The phraseology of international disarmament treaties: the DITTO terminology resource

Abstract

This study aims at examining the phraseology of international disarmament treaties, through a comparative French-Italian case study, in a complementary perspective with a previous study on the terminology of this domain. The legal effectiveness of international disarmament treaties, as well as international efforts towards general and complete disarmament under international control, are subject to the consent of States to be bound by these treaties. Consequently, difficulties in the translation processes required in a multilingual and multicultural environment, such as that of international cooperation, cannot by any means hinder the application of international disarmament provisions. Furthermore, despite the high relevance and the strong impact they produce on international peace and security, the domain of disarmament still remains unexplored in the French-Italian language combination.

Consequently, this study focuses on the phraseology of the legal language of disarmament treaties, in an attempt to fill the existing gaps in literature and to ensure their legal effectiveness also through the specificity and accuracy of their linguistic expression. The proposed methodological approach consists of three steps: 1) the analysis of the linguistic and conceptual dimension of the disarmament domain, in a bilingual perspective; 2) the implementation of a new specialised terminological resource on disarmament, named DITTO (Disarmament International Treaties TerminOlogy), freely accessible for consultation; 3) a translation exercise of the main international disarmament treaties for methodological validation purposes.