Le juriste subverti : réflexions traductologiques à l’heure de l’uniformisation des droits en Europe

L’interaction voulue des droits en Europe passe par une interaction forcée des langues. Or, l’ignorance des enjeux linguistiques par les tenants de l’uniformisation des droits ne peut qu’interpeller le traductologue. Vu les postulats épistémiques qui sont les siens, ce dernier est toutefois conduit à réagir d’une manière que les juristes percevront d’emblée comme subversive. Le traductologue, sensible au fait que le droit est porté par la langue, explique comment les juristes ne prennent la mesure ni de la durabilité de la langue ni de son éphémérité. Pour ces deux raisons, certes paradoxales, le traductologue fait observer que les juristes sous-estiment l’impact de la langue sur le processus d’uniformisation des droits.The willed interaction of laws in Europe entails an interaction of languages. Yet, the defenders of uniformization of laws ignore the linguistic stakes in a way that can only summon the traductologist. Given his epistemic assumptions, the latter is however led to react in a way that lawyers will readily find subversive. Sensitive to the fact that law is carried by language, the traductologist explains how lawyers account neither for language’s persistence nor for its transience. For these two admittedly paradoxical reasons, the traductologist argues that lawyers underestimate the impact of language on the process of uniformization of laws

SG on GS: A Review of Samuel, Geoffrey. An Introduction to Comparative Law Theory and Method. Oxford, Hart, 2014. xvii, 226 pp. ISBN 9781849466431

Mirroring French specialists in French family law or German experts in the German law of obligations or English authorities on the English law of wills, comparatists have tended to orient their legal research towards rules and the interpretation of rules, whether judicial or doctrinal. Not only are theoretical reflections on the practice of comparative law a recent occurrence, but they continue to be of interest to a relatively small number of comparatists only. Inevitably, crucial issues like the relationship between law and culture or the translatability of law, the extent to which an understanding of another law is possible or the objectivity of legal interpretation therefore remain under-theorized within comparative law. In this regard, Geoffrey Samuel’s book, An Introduction to Comparative Law Theory and Method, contributes timely insights to the necessary theoreticization of comparative law. Although Samuel’s monograph has been ‘designed primarily for postgraduate research students whose work involves comparison between legal systems’ (at vii), it must be welcomed by any comparatist who takes comparative legal research seriously. But such earnest comparatist will want to engage with Samuel’s determinations

'Aujourd’hui, maman est morte': traduction littéraire et droit comparé ' : Literary Translation and Comparative Law

Toute comparaison des droits se laisse spontanément interpréter comme un exercice de traduction non seulement sur le plan linguistique, mais aussi, plus largement, du point de vue de la culture juridique. Or, peu de comparatistes se sont intéressés aux enjeux traductologiques et ceux qui s'y sont attardés se sont contentés de formuler des poncifs induisant rapidement en erreur. Dans cet essai, il s'agit, au premier chef, de faire progresser la réflexion en matière de traduction juridique. L'argument procède de manière indisciplinée en ce sens qu'il franchit les frontières du droit pour s'inspirer d'une expérience de traduction d'un célèbre roman français et des enseignements qu'il est loisible d'en tirer. Les conclusions qui sont proposées, destinées à s'appliquer tout particulièrement en droit comparé, interrogent de nombreuses idées reçues

Law, Comparison, and Epistemic Governance: There Is Critique and Critique – A Review of Günter Frankenberg, Comparative Law As Critique (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2016) 281pp

How many scholarly fields have experienced the sad fate of comparative law and continued in the grip of a demonstrably indigent epistemology for decades on end? After the early postmodernity witnessed their protracted subjection to Les Grands systèmes’s jejune analytical frameworks, breezy generalizations and meagre interpretive yield — a predicament which, implausibly, endures in countries as diverse as Brazil, France and Russia — law’s comparatists began taking their epistemic orders from Hamburg and the Hamburgher diaspora. For fifty years or so, they have been gorged on a diet of Rechtsdogmatik, scientism, objectivity, neutrality, truth and assorted shibboleths. As if these epistemic delusions were not problematic enough, the earlier, obsolete model was eventually revived though it was tweaked to focus on traditions instead of systems. While critics were occasionally moved to chastise ruderous Hanseatic knowledge-claims — some expressing their concern in conspicuous venues, others harnessing prestigious institutional affiliations — comparative law’s orthodoxy, somewhat extraordinarily, has hitherto been able to operate unencumbered by any epistemic challenge whose monographic exposition would have proved compellingly primordial and compendious. It is the great merit of Günter Frankenberg’s Comparative Law As Critique, in crucial respects an account at once capital and extensive, that it interrupts, finally, the longstanding deployment of comparative law’s mainstream epistemic imposture. Frankenberg’s refutation is thus well worth rehearsing, and the first part of this review wishes loyally to apply itself to this important re-presentative task not least by affording the author much opportunity to express himself in his own voice. Yet, Frankenberg’s considerable critical integrity notwithstanding, this essay holds that his epistemic transgression remains too diffident. Specifically, four key issues at least warranted more subversive epistemic commitments than Frankenberg allowed. In the wake of Comparative Law As Critique, the second part of this commentary therefore addresses these contentions with a view to making a case both for comparative law as strong critique and for the paradigmatic epistemic turn that has been persistently deferred within the field

Zur Sprache gebracht: Rechtsvereinheitlichung in Europa

European lawyers who favour greater harmonisation of laws tend to minimise the fact that such process necessarily relies on language. Drawing on translation theory, this paper shows how the inherently local character of language resists moves towards the establishment of uniform laws and how no uniform law, irrespective of the language in which it is written, can account for local legal experience. This analysis thus allows the author to highlight the inherent limits of the ongoing harmonization process in Europe

L’européanisation du droit au risque de la littérature-monde.

Over the last decades, diverse task forces have sought to promote legal integration within the European Union. The most familiar endeavours are no doubt those of Ole Lando’s “Commission” and Christian von Bar’s “Study Group”. And it is well-known that the European Parliament has spoken in favour of a European Civil Code on various occasions and that the European Commission has provided financial sponsorship for some at least of the major projects. Although the idea of a European private law has generated considerable debate, the specific implications following upon the brand of legal uniformization being defended remain poorly appreciated. In order to yield a more insightful perspective on the proposed legal framework, I consider Johann Wolfgang Goethe’s idea of “Weltliteratur” – or world-literature – that he elaborated in 1827 in a context where leading German intellectuals felt it imperative to move the cultural agenda beyond the narrow confines of parochial interests. The striking contrast between the two models of intercultural communication sheds light on the legal initiatives mentioned above. In particular, my comparative and interdisciplinary analysis points to the many translational problems arising from the development of uniform law in a plurilingual setting which are either ignored or downplayed by proponents of a European private law

Europe, Aporetically: A Common Law Without a Common Discourse

In response to the European Union’s avowed ambition to elaborate a uniform European private law, some critics have maintained that uniformization is illusory on account of the disparities between the governing legal languages within the different Member States. This objection has, in its turn, given rise to an argument according to which uniformization could be ensured through the emergence of a common discourse. It has been said that such outcome is possible even in the absence of a common language. For the proponents of this claim, the theory of communicative action developed by Jürgen Habermas offers significant support. By way of reaction to the common-discourse thesis, this paper proposes to explain why it cannot be sustained and why one cannot usefully draw inspiration from Habermas’s thinking in order to promote a uniform private law within the European Union

The Challenge of Translation

Every comparative legal study inevitably requires an act of translation. Indeed, the role of the comparatist is to explain, by making use of her language, a foreign law generally formulated in a different language. She is frequently asked to translate all kinds of legal texts, including international treaties, statutes, judicial decisions, private legal agreements and legal scholarship, from one language into another. Consequently, it must be assumed that the task of the comparatist always already includes that of a translator. In this paper, I address what I regard to be the most important problems arising from translation in the context of comparative legal studies