Multilingualism In International Law And Institutions

NAFTA: Law & Business Review of the Americas provides a medium for understanding & implementing NAFTA. It emphasizes the legal aspects of NAFTA & doing business in the Americas. Coverage also includes the expansion & growth of NAFTA, & the overall impact (business, financial, economic, legal) upon the current three signatories & upon other interested countries in Latin America & elsewhere in the world. The journal is divided into three main sections: (I) Articles; (II) Implementation, covering the way that the United States, Canada, & Mexico are implementing NAFTA; & (III) Beyond NAFTA, which considers the developments occurring elsewhere in Latin & Central America, the Caribbean, & Europe. Topics of particular concern to this journal include free trade, direct investment, licensing, finance, taxation, litigation & dispute resolution, & organizational aspects of NAFTA. Besides the technical, legal pieces, the journal includes various policy oriented articles, economic pieces, & business strategy articles. NAFTA: Law & Business Review of the Americas achieves a unique balance in its coverage between practical & policy implications of NAFTA, covering both matters of immediate interest as well as those relating to reform of legal, business, economic, social, & political structures in the Western world. This approach makes it a valuable resource for both practitioners & academics in the field.

As European lawyers dealing with cross-border issues quickly learn, the terms contract, contrat, and contratto signify three very different legal concepts. This illustration highlights the importance of studying the relationships between language and law, particularly in the context of strong pressure from the European Community to harmonise the laws of the Member States a process which appears difficult, if not impossible, unless there is an understanding of the profound differences which exist between the various legal systems, and the development of a common European legal language from the 21 official languages now a feature of the European Union. This admirable collection of essays brings together the work of practitioners and scholars in three fields pertinent to this endeavour: representatives of Community institutions who are involved in drafting, translating, and interpreting multilingual texts; jurists and comparative lawyers from both civil law and common law systems; and researchers in linguistics and language issues. Among the many relevant matters they discuss are the following: terminologies of rights and remedies; the role of the European Court of Justice as interpreter; multilingualism in parliamentary practice; the role of the European Commissions legal revisers; and translation at the European Court of Justice. The essays were originally presented as papers at a conference held in Como in April 2005, organised by the Faculty of Law of the University of Insubria together with the Centro Interuniversitario di Ricerca in Diritto Comparato (Interuniversity Centre for Research in Comparative Law) set up by the Universities of Milan, Bologna and Insubria. This event took place in the context of a research project co-financed by the University of Insubria and the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research. The particular objective of the conference was to make a comparison between the day-to-day working requirements within the Community institutions, each with its own particular needs, and the longer-term analysis which the academic world could bring to bear on the problems of the translatability of legal terms. As the first in-depth appraisal of this crucial matter, this book cannot fail to find interested readers among all the branches of European law, practitioners and scholars, local and international. It is sure to be a highly valuable resource for many years to come.

Language carries more than meanings; language conveys a means of conceiving the world. In this sense, national legal systems expressed through national languages organize the Law based on their own understanding of reality. International Law becomes, in this context, the meeting point where different legal cultures and different views of world intersect. The diversity of languages and legal systems can enrich the possibilities of understanding and developing international law, but it can also represent an instability and unsafety factor to the international scenario. This multilegal-system and multilingual scenario adds to the complexity of international law and poses new challenges. One of them is legal translation, which is a field of knowledge and professional skill that has not been the subject of theoretical thinking on the part of legal scholars. How to negotiate, draft or interpret an international treaty that mirrors what the parties, – who belong to different legal cultures and who, on many occasions, speak different mother tongues – ,want or wanted to say? By analyzing the decision-making process and the legal discourse adopted by the WTO’s Appellate Body, this book highlights the active role of language in diplomatic negotiations and in interpreting international law. In addition, it also shows that the debate on the effectiveness and legitimacy of International Law cannot be separated from the linguistic issue.

An investigation into international law and language policy, this book uses critical analysis to conduct an examination of the aspects of international law which affect language use. It uncovers the conceptual framework which underpins international law on language, addressing the constitution of a 'just' language policy from a legal perspective.

International law is usually communicated in more than one language and reflects common norms that lawyers and adjudicators across national legal cultures agree on and develop together. As a result, the negotiation of the wording and meaning of international legislative texts is an integral part of legal interpretation in international law. This book sheds light on that essential interpretation process. Language and Legal Interpretation in International Law treats the subject from the perspective of recent legal and linguistic theories of meaning. Anne Lise Kjær and Joanna Lam bring together internationally renowned experts to provide strong theoretical and practical foundations for the study of legal interpretation in such fields as human rights law, international trade, investment and commercial law, EU law, and international criminal law. The volume explains how the positivist tradition--in which interpretation is understood as an automatic process by which judges simply apply the text of legislative instruments to specific fact situations--cannot be upheld in an era of pragmatic and cognitive meaning theories. Those theories instead focus on the context of interpretation and on the interpreter as a co-producer of meaning. Through a collection of thoroughly researched and timely essays, this book explores the linguistically and culturally diversified world of meaning-making in international law.

This volume provides a state-of-the-art overview of institutional translation issues related to the development of international law and policies for supranational integration and governance. These issues are explored from various angles in selected papers by guest specialists and findings of a large-scale research project led by the editor. Focus is placed on key methodological and policy aspects of legal communication and translation quality in a variety of institutional settings, including several comparative studies of the United Nations and European Union institutions. The first book of its kind on institutional translation with a focus on quality of legal communication, this work offers a unique combination of perspectives drawn together through a multilayered examination of methods (e.g. corpus analysis, comparative law for translation and terminological analysis), skills and working procedures. The chapters are organized into three sections: (1) contemporary issues and methods; (2) translation quality in law- and policy-making and implementation; and (3) translation and multilingual case-law.

This volume provides a state-of-the-art overview of institutional translation issues related to the development of international law and policies for supranational integration and governance. These issues are explored from various angles in selected papers by guest specialists and findings of a large-scale research project led by the editor. Focus is placed on key methodological and policy aspects of legal communication and translation quality in a variety of institutional settings, including several comparative studies of the United Nations and European Union institutions. The first book of its kind on institutional translation with a focus on quality of legal communication, this work offers a unique combination of perspectives drawn together through a multilayered examination of methods (e.g. corpus analysis, comparative law for translation and terminological analysis), skills and working procedures. The chapters are organized into three sections: (1) contemporary issues and methods; (2) translation quality in law- and policy-making and implementation; and (3) translation and multilingual case-law.

This book offers a comparative analysis of the institutional law of public international organizations, covering issues such as membership, institutional structure, decisions and decision-making, legal status, privileges and immunities. It has been designed to appeal to both academics and practitioners.