A Translation Report On The Excerpt Of Dispute Settlement In The UN Convention On The Law Of The Sea

Since China has implemented the national policy of reform and opening-up and global economic integration has been developing rapidly, all countries around the world develop extensive cooperation with each other more frequently. Accordingly, law becomes the very basis to ensure normal cooperation and protect legal rights and interests of each country, and legal translation is naturally indispensable in this course. At the same time, along with the enhancement of comprehensive national strength and the evolution of international situations, China has to confront increasing and complicated international law problems, especially territorial and sea disputes. Thus, the research of legal translation is a contemporary demand, which not only can safeguard Chinese territorial sovereignty and legal rights and interests, but also can improve the development of domestic legal research and translation.The present dissertation focuses on the translation of Dispute Settlement in the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. The book, concerning international law of the sea and widely acknowledged, is written by Natalie Klein in Macquarie University. But considering its length, the dissertation excerpts a part which chiefly describes the dispute settlement procedure under UNCLOS. The excerpt includes three parts: the main obligations of States concerning Pacific dispute settlement, how the compulsory procedures entailing binding decisions settle the disputes included in Part XV and the procedure of prompt release of vessels.Prior to translating, a great deal of preparation was made, among which the most important was to determine text type and corresponding translation strategy. According to Tiersma's classification of legal texts, the source text is defined as expository legal text.The static equivalence put forward by Professor Li Kexing in Hong Kong Polytechnic University functions as the translation strategy to guide the translation practice. The dissertation first illustrates what static equivalence is, next describes its five conditions,five steps as well as guiding significance for legal translation. Then it analyzes the features of the source text in words, sentences and discourse, including common features with other legal texts and its unique features, and explores legal translation methods and skills with focus on long and complicated sentences. It finally draws a conclusion.Hopefully, the dissertation can give certain guidance and help to those who work in legal translation, especially expository legal texts, improve domestic development of legal research as well as translation, and better safeguard our legal rights and interests.