The Concordance of Multilingual Legal Texts at the WTO

Multilingualism is a sensitive and complex subject in a global organisation such as the World Trade Organization (WTO). In the WTO legal texts, there is a need for full concordance, not simply translation. This article begins with an overview of the issues raised by multilingual processes at the WTO in the negotiation, drafting, translation, interpretation and litigation phases. It then compares concordance procedures in the WTO, European Union and United Nations and proposes new procedures to prevent and correct linguistic discrepancies in the WTO legal texts. It then categorises linguistic differences among the WTO legal texts and considers the suitability of proposed solutions for each category. The conclusion proposes an agenda for further work at the WTO to improve best practices based on the experience of the WTO and other international organisations and multilingual governments.