Deborah Cao is affiliated with the School of Languages and Linguistics and the Socio-Legal Research Centre, Griffith University, Australia. Originally trained and qualified as a United Nations simultaneous interpreter, she was educated in China and Australia. She holds PhD in translation studies and LL.B (Hons), and has published in the areas of translation studies, legal translation, semiotics and philosophical and linguistic analysis of Chinese law and legal culture. Her books include Chinese Law: A Language Perspective (Ashgate, 2004), Translation at the United Nations (in Chinese, 2006, China Foreign Translation and Publishing Corporation, co-authored with Zhao Xingmin), and Interpretation, Law and Construction of Meaning (Springer, 2006, a joint editor).

Preface
Acknowledgements
1 Introduction
2 Law, Language and Translation
3 The Legal Translator
4 Legal Terminological Issues in Translation
5 Translating Private Legal Documents
6 Translating Domestic Legislation
7 Translating International Legal Instruments
List of Cases
Bibliography
Index

The translation of law has played an integral part in the interaction among nations in history and is playing a greater role in our increasingly interconnected world today. The book investigates legal translation in its many facets as an intellectual pursuit and a profession. It examines legal translation from an interdisciplinary perspective, covering theoretical and practical grounds and linguistic as well as legal issues. It analyses legal translation competence and various types of legal texts including contracts, statutes and multilateral legal instruments, presents a comparative analysis of the Common Law and the Civil Law and examines the case law from Canada, Hong Kong and the European Court of Justice. It attempts to demonstrate that translating law is a complex act that can enrich law, culture and human experience as a whole.