Translations

If you are working in Foreign or International Law, you will, inevitably, have to deal with the issues of finding foreign laws, and then, perhaps, needing to translate what you find.  While you will hope to find your materials in English, this simply may not be possible for a variety of reason.

Websites can often be translated using various tools provided on the internet, however, use of such translations should be done with caution. First, translations are generally not official. Second, translations generally do not take into account the legal use of terms, nor are translations as culturally sensitive as needed for the practice of law. And, while websites may be translated, the documents found on them generally are not. (https://portfolio.du.edu/pc/communityport?uid=22123 ) (“Google Translate” will be the topic of another blog.)

More and more countries are recognizing the value of having their laws and other legal materials available in foreign languages. The example below is from Legifrance, the official portal of the French government. Translations of French legal texts are also available in Italian , Arabic , German , Spanish , and Chinese .

Some questions you may want to ask yourself before selecting a foreign country for a project are: Do I speak the language? Is the material I need available in translation, or in a language that I do speak? For instance, while you may not speak Slovak, you may speak German, and it is more likely that you will find Slovak materials translated into German than into English.

There are a few other things to consider. One generally finds that laws and other materials related to trade, business, or finance, etc., are more likely to be found in English while human rights materials may not be easily located, unless it is something very much in the news. One will also want to consider the type of legal system(s) in the country and think about the need for case law or secondary sources. Links to foreign law sites may be somewhat unstable if you are not dealing with developed countries.

The Library of Congress Global Legal Information Network (GLIN) can be a good source of foreign laws. GLIN is a public database that contains official texts of laws, regulations, judicial decisions, etc., contributed by various governmental agencies and international organizations. GLIN documents are contributed in their original languages, and each has a summary in English.

Written by Joan Policastri, Foreign,Comparative and International Law Librarian