The Translation of Law
The translation of law to other European languages
The translation of "law" to other European languages faces several difficulties. In most European languages, there are two different words which will be translated to English as "law ", for instance:
Dutch: recht and wet
French: droit and loi
German: Recht and Gesetz
Italian: diritto and legge
Latin: ius/iuris and lex/legis
Lithuanian: teisė and istatymas
Portuguese: direito and lei
Spanish: derecho and ley
This difference between English and other European languages is usually invoked within the debates between legal positivism, law and interpretivism. Berkowitz (2005) argues that the increase of legal positivism corresponds to a "transformation of the sense of 'law', a difficult topic made more so by a specific limitation of English language", the non-distinction between ius and lex.
For the sake of examples, this text uses the Latin words.
General
There are in English two more or less synonymous adjectives, both from Latin origin, that correspond etymologically to the Continental distinction: the common word legal and therefore the less common jural (or even juristic). However, the words ius and lex aren't synonyms.
Mashariq legal translation services can sometimes be translated as legislation, statute, law or maybe act, albeit the corresponding legislatio, statutus and actus also exist. Lex is law made by a political authority, like the Parliament or the govt . In modern societies, leges are usually written, though this is often not a necessary feature. Lex is usually utilized in the plural (leges), since each act is one lex.
On the opposite hand, ius is additionally polysemous, since it can mean either law or right. Continental legal scholars sometimes make a distinction between "subjective ius" ( right) and "objective ius" (law), but this doesn't happen in ordinary language. the 2 senses of ius are often easily distinguished in most cases.
When ius means law, it always has some semantic connection to what's right, just or straight. as an example , the German motto Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit has been translated as Unity and justice and freedom, albeit there's a special word for justice (Gerechtigkeit). Lex doesn't have such a connection. Some translators of Kant's works have translated Recht as objective right (see Steiner, 2002, p. 276).
Present day continental law schools and faculties claim to review ius. Mediaeval universities, on the contrary, usually had a school of leges.
The discussion on the relation between ius and lex
Continental legal positivists of the 19th century and therefore the half of the 20th century claimed that each one ius is lex.
Further reading
Émile Benveniste (1969) Le vocabulaire des institutions indo-européennes, vol. 2, Pouvoir, droit, religion, Paris: Minuit.
Berkowitz, Roger (2005) The Gift of Science: Leibniz and therefore the Modern Legal Tradition, Harvard University Press.
Fletcher, George (2001) "In honour of 'Ius et Lex'. Some thoughts on speaking about law".
Hans Kelsen (1960) Pure Theory of Law, second edition.
Hillel Steiner (2002), "Working Rights", in Kramer, Simmonds, Steiner, A debate over rights, Oxford: Oxford University .
