7 ms·

Lost in Translation: Writing treaties in two languages can lead to problems

46 points by Thevet 7y ago

chki 7y ago
A prominent example of this is the Treaty establishing the European Union where every single one of the 20+ language versions is "Canon" and has to be used by the European Court of Justice. There are often judgements with paragraphs devoted to figuring out the hidden differences between certain wordings in different languages. Interestingly this can lead to problems but sometimes it also clears things up if one language is more precise than the others.
- tom_mellior 7y ago
  Interesting, can you link to some examples? I've read a few ECJ judgements in some high-profile cases, and I've never seen this.
  - Corazoor 7y ago
    https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:62003CJ0336&from=DE https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL... 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.
  - chki 7y ago
    For example in C-528/15 (http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&docid=188907&pageIndex=0&doclang=en&mode=req&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=588812 http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&doc...) "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.
- mrleiter 7y ago
  Yes, very correct. That is also the reason why the ECJ has autonomy over interpreting the words of treaties, regulations and so forth. An independent constructor of meaning in the EU.
dmurray 7y ago
This seems like a solved problem: agree at the time which translation takes precedence in the event of a dispute. Use a third language (historically French was the language of diplomacy, now English, but for modern treaties you could pick any major world language) if, as is likely, neither side likes the idea of the binding version being in the other side's language. 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.
- duxat_staglatz 7y ago
  Third party language implies that either citizens of country 1 must learn this third party language to the proficiency needed to understand legalese; or to both be expected to know, understand and apply the law but not be able to read it.
  - dmurray 7y ago
    Proficiency in another language is the minimum I expect of diplomats. It's not like every citizen has to speak it.
    - duxat_staglatz 7y ago
      Which is my second point: citizens will have to follow and vote on the law of their country, including international treaties, without understanding them since they are not written in their language.
      - pdpi 7y ago
        AIUI, a treaty is not law unto itself. Rather, the parties to a treaty will pass laws that implement said treaty.
Svip 7y ago
> In the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 242, the French text instructed Israel to withdraw from ‘des territoires’ (the territories) it occupied during the 1967 Six-Day War. The English text, however, merely read ‘territories’, removing the definite article and thus leaving ambiguous how much territory Israel should cede. This is inaccurate. « Des territoires » would be more accurately translated as 'some territories' or just 'territories', the author is thinking of « les territoires ».
- lovasoa 7y ago
  That is wrong. The french version stated: > 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.
  - Svip 7y ago
    With context it is clear. But the way the author takes « des territoires » out of context, makes it look like it's the indefinite article. They should have translated it to 'of the territories'.
    - IfOnlyYouKnew 7y ago
      Why not just concede that you were wrong? Even if, yes, the author could have made it a bit more difficult for you to be wrong?
      - microtherion 7y ago
        He's not really wrong. As a French speaker myself, seeing "from 'des territoires'" and a translation as a definite article was jarring, since the definite form of the article already contains the "from", so preceding the quote with the "from" strengthens the intuitive parse as an indefinite article.
  - dmurray 7y ago
    Isn't it ambiguous? I would translate "withdraw from territories" and "withdraw from the territories" the same way (edit: so does Google Translate). It's a failure by the translator who should have worded it "retrait...de tous les territoires" or "retrait...de certaines territoires" (withdrawal from all, or some of the territories) as appropriate. 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.
afterburner 7y ago
Made me think of the TNG episode with the Sheliak.
- D-Coder 7y ago
  When Muammar Gaddafi spoke at the United Nations.
afarrell 7y ago
As a software engineer who cares deeply about testing, I sometimes find myself wishing that there was a way to run a binding moot court on a law before it got ratified.
- tantalor 7y ago
  If it is binding then it not really moot is it?
  - afarrell 7y ago
    Sure. but "binding moot court" was the most concise way I could think of to say "A legal proceeding where you assume a certain set of facts are known, then argue how the law would apply to them, then a judgement is made which becomes binding precedent on how the law is interpreted unless the law is changed by the legislature to produce more clarity."
- jfengel 7y ago
  As a software engineer, I laugh bitterly every time a lawyer tells me that they are being rigorous in their interpretation of a law. Even when all the lawyers agree on interpretation, their notion of "rigor" bears no resemblance to the way a computer applies the term. A test engineer would have zero problem fuzz-testing a law into nonexistence.
  - gamblor956 7y ago
    To be fair, that's how most people feel when programmers tell people that they rigorously test their software. 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.
  - watwut 7y ago
    You should have seen developers rigorously implement requirements. Just saying.
jlg23 7y ago
The problems discussed in the article are not relevant anymore today: 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.
- JetSpiegel 7y ago
  The treaties mentioned on the article were signed in 1889 at the earliest. By that time, telegraph lines were already connection most nations on the world. That's just 25 years before WW1.
- Timpy 7y ago
  I don't think availability of documents was at all implied to be the issue. It's more about two actors arguing over semantics, but each actor has a different set of rules to make their case.
  - jlg23 7y ago
    Which one would not sign in a time where translations can be checked instantaneously by a legion of translators. You don't have to trust a single translation anymore, you have enough translators to discuss every possible way of misinterpretations before accepting a translation.
earthboundkid 7y ago
In Japan, the constitution was originally written by the Americans before being translated, and there are slight wording differences between the Japanese and English.
omgwtfbyobbq 7y ago
I'd be interested to see if anyone has attempted to write legal documents using a logical engineered language like Lojban. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lojban 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.
- dctoedt 7y ago
  There's a huge chicken-and-egg problem: Few people want to be the first mover in an area as dark and mysterious as "The Law" (I'm being sarcastic). Add to that, the capture of contract drafting by lawyers, many of whom prefer to write hard-to-understand legalese to try to keep the mystery going and to bolster their own employment prospects.

46 points by Thevet 7y ago

chki 7y ago

A prominent example of this is the Treaty establishing the European Union where every single one of the 20+ language versions is "Canon" and has to be used by the European Court of Justice. There are often judgements with paragraphs devoted to figuring out the hidden differences between certain wordings in different languages. Interestingly this can lead to problems but sometimes it also clears things up if one language is more precise than the others.

tom_mellior 7y ago
Interesting, can you link to some examples? I've read a few ECJ judgements in some high-profile cases, and I've never seen this.
- Corazoor 7y ago
  https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:62003CJ0336&from=DE https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL... 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.
- chki 7y ago
  For example in C-528/15 (http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&docid=188907&pageIndex=0&doclang=en&mode=req&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=588812 http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&doc...) "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.
mrleiter 7y ago
Yes, very correct. That is also the reason why the ECJ has autonomy over interpreting the words of treaties, regulations and so forth. An independent constructor of meaning in the EU.

dmurray 7y ago

This seems like a solved problem: agree at the time which translation takes precedence in the event of a dispute. Use a third language (historically French was the language of diplomacy, now English, but for modern treaties you could pick any major world language) if, as is likely, neither side likes the idea of the binding version being in the other side's language. 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.

duxat_staglatz 7y ago
Third party language implies that either citizens of country 1 must learn this third party language to the proficiency needed to understand legalese; or to both be expected to know, understand and apply the law but not be able to read it.
- dmurray 7y ago
  Proficiency in another language is the minimum I expect of diplomats. It's not like every citizen has to speak it.
  - duxat_staglatz 7y ago
    Which is my second point: citizens will have to follow and vote on the law of their country, including international treaties, without understanding them since they are not written in their language.
    - pdpi 7y ago
      AIUI, a treaty is not law unto itself. Rather, the parties to a treaty will pass laws that implement said treaty.

Svip 7y ago

> In the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 242, the French text instructed Israel to withdraw from ‘des territoires’ (the territories) it occupied during the 1967 Six-Day War. The English text, however, merely read ‘territories’, removing the definite article and thus leaving ambiguous how much territory Israel should cede. This is inaccurate. « Des territoires » would be more accurately translated as 'some territories' or just 'territories', the author is thinking of « les territoires ».

lovasoa 7y ago
That is wrong. The french version stated: > 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.
- Svip 7y ago
  With context it is clear. But the way the author takes « des territoires » out of context, makes it look like it's the indefinite article. They should have translated it to 'of the territories'.
  - IfOnlyYouKnew 7y ago
    Why not just concede that you were wrong? Even if, yes, the author could have made it a bit more difficult for you to be wrong?
    - microtherion 7y ago
      He's not really wrong. As a French speaker myself, seeing "from 'des territoires'" and a translation as a definite article was jarring, since the definite form of the article already contains the "from", so preceding the quote with the "from" strengthens the intuitive parse as an indefinite article.
- dmurray 7y ago
  Isn't it ambiguous? I would translate "withdraw from territories" and "withdraw from the territories" the same way (edit: so does Google Translate). It's a failure by the translator who should have worded it "retrait...de tous les territoires" or "retrait...de certaines territoires" (withdrawal from all, or some of the territories) as appropriate. 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.

afterburner 7y ago

Made me think of the TNG episode with the Sheliak.

D-Coder 7y ago
When Muammar Gaddafi spoke at the United Nations.

afarrell 7y ago

As a software engineer who cares deeply about testing, I sometimes find myself wishing that there was a way to run a binding moot court on a law before it got ratified.

tantalor 7y ago
If it is binding then it not really moot is it?
- afarrell 7y ago
  Sure. but "binding moot court" was the most concise way I could think of to say "A legal proceeding where you assume a certain set of facts are known, then argue how the law would apply to them, then a judgement is made which becomes binding precedent on how the law is interpreted unless the law is changed by the legislature to produce more clarity."
jfengel 7y ago
As a software engineer, I laugh bitterly every time a lawyer tells me that they are being rigorous in their interpretation of a law. Even when all the lawyers agree on interpretation, their notion of "rigor" bears no resemblance to the way a computer applies the term. A test engineer would have zero problem fuzz-testing a law into nonexistence.
- gamblor956 7y ago
  To be fair, that's how most people feel when programmers tell people that they rigorously test their software. 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.
- watwut 7y ago
  You should have seen developers rigorously implement requirements. Just saying.

jlg23 7y ago

The problems discussed in the article are not relevant anymore today: 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.

JetSpiegel 7y ago
The treaties mentioned on the article were signed in 1889 at the earliest. By that time, telegraph lines were already connection most nations on the world. That's just 25 years before WW1.
Timpy 7y ago
I don't think availability of documents was at all implied to be the issue. It's more about two actors arguing over semantics, but each actor has a different set of rules to make their case.
- jlg23 7y ago
  Which one would not sign in a time where translations can be checked instantaneously by a legion of translators. You don't have to trust a single translation anymore, you have enough translators to discuss every possible way of misinterpretations before accepting a translation.

earthboundkid 7y ago

In Japan, the constitution was originally written by the Americans before being translated, and there are slight wording differences between the Japanese and English.

omgwtfbyobbq 7y ago

I'd be interested to see if anyone has attempted to write legal documents using a logical engineered language like Lojban. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lojban 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.

dctoedt 7y ago
There's a huge chicken-and-egg problem: Few people want to be the first mover in an area as dark and mysterious as "The Law" (I'm being sarcastic). Add to that, the capture of contract drafting by lawyers, many of whom prefer to write hard-to-understand legalese to try to keep the mystery going and to bolster their own employment prospects.