The Context Of Text: Harmonizing Multilingual Texts Of The WTO

Abstract

Legal traditions of international institutions reflect how language shapes the interaction of individuals from various legal disciplines. Institutions like the European Union (EU), United Nations (UN) and World Trade Organization (WTO) cater to multilingualism by publishing different linguistic versions of their texts. These organizations have their own divisions to promote multilingualism – it is the General Assembly and Conference Management for the UN; the Directorate-General for Translation (DGT) in the EU; and the Language and Documentation Services Division (LDSD) for the WTO. In the context of the WTO, coordination among different language groups in drafting WTO documents appears to be lacking. In addition to creating hurdles in substantive law, issues of multilingualism at the WTO also affect the procedural aspects of the dispute. This may have implications on third-party rights, selection of panellists, and timely resolution of disputes, thereby influencing a party’s strategy in a dispute. Against this background, the authors explore the issue of multilingualism at the WTO vis-à-vis the UN and EU by adopting a comparative research methodology. The Article provides recommendations in the form of best practices for improvements at the WTO in the context of multilingualism. WTO, multilingualism, VCLT, translation, DSU, European Union, United Nations, Spanish, French, language