Lost in Translation: Writing treaties in two languages can lead to problems
historytoday.com
historytoday.com
From case C-336/03 (easyCar), section 25: "That interpretation is expressly supported by several language versions of Article 3(2) of the directive, namely the German, Italian and Swedish versions, which mention, respectively, ‘Dienstleistungen in den Bereichen … Beförderung’ (‘services in the transport sector’), ‘servizi relativi … ai trasporti’ (‘services relating to transport’) and ‘tjänster som avser … transport’ (‘services which concern transport’). "
Instances of this are a bit hard to find, since they usually are just one aspect of a larger argument, but they do happen.
"As regards the wording of Article 2(n) of the Dublin III Regulation, a purely textual analysis of the notion of ‘defined by law’ cannot determine whether case-law or a consistent administrative practice are capable of coming within that concept. In the different language versions of that regulation, the term equivalent to the term ‘loi (legislation)’ has a different scope. Thus, the wording used, for example, in the English-, Polish- and Slovak-language versions is similar to the concept of ‘droit (law in the general sense’), which can have a wider scope than ‘loi (legislation)’. Certain other versions, for example, the Bulgarian-, Spanish-, Czech-, German- and French-language versions, have a more restrictive scope.
32 Where the various language versions differ, the scope of the provision in question cannot be determined on the basis of an interpretation which is exclusively textual, but must be interpreted by reference to the purpose and general scheme of the rules of which it forms part (judgment of 26 May 2016, Envirotec Denmark, C‑550/14, EU:C:2016:354, paragraph 28 and the case-law cited)."
As already mentioned this is often just one part of a bigger ruling and the translations are often good enough so that it's not necessary to dissect the whole text like this.
By the way: I think it's an interesting challenge to translate the Treaties (and regulations etc). You don't want to have too much divergence between the different language versions but sometimes it can be very difficult to translate something exactly without using a lot of words.
One tactic that is used in European law in this regard is to start the regulation with a preamble "definition" section (similar to writing a program) where you define all the important words/phrases.
The same problem has to be solved in countries with more than one official language. In Ireland, the Irish-language version of a law takes precedence. This is a little awkward in theory since parliamentarians, civil servants, judges and lawyers overwhelmingly do not speak Irish to a sufficient level to draft, debate or interpret the law, and laws often exist for years before anyone gets around to translating them and thereby creating the "definitive version". But in practice, the legal system generally works.
In addition, I can present the case of France, where judges must disregard laws that contradict treaties (the hierarchy of norms being Constitution > Treaties > Laws > Executive orders). Therefore treaties, even with no national law to implement them, have a direct effects on the law.
Once a treaty enters into effect, a nation is bound by the terms of the treaty even if they do not have implementing laws. However, in many cases treaties don't have any consequences if signatories don't pass implementing laws (see, e.g, the Kyoto Protocol).
Lawyer here — very few of us know more Latin than the odd artifact such as ejusdem generis or contra proferentem, which occasionally are relevant to contract interpretation. And those of us of a certain age who grew up Catholic will remember bits and pieces of the old Latin Mass. Otherwise, Latin is probably as dead to lawyers as to anyone else.
English is now the global lingua franca; while I used to be a grammar vigilante, not long ago it occurred to me that in the linguistic "marketplace," if we native speakers want English to outcompete, e.g., Mandarin or Spanish, we need to be willing to let the language evolve so that it's easier for non-native speakers to learn and use confidently.
What programmers consider rigorous testing is literally just automated, predetermined situations that often have little resemblance to the ways end users actually use (and break) the software.
Programmers want rigid requirements, because that makes their job easier. Indeed, it does their real job for them. If we had a really rigid way of writing specs, you'd just write a compiler for it. The real job of a programmer is precisely about playing intermediary between the true rigor of the computer and the pseudo-rigor of requirements.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lojban
I wonder if the cost of having people learn to use a logical engineered language is greater or less than than the cost of hashing out ambiguities in other languages later.
We can now have many professional translators work on the same documents. It's not like we have to copy treaties manually, go on a months-long journey by boat, horse or foot just to get a second opinion on a translation.
That's just 25 years before WW1.
This is inaccurate. « Des territoires » would be more accurately translated as 'some territories' or just 'territories', the author is thinking of « les territoires ».
> Retrait des forces armées israéliennes des territoires occupés lors du récent conflit.
In this context, "des" means "de les". It is indeed a definite article.
It's clear in the context of a good-faith negotiation that Israel wasn't being given the option to withdraw from one square metre and keep the rest. But the language gives some plausible deniability to their supporters.
This is how it was phrased:
>(i) Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict;
any native enlgish speaker can read the declaration and see from the contest that it clear that all territories taken during the war are meant.
The Israelis came up with this facetious excuse to try to encroach on more land.
indeed, when one says "Dogs must be kept on the lead near ponds in the park."
it does not mean, for any sane person that some dogs shouldn't be kept on the lead near ponds in the park.
Also:
"it is an accepted rule that the various language versions must be considered together, with the ambiguities of one version elucidated by the other"
Plus, the reason that Israel must give back the territory is the prohibition of acquiring land by force.
If you can't acquire land by force. you can't acquire any land by force. it's illogical for the rule to only apply on some but not all land taken by force.