Translating Evidence and Interpreting Testimony at a War Crimes Tribunal


Book Description

How can defendants be tried if they cannot understand the charges being raised against them? Can a witness testify if the judges and attorneys cannot understand what the witness is saying? Can a judge decide whether to convict or acquit if she or he cannot read the documentary evidence? The very viability of international criminal prosecution and adjudication hinges on the massive amounts of translation and interpreting that are required in order to run these lengthy, complex trials, and the procedures for handling the demands facing language services. This book explores the dynamic courtroom interactions in the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in which witnesses testify through an interpreter about translations, attorneys argue through an interpreter about translations and the interpreting, and judges adjudicate on the interpreted testimony and translated evidence.




Translating Evidence and Interpreting Testimony at a War Crimes Tribunal


Book Description

How can defendants be tried if they cannot understand the charges being raised against them? Can a witness testify if the judges and attorneys cannot understand what the witness is saying? Can a judge decide whether to convict or acquit if she or he cannot read the documentary evidence? The very viability of international criminal prosecution and adjudication hinges on the massive amounts of translation and interpreting that are required in order to run these lengthy, complex trials, and the procedures for handling the demands facing language services. This book explores the dynamic courtroom interactions in the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in which witnesses testify through an interpreter about translations, attorneys argue through an interpreter about translations and the interpreting, and judges adjudicate on the interpreted testimony and translated evidence.




Interpreters and War Crimes


Book Description

Taking an interdisciplinary approach, this book raises new questions and provides different perspectives on the roles, responsibilities, ethics and protection of interpreters in war while investigating the substance and agents of Japanese war crimes and legal aspects of interpreters’ taking part in war crimes. Informed by studies on interpreter ethics in conflict, historical studies of Japanese war crimes and legal discussion on individual liability in war crimes, Takeda provides a detailed description and analysis of the 39 interpreter defendants and interpreters as witnesses of war crimes at British military trials against the Japanese in the aftermath of the Pacific War, and tackles ethical and legal issues of various risks faced by interpreters in violent conflict. The book first discusses the backgrounds, recruitment and wartime activities of the accused interpreters at British military trials in addition to the charges they faced, the defence arguments and the verdicts they received at the trials, with attention to why so many of the accused were Taiwanese and foreign-born Japanese. Takeda provides a contextualized discussion, focusing on the Japanese military’s specific linguistic needs in its occupied areas in Southeast Asia and the attributes of interpreters who could meet such needs. In the theoretical examination of the issues that emerge, the focus is placed on interpreters’ proximity to danger, visibility and perceived authorship of speech, legal responsibility in war crimes and ethical issues in testifying as eyewitnesses of criminal acts in violent hostilities. Takeda critically examines prior literature on the roles of interpreters in conflict and ethical concerns such as interpreter neutrality and confidentiality, drawing on legal discussion of the ineffectiveness of the superior orders defence and modes of individual liability in war crimes. The book seeks to promote intersectoral discussion on how interpreters can be protected from exposure to manifestly unlawful acts such as torture.




Doing Justice to Court Interpreting


Book Description

First published as a Special Issue of Interpreting (10:1, 2008) and complemented with two articles published in Interpreting (12:1, 2010), this volume provides a panoramic view of the complex and uniquely constrained practice of court interpreting. In an array of empirical papers, the nine authors explore the potential of court interpreters to make or break the proceedings, from the perspectives of the minority language speaker and of the other participants. The volume offers thoughtful overviews of the tensions and conflicts typically associated with the practice of court interpreting. It looks at the attitudes of judicial authorities towards interpreting, and of interpreters towards the concept of a code of ethics. With further themes such as the interplay of different groups of "linguists" at the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal and the language rights of indigenous communities, it opens novel perspectives on the study of interpreting at the interface between the letter of the law and its implementation.




Communication, Interpreting and Language in Wartime


Book Description

This edited book provides a multi-disciplinary approach to the topics of translation and cross-cultural communication in times of war and conflict. It examines the historical and contemporary experiences of interpreters in war and in war crimes trials, as well as considering policy issues in communication difficulties in war-related contexts. The range of perspectives incorporated in this volume will appeal to scholars, practitioners and policy-makers, particularly in the fields of translating and interpreting, conflict and war studies, and military history.




Translation and Violent Conflict


Book Description

First Published in 2010. Translators and interpreters are frequently found at the centre of attempts to wage war or negotiate peace between opposing factions. Translation and interpreting also serve a vital function in communicating a conflict locally and globally, as interested parties attempt to legitimize their actions, appeal for assistance, and enlist support for their cause and the condemnation of their stated enemy. The unavoidable independent exercises of judgement that interpreters and translators make through their participation in or re-narration of a conflict, and the decisions that go with them, provide clear and strong evidence for the lead role in the construction of meanings and identities that interpreters and translators assume in situations of conflict, irrespective of their historical or geopolitical setting. This special issue of The Translator explores the role of translators and interpreters in a number of conflicts from the 20th century to the present. Drawing on fictional and non-fictional texts, legal and peacekeeping settings and reports from war zones, contributors to this volume explore the overlapping themes of mediation, agency and ethics in relation to translators and interpreters as they negotiate the political, social, cultural, linguistic and ethical factors that converge, often dangerously, in situations of armed conflict




The Practice of Court Interpreting


Book Description

The Practice of Court Interpreting describes how the interpreter works in the court room and other legal settings. The book discusses what is involved in court interpreting: case preparation, ethics and procedure, the creation and avoidance of error, translation and legal documents, tape transcription and translation, testifying as an expert witness, and continuing education outside the classroom. The purpose of the book is to provide the interpreter with a map of the terrain and to suggest methods that will help insure an accurate result. The author, herself a practicing court interpreter, says: “The structure of the book follows the structure of the work as we do it.” The book is intended as a basic course book, as background reading for practicing court interpreters and for court officials who deal with interpreters.




Legacies of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia


Book Description

Introduction: Legacy as Dialogue: Reflecting on the ICTY Experience / Carsten Stahn. - PART I OPENING REFLECTIONS. - 1 The Last Testament of the ICTY / Carmel Agius. - 2 Making Complementarity a Reality: The Experiences of the ICTY and IRMCT Office of the Prosecutor / Serge Brammertz. - 3 The ICTY and the Defence Legacy: The Association of Counsel Practising Before the ICTY / Colleen Rohan. - 4 The Moral Legacy of the ICTY, Miguel de Serpa Soares. - PART II LEGACY LENSES, THEORIZATIONS, AND NARRATIVES. - 5 The ICTY is Dead! Long Live the ICTY!: ICTY Legacies in Perspective / Carsten Stahn. - 6 Legacies in the Making at the ICTY / Viviane E. Dittrich. - 7 The Narrative Legacies of Exceptional Crime: The Prosecutor as a Peacebuilder / Simone Gigliotti and Amber Pierce. - 8 Meandering Jurisprudence and Unanticipated Legacies: The ICTY's Reach into Domestic Civil Litigation / Mark Drumbl, - PART III EXPRESSIVE PRACTICES, JUDICIAL RECORD, HISTORY, AND TRUTH. - 9 Symbolic Expression at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia / Marina Aksenova. - 10 A Partial View of History: ICTY Judgments as 'Judicial Truths' / Luigi Prosperi and Aldo Zammit Borda . - 11 Handle with Care: ICTY, Juridical By-products, and Criminological Analyses / Andy Aydin-Aitchiso. - PART IV EVIDENCE, WITNESS TESTIMONY, AND WITNESS EXPERIENCES. - 12 Lessons Learned from the Use of DNA Evidence in Srebrenica-related Trials at the ICTY / Kweku Vanderpuye and Christopher Mitchell, - 13 Whither Thou Truth and Justice: Witness Perceptions About their Contributions to the ICTY / Kimi Lynn King and James Meernik. - PART V CRIMINAL PROCEDURE, COURT MANAGEMENT, AND OUTREACH. - 14 Defence Investigative Ethics: Practical Lessons from the ICTY's Legacy for Counsel Practising in the Region / Michael G. Karnavas. - 15 Judgments and Judgment Drafting, / Thomas Wayde Pittman and Marko Divac Öberg. - 16 Muzzling the Press: When Does the Law Justify Reporting Restrictions? Contempt Cases Against Journalists at the ICTY and Beyond / Audrey Fino and Sandra Sahyouni. - 17 Translating and Interpreting at the ICTY: Lessons Learned / Ellen Elias-Bursać. - 18 Was it Worth it? A Look into the Results of the ICTY's Outreach Programme / Petar Finci. - 19 The Legacy of Youth Outreach at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia / Adrian Plevin. - PART VI PUNISHMENT, SENTENCING, AND BEYOND. - 20 Punishing for Humanity: The Sentencing Legacy of the ICTY / Margaret M. deGuzman. - 21Vertical Inconsistency of International Sentencing? The ICTY and Domestic Courts in Bosnia and Herzegovina / Barbora Holá. - 22 When Justice is Done: The ICTY and the Post-trial Phase / Joris van Wijk and Barbora Holá . - PART VII IMPACT ON DOMESTIC LEGAL SYSTEMS. - 23 Narratives of Justice and War in Croatia / Ivor Sokolić. - 24 The Legacy of the ICTY: The Three-tiered Approach to Justice in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Benchmarks for Measuring Success / Jennifer Trahan and Iva Vukušić. - 25 Cooperation between Serbia and the ICTY for the Investigation and Prosecution of Violations of International Humanitarian Law / Tatjana Dawson and Ljiljana Hellman. - 26 'We Learnt that from The Hague': How the ICTY Influenced the Fairness of Criminal Trials in the Former Yugoslavia / Kei Hannah Brodersen. - PART VIII SOCIETAL IMPACT, RECEPTION, AND GAPS. - 27 The Peace versus Justice Debate Revisited: The ICTY's Impact on the Bosnian Peace Process / Jacqueline R. McAllister. - 28 Croatia's Homeland War, the Battles Over Victor's Justice, and the Legacy of the ICTY / Victor Peskin. - 29 The (Lack of) Impact of the ICTY on the Public Memory of the War in Bosnia and Herzegovina / Jovana Mihajlović Trbovc. - 30 The Broken Path to Reconciliation in Bosnia and Herzegovina: A Field Study of Memories / Rosa Aloisi. - 31 The ICTY, Truth, and Reconciliation: A Meta Reconceptualization / Janine Natalya Clark.




Götz and Meyer


Book Description

Translated from Serbian, this stirring novel draws on a wealth of archival materials and Nazi bureaucratic records about the concentration camp at the Belgrade Fairgrounds, from where, in five months in 1942, 5,000 Jews were loaded into a truck and gassed. A Serbian Jewish college professor looks back and obsessively imagines himself as perpetrator, victim, and bystander.




Introduction to Court Interpreting


Book Description

An Introduction to Court Interpreting has been carefully designed to be comprehensive, accessible and globally applicable. Starting with the history of the profession and covering the key topics from the role of the interpreter in the judiciary setting to ethical principles and techniques of interpreting, this text has been thoroughly revised. The new material covers: remote interpreting and police interpreting; role-playing scenarios including the Postville case of 2008; updated and expanded resources. In addition, the extensive practical exercises and suggestions for further reading help to ensure this remains the essential introductory textbook for all courses on court interpreting