Towards a fairer distribution

Translation and interpretation in matters of diplomacy is tricky. Language enthusiasts particularly enjoy the story of the Treaty of Wuchale, signed between Ethiopia and Italy in 1889. The text didn’t read the same in Amharic and Italian. The former guaranteed Ethiopia’s king Menelik II a good measure of autonomy in conducting foreign affairs. The latter established an Italian protectorate with no flexibility. The culprit: one verb, forming a permissive clause in Amharic and a mandatory one in Italian. Six years later, the differing interpretations led to war. Ethiopia won.
If only the Ethiopians and Italians had modern translators at their side. Treaty translation is big business today. The European Union, for example, spends an estimated €300m annually on translating between its 23 official languages. (While this is a big chunk of money, it’s less than 1% of the EU’s annual budget.) Three of those— English, French, and German—are working languages in most meetings. In reality, English is most commonly used. But because each document must be faithfully recreated in each of the EU’s 23 languages, creating authentic versions can be expensive and time-consuming. Thankfully, most problems are dealt with in procès-verbal, a way to introduce technical corrections to treaties without revisiting negotiations. It might still delay matters. Last year, for example, Ireland’s ratification of an EU treaty was delayed by grammatical errors in the Irish version. There are obvious trade-offs to language equality, but the EU has calculated that the delays and costs are worth it.
The United Nations should revisit its own calculations. It has just six official and two working languages. The task of translation here in Geneva, home to most UN organs, is thus decidedly simpler. The UN’s official languages are geographically diverse—combined, native speakers of Arabic, English, French, Mandarin, Russian and Spanish number over 2.2 billion. But the two working languages are bound to tradition. The persistence of French is attributed to its history as the “language of diplomacy”. In the hallways of the New York headquarters, English is (naturally) favored, and French is preferred in Geneva. Treaties registered with the United Nations Treaty Series are always translated into French and English. Documents are always provided in French and English. This city’s Geneva Conventions, written in equally authentic French and English versions, laid part of the groundwork for the international system.