The semiotic puzzle: Authentic languages & international law

Abstract The principle of the equal authority of authentic languages enshrined in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (1969) has created significant debates in the interpretation of multilingual treaties. In this context, the present article explores the complex ramifications of the legal translation of human rights treaty provisions and the “translatability” and transposition of legal concepts into other linguistic frameworks. It considers whether a semiotic analysis of the content of UN international human rights treaties conducted in a single authentic language, English or French, has a raison d’être, in light of Victoria Welby’s Threefold Laws of Meaning. The article further assesses whether the Sense and Significance of treaty provisions will differ in distinct languages. It begins by examining the important role attributed to English and French at the international level. Secondly, it studies the problem of the variations between the meaning(s) of provisions enshrining rights in two or more authentic languages, namely Arabic, English, Chinese, French, Russian and Spanish, and which interpretation should prevail under the Vienna Convention. For this purpose, it considers problems that arise expressly in English and French by conducting a comparative study of these languages with the Spanish and Chinese texts of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).