Japan Offers Official Translations of Laws, Legal Terms
Japan's legal system can be a quagmire for foreign firms that lack proficiency in Japanese. Addressing this problem is the reason behind the Justice Ministry's launch of the Japanese Law Translation website in April. Based on a newly aggregated dictionary of Japanese-English legal terminology, the site offers translations of more than 180 laws and ordinances. The dictionary includes approximately 3,700 legal terms and phrases and will function as a de facto standard for legal translations. The glossary was compiled over five years by a team of experts led by Chuo Law School Professor Noboru Kashiwagi. Peter van den Heuvel with the European Union's Delegation of the European Commission to Japan says that a lack of legal texts translated into English was clearly a roadblock to direct investment in Japan. Tai Oya with the Justice Ministry's Judicial System Department notes that traffic to the law translation site has exceeded expectations, with overseas visitors contributing a substantial volume of hits. He says the lack of legal text translation presented a problem for the Japanese government, particularly when it came to giving developing nations legal technical assistance. The government plans to have 440 laws and related regulations translated by the end of March 2011.
From "Laws, Legal Terms Get Official Translation"
Japan Times (Japan) (06/10/09) Kamiya, Setsuko
Source: ATA Newsbriefs - June 2009
