Legal Integration and Language Diversity

Rethinking Translation in EU Lawmaking

C.J.W. Baaij

Oxford Studies in Language and Law

Introduces the first comprehensive quantitative analysis of the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, spanning 50 years, focusing on interpreting and solving discrepancies between language versions of EU legislation
Integrates a variety of analytic methods and gathers data from both policy document analyses, interviews, and quantitative and qualitative examination of the EU's Institutional Multilingualism
Builds a normative theoretical framework from legal translation studies and comparative law, general translation theory and language philosophy, and European studies
Proposes three EU policy changes that question mainstream thinking, from both political and theoretical vantage points
Argues that Brexit provides an additional reason in favor of rather than against recognizing English as the primary official language of the EU

Legal Integration and Language Diversity

Rethinking Translation in EU Lawmaking

C.J.W. Baaij

Oxford Studies in Language and Law

Description

How can the European Union create laws that are uniform in a multitude of languages? Specifically, how can it attain both legal integration and language diversity simultaneously, without the latter compromising the former? C.J.W. Baaij argues that the answer lies in the domain of translation. A uniform interpretation and application of EU law begins with the ways in which translators and jurist-linguists of the EU legislative bodies translate the original legislative draft texts into the various language versions.
In the European Union, law and language are inherently connected. The EU pursues legal integration, i.e. the incremental harmonization and unification of its Member States' laws, for the purpose of reducing national regulatory differences between Member States. However, in its commitment to the diversity of European languages, its legislative institutions enact legislative instruments in 24 languages. Language Diversity and Legal Integration assesses these seemingly incompatible policy objectives and contemporary translation practices in the EU legislative procedure, and proposes an alternative, source-oriented approach that better serves EU policy objectives. Contrary to the orthodox view in academic literature and to the current policies of the EU, this book suggests that the English language version should serve as the original and only authentic legislative text. Translation into the other language versions should furthermore avoid prioritizing clarity and fluency over syntactic correspondence and employ neologisms for distinctly EU legal concepts.
Ultimately, Baaij provides practical solutions to the conflict between the equality of all language versions, and the need for uniform interpretation and application of EU law.

Legal Integration and Language Diversity

Rethinking Translation in EU Lawmaking

C.J.W. Baaij

Oxford Studies in Language and Law

1 Introduction
2 Articulating the Task of EU Translation
3 Formalizing the Primacy of English
4 The Mixed Approach of Current EU Translation
5 Considering a Source-Oriented Alternative
6 The Implementation and Its Challenges
7 Summary and Conclusions
Annex I: Language Cases (1960-2010)
Annex II: Anonymized Table of Interviews

Legal Integration and Language Diversity

Rethinking Translation in EU Lawmaking

C.J.W. Baaij

Oxford Studies in Language and Law

Author Information

C.J.W. Baaij, J.S.D. candidate, Yale University

C.J.W. Baaij is a J.S.D. candidate at Yale Law School. Previously, he was Assistant Professor at Amsterdam Law School, where he taught contract law, civil procedure, and legal theory. There, he also obtained his Ph.D. degree, cum laude, for his research on legal integration and language diversity, parts of which he conducted as a Fulbright Scholar at Columbia Law School.

Legal Integration and Language Diversity

Rethinking Translation in EU Lawmaking

C.J.W. Baaij

Oxford Studies in Language and Law

Reviews and Awards

"C.J.W. Baaij offers a clear overview of the challenges entailed by multilingual law-making in the EU, and presents and argues persuasively for a novel (and provocative) solution. This is an important text for everyone who works on EU law." - Brian H. Bix, Frederick W. Thomas Professor of Law and Philosophy, University of Minnesota

"C.J.W. Baaij addresses a highly topical issue in contemporary research on law and language in the European Union and does so in a convincingly interdisciplinary manner. By highlighting source-oriented translation as the best strategic choice to be made by EU translators, Baaij breaks with the dominant contemporary paradigm within translation studies, which almost exclusively favors target-oriented translation. It is welcome to search for alternative strategies to cope both practically and theoretically with the conflict between formal EU multilingualism and the equality of all language versions on the one hand and the need for uniform interpretation and application of EU law on the other hand." - Anne Lise Kjaer, Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen

"I find this book refreshing, thoroughly innovative, and original. Concisely written, it is a stimulating and important contribution to the current literature on both institutional translation and EU institutions." - Karen McAuliffe, Reader in Law and Birmingham Fellow, University of Birmingham