings and genres representative of institutional legal discourses and translation: law-and policy-making, compliance monitoring and adjudication (Prieto Ramos 2014a. The three organizations selected are considered exemplars of these legal functions and of the translation of international legal texts: the UN as the main umbrella intergovernmental organization, including its International Court of Justice (ICJ); the WTO, a specialized organization that deals with a wide range of trade-related rules and settles disputes regarding their application; and the four main institutions of the EU, the most important supranational organization in the world (the European Commission, the European Parliament, the Council of the EU and the CJEU).…”

Translation at International Organizations

“…In Legal Translation Studies, Šarčević (1997) and Cao (2007), among others, focus on international lawmaking instruments when addressing institutional legal contexts, in line with the priority attention devoted to legislative genres within the field. From a legal perspective, however, other key functions often neglected in Translation Studies account for significant volumes of multilingual text production, most notably, compliance monitoring and adjudication, including both contentious and advisory proceedings (Prieto Ramos, 2014).…”

Building representative multi-genre corpora for legal and institutional translation research

“…The first project aim was to map the scope of legal translation in international institutional settings. This entailed a massive, all-inclusive compilation of texts (the LINST corpora set) from three institutional settings where translation is instrumental in three key processes of multilingual text production from a legal perspective (law-making, implementation monitoring and adjudication), as identified in a preliminary study (Prieto Ramos 2014). The three settings selected are: the United Nations (UN), as the main umbrella intergovernmental organization, including its International Court of Justice (ICJ); the World Trade Organization (WTO), a specialized organization dealing with a broad range of trade-related issues, including regulatory, economic and technical aspects, as well as playing a dynamic dispute settlement role through its panels and Appellate Body; and the four main institutions of the European Union (EU), the world's most important supranational legal order (the European Commission, the European Parliament, the Council of the EU and the Court of Justice of the EU [CJEU]).…”