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Abstract

As international organizations rely on translation to produce and enforce legal instruments in multiple languages, global law can be regarded as a network of translated texts. To shed light on the multilingual dimension of international and supranational law, this study presents an interdisciplinary mapping of legal genres in three representative settings: the UN, the WTO, the EU, and their respective adjudicative bodies. Genres are classified under three text typologies corresponding to three categories of legal procedures and text production: law-making, compliance monitoring and adjudication. The resulting taxonomies and their legal contextualization reveal important commonalities as regards the interconnection between legal text-types and functions, as well as differences that reflect the nature of each institutional legal system, including variations in the level of multilingualism. This mapping is considered a condition for further investigations into the scope and features of institutional legal translation, with the ultimate aim of improving its quality.

Keywords: institutional legal translation, international law, EU law, law-making, compliance monitoring, adjudication, legal genres, text typologies

How to Cite: Prieto-Ramos F, ‘Global Law as Translated Text: Mapping Institutional Legal Translation’ (2017) 22 Tilburg Law Review 185 DOI: http://doi.org/10.1163/22112596-02201009