Proactive Efforts to Educate Attorneys and Judges on the Role of the

Proactive Efforts to Educate Attorneys and Judges on
the Role of the Court Interpreter in the United States
(US), at the International Criminal Tribunal for the
Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and at the International
Criminal Court (ICC)
Nancy SCHWEDA NICHOLSON
Department of Linguistics and Program in Legal Studies
University of Delaware, USA
Abstract/ Résumé
Le présent article traite des séances de formation destinées aux avocats qui préparent à
représenter les accusés devant le Tribunal Pénal International pour l’ex-Yougoslavie et/ou la
Cour Pénale Internationale. Les séminaires touchent surtout les techniques de plaidoirie et la
pratique du droit devant les tribunaux internationaux. Dans le contexte américain, l’article
décrit aussi une formation parrainée par le Barreau de l’Etat du Delaware pour les avocats,
les juges, et d’autre personnel juridique. En général, cette contribution insiste sur
l’importance d’éduquer les avocats par rapport au rôle de l’interprète auprès des tribunaux.
Par ailleurs, l’article souligne <comment travailler avec les interprètes>, une habileté qui
manque souvent. Il y a des défis linguistiques et extralinguistiques à comprendre. Les modes
d’interprétation (simultanée, consécutive et relais) s’élaborent aussi bien que les situations
variées dans lesquelles les différents modes sont employés. Enfin, l’article fournit des
renseignements en ce qui concerne les formations à l’avenir et insiste sur le besoin d’un
engagement continuel des interprètes experts dans ce domaine très spécialisé.
Keywords/ Mot-Clés
Court interpreting, International Criminal Tribunal for the Formes Yugoslavia(ICTY),
International Criminal Court(ICC), simultaneous interpretation, consecutive interpretation
I. Introduction
This article is based on a speech delivered at the Meta 50th Anniversary Conference
in Montréal in April of 2005. Since 2003, I have been an instructor in intensive classes
designed to prepare attorneys to represent defendants who are brought before the
International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International
Criminal Court (ICC).1 Highlights of the paper include: (1) the genesis of the courses;
1
It is important for the reader to know that, whereas the ICTY was created in 1993 by UN
Security Council Resolution #827 and has been hearing cases for over a decade, the ICC is still in
its formative stages. As of this writing, it is conducting investigations in preparation for its first
167
(2) a description of the participants as well as an overview of the seminars’ frameworks
and material; (3) a detailed examination of selected components included in my
presentation with respect to working with interpreters; (4) the use of simultaneous
interpretation (SI), consecutive interpretation (CI), and relay interpretation (RI) at the
ICTY; (5) a brief look at a Delaware State Bar Association Continuing Legal Education
(CLE) seminar on court interpreter use for judges, attorneys and court administrators in
April of 2004; and (6) a discussion of plans for future courses. The article concludes
with an evaluative summary of the ICTY and ICC training classes’ effectiveness as well
as some perspectives on interpreters’ contributions to the advancement of peace and the
rule of international law in our increasingly violent and unaccountable world.
As is the case in many professions that rely on the services of interpreters in order to
conduct business, there is frequently a misunderstanding of the interpreter’s role among
legal personnel.2 Consequently, a review of cases shows that the courts have often relied
on less than qualified “interpreters” to perform this critically important task. For
example, friends or relatives of the defendant, spectators in the courtroom, bailiffs,
secretaries, witnesses, defense attorneys, prisoners, and even co-defendants have been
called on by the judge to serve as an “interpreter” (Schweda Nicholson, 1989a). This
procedure is, of course, problematic as there is no guarantee that the “interpreter”
possesses the requisite high level of skills in both the Source Language (SL) – the
language from which the interpreter works (the incoming signal) – and the Target
Language (TL) – the language into which the interpreter works (the outgoing signal).
Moreover, knowledge of interpreting techniques in SI, CI and RI is imperative above and
beyond language skills themselves. In addition, language and culture are inextricably tied,
so the interpreter must have experience in communities in which the SL and TL are
spoken natively. Extralinguistic knowledge of gestures, facial expressions, the role of eye
contact and acceptable personal space parameters is a must (Schweda Nicholson, 1987).
Furthermore, there is always the possibility of conflict of interest and breach of
cases, which will probably begin in 2006. As a result, the practical examples and comments on
courtroom observations I have included come from the ICTY.
2
See, for example, Schweda Nicholson (1986) for a discussion of problems encountered in the
wording and implementation of the Court Interpreters Act of 1978, a seminal US law regulating
the use of interpreters at all levels of the Federal Judicial System. Also see Schweda Nicholson
(1992) for a review of continuing challenges in language planning for interpretation services,
especially for lesser-used languages.
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