Comparative Law and Language
type: channel
description: Comparative Law and Language (e-ISSN 2785-7417) is a scientific journal, open-access and peer-reviewed, which aims to enhance interest and scientific debate on the relationship between law and language, in and within different national and supranational legal systems, from a comparative perspective. The journal is published semi-annually by the University of Trento.
publisher: Università degli Studi di Trento
language: en
publication name: Comparative Law and Language
issn: 2785-7417
items: Editorial
items: Erika Arban, Maartje De Visser, Jeong-In Yun (eds.), “The Language of Comparative Constitutional Law: Questioning Hegemonies”, Hart, Oxford 2025
items: Bridging legal cultures
items: Readability, narrative time, and institutional authority
items: Emojis in law
items: Genealogies of the “rule of virtue” in Chinese law
items: The duty to compare language versions of EU law
items: “Dire la Giustizia: Lingue, Culture e Traduzioni del Diritto”
items: Legal Translation and Terminology
items: Normative and Ideological Coding in the Legal Register
items: The Dialogues of [Comparative] Law
items: Dante and the Methods of Comparative Law
items: The Intelligibility of Specialized Texts, as Illustrated by the French Court Expert’s Report
items: Book Review: “LEGISLEULAB der Europäischen Rechtslinguistik / LEGISLEULAB for the European Legal Linguistics 2020-2023”
items: The Application of Comparative Law Methods in the Legal Translation Process
items: The Luxembourgish Language Law and Policy
items: An Insight into Linguistic Rights Before the Courts and in Public Education in the United States of America
items: European States and Status of State Languages De Jure and De Facto
items: Rethinking Language Rights in the International Order
items: From the Paradigm of Interpretation to That of Translation
items: Enforcing Victims’ Language Rights
items: A Three-Step Strategy for Teaching Contract Drafting
items: The Deaf as a Linguistic Minority in Poland
items: Genocide in the Rome Statute
items: Book Review: “Introduction to Comparative Law, 2nd edition” by Jaakko Husa
items: Literature Review: The Language of the Juridification Process of Animal Law
items: Decoding Sign Language Legal Status

Editorial
type: item
description: Editorial to Comparative Law and Language, Vol. 5, No. 1, June 2026.
subject: Editorial
  topic: section
creator: Elena Ioriatti
rights: Copyright (c) 2026 Elena Ioriatti https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
date: 2026-07-03
publication date: 2026-07-03
starting page: I
ending page: II
doi: 10.15168/cll.v5i1.4172

Erika Arban, Maartje De Visser, Jeong-In Yun (eds.), “The Language of Comparative Constitutional Law: Questioning Hegemonies”, Hart, Oxford 2025
type: item
description: Book review of The Language of Comparative Constitutional Law: Questioning Hegemonies, edited by Erika Arban, Maartje De Visser, Jeong-In Yun and published in 2025 by Hart Publishing, Oxford (DOI: 10.5040/9781509983964).
subject: Events/Books
  topic: section
subject: Legal Linguistic Comparison
  topic: category
creator: Jan Engberg
rights: Copyright (c) 2026 Jan Engberg https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
date: 2026-07-03
publication date: 2026-07-03
starting page: 69
ending page: 71
doi: 10.15168/cll.v5i1.4170

Bridging legal cultures
type: item
description: The article focuses on the analysis of legal culture-specific words found in Crown Court criminal judgements as well as how the translation of such linguistic units may influence the outcome of a criminal trial. The main objective of the research is to demonstrate that the main linguistic problem posed by legal translations, particularly in criminal-related texts is the translation of legal culture-specific words, one of the few linguistic units in this field of which translations can fairly be considered subjective. In order to undergo the research, we have employed three main methods pertaining to qualitative research, amongst which an in-depth discourse analysis of a limited series of the most recent criminal judgements in English emitted by the Crown Court as far as the translation of legal culture-specific words in concerned and its indomitable impact on the decision-making process, but also content analysis and case study. The aim of this paper is to investigate whether automated translation is an adequate, acceptable and accurate choice in the legal translation of criminal law corpora, what are the main errors encountered and what advantages and the positive characteristics of this kind of translation in comparison with human translation. We shall also discuss the importance of acquiring comparative law knowledge in order to achieve adequate and accurate translation and argue according to this view, the role of the translator in the 21st century beyond post-editing. In order to achieve this objective, we set out a corpus-based investigation that analyses various renditions and translations of criminal judgements that focus on legal culture-bound words.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Legal Translation
  topic: category
subject: Legal Linguistic Comparison
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subject: Legal Linguistics
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creator: Alexandra Vinci
rights: Copyright (c) 2026 Alexandra Vinci https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
date: 2026-07-03
publication date: 2026-07-03
starting page: 54
ending page: 68
doi: 10.15168/cll.v5i1.4098

Readability, narrative time, and institutional authority
type: item
description: This essay examines jurisdictional authority at the intersection of legal philosophy, narrative theory, and the sociology of the legal field. Its central hypothesis is that law does not merely apply norms to facts available, but operates as an institutional form for composing the social world. It produces regimes of reading, orders temporalities, selects voices, attributes credibility, and stabilizes competing versions of reality. Judicial decision-making appears, from this perspective, as the result of operations of selection, hierarchy, montage, and rewriting that act upon documents, evidence, statements, and procedural rhythms. In this sense, procedure becomes a symbolic technology for ordering the visible, rather than a sequence of procedural acts. The conclusion argues that public legibility constitutes a decisive index of jurisdictional maturity when it makes such operations visible and contestable. It does not coincide with a naïve transparency of power, but with the criticizable exposure of the interpretive, temporal, and documentary passages through which authority transforms conflict into recognizable and reviewable decision.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Language Rights
  topic: category
subject: Legal Linguistics
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creator: Victor Hugo Agapito
rights: Copyright (c) 2026 Victor Hugo Agapito https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
date: 2026-07-03
publication date: 2026-07-03
starting page: 1
ending page: 14
doi: 10.15168/cll.v5i1.4076

Emojis in law
type: item
description: The rapid development of digital technologies is reshaping the ways in which people communicate, requiring legal systems to adapt accordingly. Among the most notable developments is the increasing use of emojis as a means of conveying meaning, intention, and emotion in digital interactions. Although the idea that courts may need to interpret emojis can appear surprising, it is ultimately a logical consequence of changing forms of communication. Law has never been static; throughout history, it has continuously adapted to technological and social transformations. The emergence of emojis therefore represents not a departure from established legal practice, but a new manifestation of an enduring challenge: ensuring that legal interpretation remains responsive to contemporary modes of expression. However, such adaptation is not without difficulties. The interpretation of emojis is often context-dependent and may vary across cultures, platforms, and individuals, creating uncertainty for legal analysis. Moreover, the absence of a uniform approach to emoji interpretation among courts and jurisdictions worldwide further complicates their legal treatment. This paper examines the growing legal significance of emojis and argues that, despite these challenges, their consideration within legal analysis reflects the broader capacity of law to evolve alongside technological innovation and societal change. Particular attention is given to such developments in Canada and the United States, whose case law provides valuable insight into the emerging legal treatment of emojis in contemporary communication.
subject: Articles
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subject: Legal Linguistic Comparison
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creator: Anne-Sophie Milard
rights: Copyright (c) 2026 Anne-Sophie Milard https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
date: 2026-07-03
publication date: 2026-07-03
starting page: 15
ending page: 27
doi: 10.15168/cll.v5i1.4034

Genealogies of the “rule of virtue” in Chinese law
type: item
description: This article examines the historical and contemporary meanings of the character 德 (dé) in Chinese legal and political thought, focusing on its role in the idea of 德治 (dézhì), or “rule of virtue.” Through linguistic, palaeographic, and conceptual analysis, it reconstructs the genealogy of 德 from its early appearances in Western Zhou bronze inscriptions to its development in classical Chinese philosophy and modern Chinese law. The article argues that 德 originally combined public, political, ritual, and moral dimensions, functioning as both a source of sovereign legitimacy and a practical standard of governance. In Confucian thought, 德 became a comprehensive ethical and pedagogical paradigm, closely linked to ritual order and social harmony. The article then explores how contemporary Chinese law, especially under Xi Jinping, has revived and transformed the rule of virtue by integrating moral standards into legal governance, Party supervision, civil law, company law, and oversight mechanisms. It suggests that this revival reflects both continuity with Chinese legal tradition and a politically oriented attempt to place morality under the interpretive authority of the Communist Party. Ultimately, the article shows how contemporary Chinese law challenges Western assumptions about the autonomy of law from morality and politics.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Legal Linguistic Comparison
  topic: category
subject: Legal Linguistics
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creator: Gianmatteo Sabatino
rights: Copyright (c) 2026 Gianmatteo Sabatino https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
date: 2026-07-03
publication date: 2026-07-03
starting page: 28
ending page: 38
doi: 10.15168/cll.v5i1.4004

The duty to compare language versions of EU law
type: item
description: In this article, I examine case law from the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to determine the extent to which natural and legal persons must consult different linguistic versions of EU law in order to ascertain their rights and obligations. Although EU law has equal legal force in all its versions, there are instances in which a linguistic comparison seems necessary. This occurs when a given language version differs from the others. This implies that absolute trust in a single language version read in isolation is not possible, and that a de facto duty to compare linguistic versions exists. This follows implicitly from landmark ECJ judgements, such as CILFIT (1982) and Consorzio (2021). However, in other scenarios relating to linguistic discrepancies, this duty does not seem to exist. When a specific language version is not officially published in the Official Journal of the EU, natural and legal persons are under no obligation to consult other language versions (Skoma-Lux judgment, 2007). Notably, in a recent judgment (On Air Media, 2025), the ECJ ruled on another such scenario. It confirmed that EU legal acts correcting a version of EU law in a specific language have retroactive effect; however, the principles of legal certainty and the protection of legitimate expectations must be respected. Regarding this, the ECJ explicitly ruled out a duty to compare language versions of EU law when the version in question appears clear. This article assesses the various scenarios. It argues that, for the sake of coherence and fairness, there should be no obligation for natural and legal persons to compare language versions. It also suggests that the role of national judges should be enhanced in this regard.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Language Rights
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creator: Stefaan Van der Jeught
rights: Copyright (c) 2026 Stefaan Van der Jeught https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
date: 2026-07-03
publication date: 2026-07-03
starting page: 39
ending page: 53
doi: 10.15168/cll.v5i1.3992

Editorial
type: item
description: Editorial to Comparative Law and Language, Vol. 4, No. 2, December 2025.
subject: Editorial
  topic: section
subject: Legal Translation
  topic: category
creator: Caterina Bergomi
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Caterina Bergomi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
date: 2025-12-30
publication date: 2025-12-30
starting page: I
ending page: I
doi: 10.15168/cll.v4i2.3854

“Dire la Giustizia: Lingue, Culture e Traduzioni del Diritto”
type: item
description: This contribution is dedicated to the conference Dire la Giustizia: lingue, culture e traduzioni del diritto, held on November 19, 2025 at the University of Milan.
subject: Events/Books
  topic: section
subject: Legal Translation
  topic: category
subject: Legal Linguistic Comparison
  topic: category
creator: Jan Engberg
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Jan Engberg https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
date: 2025-12-30
publication date: 2025-12-30
starting page: 79
ending page: 82
doi: 10.15168/cll.v4i2.3852

Legal Translation and Terminology
type: item
description: Legal translation is an area in which the implications of institutional multilingualism and the diversity of legal systems emerge with particular clarity. This contribution examines the evolution of translation models in multilingual national contexts and within the European Union, traditionally characterised by a bottom-up approach in the former and a top-down approach in the latter. The analysis of terminological tools and operational practices shows that, within the EU, a growing comparative sensitivity is developing, complementing – without replacing – the traditional model oriented towards linguistic uniformity. Drawing on examples from professional experience in the bilingual context of the Autonomous Province of Bolzano/Bozen and within EU institutions, the contribution highlights convergences and divergences in the ways terminological issues are addressed, revealing a dynamic and evolving landscape.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Legal Translation
  topic: category
subject: Legal Linguistic Comparison
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subject: Legal Linguistics
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creator: Francesca Bullo
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Francesca Bullo https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
date: 2025-12-30
publication date: 2025-12-30
starting page: 59
ending page: 78
doi: 10.15168/cll.v4i2.3834

Normative and Ideological Coding in the Legal Register
type: item
description: This paper proposes a methodological approach to the study of legal language, grounded in the framework developed by the Croatian and Yugoslav legal scholar Nikola Visković in his book Jezik prava (The Language of the Law), published in Zagreb in 1989. Visković approaches legal language from semiotic and communicative perspectives. We adapt his framework to examine nineteenth‑century Serbian legal texts dating from 1835 to 1898. Our starting assumption is that legal language is double‑coded: it operates simultaneously with a natural‑language code (in this case, the nineteenth‑century Serbian literary idiom) and with a distinct legal code. A second assumption distinguishes the legal norm as a deep, universal structure from the legal provision, which is its surface representation. This distinction enables us to identify various surface realizations of the basic if–then legal norm. The third assumption differentiates normative from ideological coding in legal texts: we contend that the basic if–then form can be reconstructed in every legal text, while what remains constitutes the ideological residue. This does not imply that ideological coding is absent from the underlying form of the legal norm, but rather that the basic legal norm exhibits a degree of universality across different legal language corpora. Nineteenth‑century Serbian legal texts provide a particularly clear illustration of these claims, especially those produced during the era of the Ustavobranitelji (literally, the Defenders of the Constitution). In that period, preambles were often lengthy and comprised both obligatory normative elements and motivational passages that were not required by the legal norm but encoded ideological, political, and cultural contextual information.
subject: Articles
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subject: Legal Linguistics
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creator: Jelena Pavlović Jovanović
creator: Milan Todorović
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Jelena Pavlović Jovanović, Milan Todorović https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
date: 2025-12-30
publication date: 2025-12-30
starting page: 1
ending page: 19
doi: 10.15168/cll.v4i2.3798

The Dialogues of [Comparative] Law
type: item
description: Law is forbidding, correcting, punishing, helping, restoring, rewarding. Law needs tools, of other disciplines too. Language [of law too] is a means of communication and of isolation (wanted or imposed). Expressing law, interpreting law, implementing law, exploiting law needs all sorts of language. Law and economics discover and uncover rational (though still often irrational) choices. Judicial decisions are political decisions, critical legal studies point out. Law is always influenced by politics. Politics can be benefactor and destructor. Rituals as expressions of living law may have double (or multiple) meaning. Law is always influenced by religion – either explicitly or implicitly. Convivencia in the same country of people of different religions and, accordingly, application of different laws of civil status (for example in Liban, in Greece, etc.) is a fact. First nations (in Latin America, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Caribbean, etc.) live together (not really, not always in an idoneous way) with former colonizers and immigrants. Is there a real Convivencia of laws, there (as most countries in Africa have almost managed to achieve), or primacy of one (central) law and exclusion of the others? In many countries, there are different rules for the same issues, according to the particular problems of the persons to whom they apply – hypothetically aiming at the same protection(?). Is it an opposite discrimination or just a means of organizing the way to live together? Co-existence, Com-petition, Com-paring, Con-vivencia: Harmony is feasible, is possible, is not alchemy, it respects and requires the different, in order to be a rich image of life.
subject: Articles
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subject: Legal Linguistic Comparison
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creator: Elina Moustaira
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Elina Moustaira https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
date: 2025-12-30
publication date: 2025-12-30
starting page: 20
ending page: 28
doi: 10.15168/cll.v4i2.3788

Dante and the Methods of Comparative Law
type: item
description: The origin of comparative law as a science is generally attributed to 1900, when Lambert and Saleilles organized the first International Conference of Comparative Law during the Paris World Expo. However, it is interesting to note that Dante, within his works, appears as a comparatist, albeit ante litteram. This emerges, in particular, in light of the use of comparative methods and techniques, with a particular reference to the text and the framework of the Divine Comedy, as well as the way he navigates his journey. In doing so, Dante highlights some key pillars of comparative law and its most topical issues, such as legal translation, the methods and purposes of comparative law, the relevance of law, and its applications of the conscious and/or unconscious influences of different cultural factors.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Legal Translation
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creator: Laura Maria Franciosi
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Laura Maria Franciosi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
date: 2025-12-30
publication date: 2025-12-30
starting page: 29
ending page: 39
doi: 10.15168/cll.v4i2.3794

The Intelligibility of Specialized Texts, as Illustrated by the French Court Expert’s Report
type: item
description: Court expert’s report is the final product of a subject matter analysis of cases under court proceedings. It is a specialized text intended to be used under specific context and by a range recipients involved in the relevant court proceedings. In order to interpret such reports its recipients need to have extensive knowledge, not only in the domain of culture, field-specific circumstances or practical expertise. Such composition of the competences necessary to adequately process a court expert’s report raises the question of its intelligibility that is considered to be conditioned by factors exceeding linguistic form alone. Specifically, the concept in question is to be discussed with reference to notions of comprehension and relevance. The theoretical part of this paper seeks to set relevant theoretical background that legitimizes the thesis under verification. The second part focuses on practical examples taken from authentic court expert’s reports. The discussion unveils the importance of the quality of linguistic expression when drawing up the court expert’s reports, bearing in mind the diversity of the agents involved in court proceedings, their diverse educational background and varied involvement in the procedural issues.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Legal Linguistics
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creator: Margarete Flöter-Durr
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Margarete Flöter-Durr https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
date: 2025-12-30
publication date: 2025-12-30
starting page: 40
ending page: 58
doi: 10.15168/cll.v4i2.3790

Editorial
type: item
description: Editorial to Comparative Law and Language, Vol. 4, No. 1, June 2025.
subject: Editorial
  topic: section
creator: Caterina Bergomi
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Caterina Bergomi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
date: 2025-06-23
publication date: 2025-06-23
starting page: I
ending page: II
doi: 10.15168/cll.v4i1.3580

Book Review: “LEGISLEULAB der Europäischen Rechtslinguistik / LEGISLEULAB for the European Legal Linguistics 2020-2023”
type: item
description: This book review discusses four volumes with almost identical names that were published between 2021 and 2024. They are all about the legal-linguistic analysis of EU texts and legislative procedures. While I find the topic of the volumes very interesting also for the readers of this journal, I was sceptical about the fact that they are all based on the same summer school sessions and document the work carried out during them. In my review, I will address the reasons for my scepticism, but also demonstrate why characteristics of the volumes mitigate it.
subject: Events/Books
  topic: section
subject: Legal Linguistic Comparison
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subject: Array
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creator: Jan Engberg
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Jan Engberg https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
date: 2025-06-23
publication date: 2025-06-23
starting page: 98
ending page: 100
doi: 10.15168/cll.v4i1.3548

The Application of Comparative Law Methods in the Legal Translation Process
type: item
description: This paper aims to provide an overview of contemporary comparative law methods and demonstrate their potential for use in legal translation. While it focuses on a theoretical framework for such applications (except for one practical example), it has been preceded by other studies in which the framework proposed was tested based on examples from Polish-English legal translation. The present paper is, in particular, intended to share some of the findings of the author’s research to date with a wider international audience. It needs to be noted that although numerous authors in the field of legal translation studies present the view that comparative law and legal translation are closely related, they usually do not offer a broader overview of comparative law methods or suggest ways in which these methods are supposed to be used by translators. When such references do occur, they mainly concern the traditional functional method without considering the more pluralistic approaches that have emerged in comparative law in the last three decades. The paper proposes to distinguish the general method and the specific methods of comparative law and points to possible ways of adapting them for legal translation purposes as part of a process named ‘translational comparative legal analysis’. It also suggests that translators and translation scholars should more often tap into comparative law methodology in search of solutions useful for legal translation purposes.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Legal Translation
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creator: Przemysław Kusik
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Przemysław Kusik https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
date: 2025-06-23
publication date: 2025-06-23
starting page: 33
ending page: 51
doi: 10.15168/cll.v4i1.3430

The Luxembourgish Language Law and Policy
type: item
description: This article examines language law and policy in the only EU Member State that has a trilingual official language policy in force throughout its territory. Under Luxembourg law, Luxembourgish is designated as the ‘national language’. French, on the other hand, is designated as the ‘legislative language’. In addition, Luxembourgish, French and German are the three ‘administrative and court languages’. The present study adopts a law in context approach, integrating the legal analysis of this unique language policy with an overview of the historical background and data on actual language use and practices. The main challenge of Luxembourg’s language policy is highlighted, namely finding a balance between national identity and social cohesion.
subject: Articles
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subject: Language Rights
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creator: Stefaan van der Jeught
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Stefaan van der Jeught https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
date: 2025-06-23
publication date: 2025-06-23
starting page: 70
ending page: 97
doi: 10.15168/cll.v4i1.3434

An Insight into Linguistic Rights Before the Courts and in Public Education in the United States of America
type: item
description: This article aims to give a deeper insight in the linguistic rights in the United States of America (United States or US). In particular, it will analyze how these rights are protected and reflect on its effectiveness. Linguistic rights are especially important in multilingual and multicultural societies. The United States are such a society. However, we will see that the United States are evolving more towards a monolingual society, or at least are intentionally trying to implement the use of a sole language in the public sphere, through various legal and other means. This article consists of three parts. First, it will give an overview of what linguistic rights are and discuss their importance. Furthermore, it will discuss why English is the predominant language in the country today and what other languages play an important role. Second, it will lay out how linguistic rights are enshrined in the legal sphere and how these are protected. In this part, the article will focus on the legal frameworks for such rights and will take a closer look at how such rights are protected before the United States courts (both at the state and federal level). Special attention is also placed on linguistic minorities and protections for Native languages. When looking at protections before the US courts, the article will draw upon relevant case law in the matter. Finally, the article will look at the protection of linguistic rights in public education. In doing so, it will again rely on relevant case law in that regard, as well as public policy and other instruments to bring about such protections. Again, here we will have a closer look at linguistic minorities and Native languages.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Language Rights
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creator: Loreno D’Angelo
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Loreno D’Angelo https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
date: 2025-06-23
publication date: 2025-06-23
starting page: 18
ending page: 32
doi: 10.15168/cll.v4i1.3439

European States and Status of State Languages De Jure and De Facto
type: item
description: This article deals with the issue of understanding the term ‘state language’ through the lens of the relationship between the concepts De Jure and De Facto. Based on their possible relationship which occurred at the constitutional level and practice of European states, I created four groups (De Jure and De Facto are the same, non De Jure but De Facto, transition group, and special cases of De Jure and De Facto). By using these four groups, I was able to categorize a research sample consisting of 42 European countries. This not only managed to portray the linguistic situation regarding state languages in Europe but also offered one of the supporting options for determining, within the framework of official language designation and language planning, which of the dominant languages in a country could truly be the state language. The main output of this article is thus a table that divides the 42 states into these four groups, containing data on the state language and its constitutional status for each state.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Legal Linguistic Comparison
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subject: Legal Linguistics
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creator: Barbora Tomečková
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Barbora Tomečková https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
date: 2025-06-23
publication date: 2025-06-23
starting page: 52
ending page: 69
doi: 10.15168/cll.v4i1.3447

Rethinking Language Rights in the International Order
type: item
description: In a world where mastery of the dominant language has become an implicit prerequisite for social and civic inclusion, linguistic rights remain relegated to the periphery of international law. Their partial recognition – often subordinated to other fundamental freedoms such as non-discrimination or freedom of expression – confines them to a derivative and residual status, reducing them to mere functional accessories of coexistence. Yet speaking one’s language is not a matter of identity privilege, but a fundamental human right – a right to existence, to memory, to dignity. Through a cross-analysis of migration policies, national and international jurisprudence, and regional normative frameworks, this paper interrogates the actual scope of the guarantees afforded to linguistic communities. It seeks to deconstruct the implicit hierarchy that pits so-called “universal” rights against so-called “cultural” rights, and highlights the exclusionary logics this dichotomy produces. The paper argues that linguistic rights must be conceived not as adaptive concessions, but as normative pillars in their own right – inseparable from freedom of expression, the right to a fair trial, and meaningful political participation. In contrast to functionalist readings, this paper calls for the reintegration of language into the central architecture of human rights: not merely as a communicative tool, but as a vehicle of recognition and democratic plurality.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Language Rights
  topic: category
subject: Legal Linguistics
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creator: Indira Boutier
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Indira Boutier https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
date: 2025-06-23
publication date: 2025-06-23
starting page: 1
ending page: 17
doi: 10.15168/cll.v4i1.3433

Editorial
type: item
description: Editorial to Comparative Law and Language, Vol. 3, No. 2, December 2024.
subject: Editorial
  topic: section
creator: Łucja Biel
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 Comparative Law and Language https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
date: 2024-12-20
publication date: 2024-12-20
starting page: I
ending page: I
doi: 10.15168/cll.v3i2.3351

From the Paradigm of Interpretation to That of Translation
type: item
description: The concepts of interpretation and translation offer the jurist a valuable lens through which to examine both the past and the current state of law. Although each of these disciplines has its own distinct relationship to law, together they reveal significant synergies and changes within the legal phenomenon. Although interpretation and translation share many similarities, they also differ in many respects: the essay focuses on some essential points of overlap and divergence between the two concepts, with the aim of reading interpretation and translation in the light of the deep innovations that characterise the current legal landscape.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Legal Translation
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subject: Array
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creator: Maria Rosaria Ferrarese
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 Comparative Law and Language https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
date: 2024-12-20
publication date: 2024-12-20
starting page: 70
ending page: 86
doi: 10.15168/cll.v3i2.3291

Enforcing Victims’ Language Rights
type: item
description: While the language rights of the accused in criminal proceedings conducted before national and international courts are well established, there are other participants of the proceedings whose linguistic participation must be ensured for the fulfilment of human rights requirements. This paper focuses on the language rights of victims before the ICC on the one hand, and the language services to enforce such rights on the other. These language services include in particular the recruitment and training of paraprofessional interpreters, as well as the necessary terminology work in the so-called situation languages.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Language Rights
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subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
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creator: Petra Lea Láncos
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 Comparative Law and Language https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
date: 2024-12-20
publication date: 2024-12-20
starting page: 58
ending page: 69
doi: 10.15168/cll.v3i2.3252

A Three-Step Strategy for Teaching Contract Drafting
type: item
description: The main purpose of this article is to provide a three-step strategy for teaching contract drafting. The first step focuses on the negotiation of a business deal and on understanding the needs and objectives of the contracting parties. The second step deals with the practical process of drafting a contract, looking at contract structure and types of contract clauses. Finally, the third step describes the jurilinguistic key features, which provide a linguistic frame to the agreement. Such a multifaceted approach enables teachers and students to picture the teaching process from a legal and jurilinguistic perspectives, as well as to consider contract drafting from the initial business deal and its negotiations to a range of details and specific text needed to be included in the written agreement. The set of legal documents selected for this paper is a corpus of five UK and five US sale and purchase agreements the subjects of which represent goods and services as well as share capital. Each step of the strategy includes a number of exercises that teachers can use with students for them to gain a better understanding of legal and linguistic aspects of contract drafting. The students mentioned in the paper include law students from universities in Paris, France, studying legal English and legal translation courses as well as practising lawyers who have to deal with contract drafting in English.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Legal Linguistics
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subject: Array
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subject: Array
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subject: Array
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creator: Elisabeth Staels
creator: Natasha Costello
creator: Anton Osminkin
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 Comparative Law and Language https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
date: 2024-12-20
publication date: 2024-12-20
starting page: 28
ending page: 57
doi: 10.15168/cll.v3i2.3176

The Deaf as a Linguistic Minority in Poland
type: item
description: The article aims to introduce the issue of Deaf language rights in Poland. It is a linguistic minority that derives its identity from deafness, and its culture is based on Polish Sign Language. The Deaf linguistic minority, both in the world and in Poland, face discrimination because of their language. Therefore, we analyze the relationship between deafness and disability, outline the complexities of Deaf/Deaf community as a linguistic minority, and then contextualize Deafness and Polish Sign Language within a legal framework. An analysis of the laws and initiatives undertaken by the Deaf community in Poland shows that the current status of the Deaf in Poland is still far from satisfactory with regard to their access to goods, services and full enjoyment of their civil rights due to challenges in accessing information. An analysis of initiatives undertaken by the Deaf shows that there is a growing awareness among the Deaf community of their civil rights. These activities are inspired by the changes taking place in other countries and the initiatives of international organizations for the Deaf.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Language Rights
  topic: category
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
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subject: Array
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subject: Array
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creator: Dorota Lis-Staranowicz
creator: Urszula Bartnikowska
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 Comparative Law and Language https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
date: 2025-01-15
publication date: 2025-01-15
starting page: 15
ending page: 27
doi: 10.15168/cll.v3i2.3028

Genocide in the Rome Statute
type: item
description: In 1972, Arabic became one of the five official languages of the United Nations. Documents produced by this international organization began to be translated into Arabic, adopting the terminological and conceptual framework established by the UN, which was later also utilized by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Although Arabic has historically been closely tied to religious and tribal references, it has now become an integral part of international law, which is grounded in a positive and universal paradigm. Consequently, the Arabic terms proposed as translations for concepts and principles of international law have gradually detached themselves from their semantic memory, religious referents, and tribal reminiscences. To illustrate this process of emancipation, this study examines the Arabic equivalent of the term genocide by analyzing its etymological origins, pragmatic functions, and limitations within the classical and modern Arabic linguistic spheres. To do so, the study references the Rome Statute in its French, English, and Arabic versions, highlighting the similarities and differences in the conceptual transfer of this principle specific to international criminal law. The central question structuring this study focuses on the Arabic language’s terminological capacity to express the cognitive and legal content of the term genocide. In other words, is Arabic capable of providing a positive meaning that aligns with the legal, philosophical, and social tenets of the Rome Statute? Can the proposed Arabic equivalent successfully break away from its semantic memory and the collective imagination associated with it?
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Legal Linguistics
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subject: Array
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subject: Array
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creator: Nejmeddine Khalfallah
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 Comparative Law and Language https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
date: 2024-12-20
publication date: 2024-12-20
starting page: 1
ending page: 14
doi: 10.15168/cll.v3i2.2910

Book Review: “Introduction to Comparative Law, 2nd edition” by Jaakko Husa
type: item
description: The purpose of this review is to briefly explore some of the main features in Jaakko Husa’s Introduction to Comparative Law (2nd edition, Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2023, ISBN 978-1-50996-356-0) from a Hispanic-American comparatist perspective, considering the cultural context and, above all, the global trends in the circulation of legal knowledge.
subject: Events/Books
  topic: section
subject: Legal Linguistic Comparison
  topic: category
creator: Johannes San Miguel Giralt
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 Comparative Law and Language https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
date: 2024-12-20
publication date: 2024-12-20
starting page: 87
ending page: 93
doi: 10.15168/cll.v3i2.3175

Literature Review: The Language of the Juridification Process of Animal Law
type: item
description: The article provides for a literature review concerning the language of the juridification process of animal law. It considers the interaction between the increasing legal protection of animals and the use of definitions in legal literature. Without conducting a thorough examination of all the current English-language literature, it provides with some examples, showing the key trend lines.
subject: Events/Books
  topic: section
subject: Legal Linguistic Comparison
  topic: category
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
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creator: Cinzia Piciocchi
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 Comparative Law and Language https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
date: 2024-06-26
publication date: 2024-06-26
starting page: 92
ending page: 94
doi: 10.15168/cll.v3i1.3029

Decoding Sign Language Legal Status
type: item
description: In various countries, languages that qualify as “recognised languages” are enshrined in their respective legal frameworks. This designation remains abstract and indeterminate, making it a challenge to precisely define the official status of such recognised languages, particularly in the case of sign languages. The analysis of various legislation related to sign languages highlights commonalities in the formulation of national laws in how they uphold fundamental principles. Sign languages may or may not benefit from features of linguistic officiality, both formally and materially, compared to officially proclaimed spoken languages. Additionally, sign languages align with distinctive elements of linguistic minority rights. In other words, they are not clearly qualified as genuine official languages, like spoken languages, and simultaneously, are not expressly considered minority languages, despite some analogies. It is argued that it is feasible to develop a legal theory called asymmetric linguistic officiality of sign language. Regarding the legal statuses of sign languages, treating them as a third legal category of linguistic officiality in an intersectional sense or, better yet, addressing them as a tertium genus that specifies issues inherent to sign languages based on legal circumstances related to the rights of deaf people.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Language Rights
  topic: category
subject: Legal Linguistic Comparison
  topic: category
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
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creator: Filipe Venade de Sousa
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 Comparative Law and Language https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
date: 2024-06-26
publication date: 2024-06-26
starting page: 1
ending page: 31
doi: 10.15168/cll.v3i1.2932