LANGUAGE OF THE LAW AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE: THE CHALLENGE FOR GLOBALIZED LEGAL EDUCATION AND A FEW DIDACTIC TOOLS

Abstract

The legal field has long been seen as essentially nationally-based and immune to globalization. In academia this view persisted and was reflected in terms of a lesser internationalization of students, composition of the faculty, design curricula and programs, or lesser international research cooperation, compared to some other academic fields. The aim of this article is to explain the reasons why this is evolving and, as a result, why foreign languages and in particular the English language gain importance in the legal field as they did times ago in other academic fields. After spelling out objective reasons why law students are well advised to improve their linguistic skills, this article briefly recalls the specific difficulty of such endeavor in the legal field. Because the specialized legal language is the outcome of a long evolution, and is rooted in the cultural and institutional setting of a jurisdiction, it is in many respects different from the general language, and its terminology is almost not harmonized across languages. This raises challenges for international higher education, for both the instructor and the students. The aim of this article is thus also to elaborate on a few aspects and didactic tools that help make international teaching more effective, taking the “international law lab” as an example.