Translating Legal Instruments

Translating Legal Instruments

Translating International Legal Instruments

In law there are a lot of words of which meaning can be interpreted in a number of ways by different people.This results in a lot of ambiguity.When "No vehicles allowed." is said, for example, does the vehicle mean any means of transportat or only wheeled vehicles?To solve the problems which may arise due to such ambiuity, ECJ examined different language versions of EU law, and found that some contries consider vehicles any means of transport , while others consider it only wheeled vehicles.The court held that vehicle must be interpreted as all means of transport.

For international or supranational bodies like UN and EU, translation of legal instruments is a special case due to the multilingual nature of the documents and instruments.All languages have their unique way of interpreting words as well as using different words to convey the same meaning, and this must be taken into notice.

International Instruments and Their Legal Status

Just like there are laws which regulate human behaviour, there are also laws which regulate the relationships of states with each other.Sources of international law are many, however international conventions and agreements are the most translated ones.These two types of converse are among the   binding instruments which are created and voluntarily agreed to by states to establish rights and obligations among themselves.Many different terms like "treaty", "agreement", "convention", "charter", "protocol", "covenant" and "accord" have been used to address instruments of similar nature.Although different legal instruments have different titles , the same international law applies to all of them.The fact that the same law is accepted by so many different states, and that the meaning of a term may differ   from state to state prevent the existence of precise terminology.Thus, depending on the severity of the circumstance using different terms for same concept may or may not matter.

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