International Law

Leftists? Fakery Highlights Importance of Translations and ?Official Language?

A frequently-asked question put to me from time to time is Are we required to make this contract in the Korean language? The answer to this question, in almost all cases, is NO. As a general rule, Korean statutes and regulations are completely silent on the question of official language, seemingly because whoever’s drafting the statutes presumes that all parties to a transaction are Koreans capable of using the local language. Homogeneity does have certain advantages, you know. One of them is a certainty that there is a common language shared between the parties.

Formation of a contract requires only that the terms and conditions of agreement between the parties be mutually understood. If both parties read and understand Russian well enough to know what they’re agreeing, then Russian is a language suitable for making a contract.

It seems that in other Asian countries there may be some regulation or local rule (maybe a municipal regulation in some Chinese cities, I really couldn’t say), and that foreign businesspeople are inspired by their experiences elsewhere. Or it could be that crafty locals like to tell credulous foreigners that It’s The Law? to make the contract in Korean, so that the locals retain control of things through the opacity of their language, which is—to put it mildly—as much a world language as Norwegian, or perhaps Faeroese.

But because there’s no official-language requirement for contracts in Korea, you’re free as a bird to transact in English. In fact, English is a better language for contracting, since its vocabulary is so rich and lends itself to clarity.

(That said, it’s important to remember that for virtually all of the Koreans with whom you’re doing business, English is their second language, one which is of little daily utility, and therefore they’re also working at a disadvantage when transaction with you in English.)

In this regard, I am reminded of recent events in the neverending US beef import protests, whereby Amnesty International inspectors here to investigate allegations of police brutality against protestors (it’s interesting how there are no investigations when it’s the other way around) were hoodwinked by their lying, manipulative local staff who prepared false English-language translations of local-language materials for release to the world. (Remember, for leftists it’s not so much about the truth, but about the Truthiness. Fake but accurate is okay with them.) There is a lesson here for foreign businesses.

The Korean Amnesty staff were working to accomplish a goal: Gaining sympathy for their cause from the “court of international opinion.” The language of that court is English—if materials are in the Korean language, the court of international opinion will be ignorant of anything recorded in that language. In other words, evidence must be in English when presented to the court of international opinion, as if it were a rule of civil procedure. And in general, English speakers are not well-equipped to check the accuracy of the translation.

As it happens, there is an official-language requirement in one place in Korea: The courtroom. Evidence submitted to the court must be in the Korean language. Anything that originally comes from a foreign language must be translated by a party into the Korean language. And here’s where we often see misconduct—parties to litigation often deliver to the court Korean-language translations of foreign-language evidentiary materials which are deliberately (I guess if you want to give the benefit of the doubt you could say with gross negligence) inaccurate and misleading to the judge. That puts the party responding to the evidence at a profound disadvantage, because once translated evidence is offered by one party, it’s natural to suspect the other party’s response is self-servingly fake.

Far better, I say, to have agreed Korean-language translations prepared and existing, as an insurance policy (as well as a simple aid to understanding), at the start of your commercial relationship than to leave the job of rendering a Korean-language version to a party seeking to gain advantage in the court. Contract in English, yes, but spend a little extra money on good translations while the sun is shining.

(Tip o’ the hat to the Marmot’s Hole for linking the original story.)

Full post as published by Korea Law Blog on July 26, 2008 (boomark / email).