International Family Law News & Analysis

Linguists' Group Helps Law Use Language Better to Serve International Clients, Minorities, Ordinary English Speakers

As an international and collaborative lawyer, I love to find unexpected gap-bridgers combining the theoretical insights and in-the-trenches realities of two different fields.

"The International Association of Forensic Linguists (IAFL) aims to bring together those working on all aspects of language and the law ... to improve the administration of the legal systems throughout the world by means of a better understanding of the interaction between language and the law. 'Forensic linguistics' covers all areas where law and language intersect:

• Language and Law: legislation; comprehensibility of legal documents; analysis and interpretation of legal texts; legal genres; history of legal languages; legal discourse; multilingual matters in legal contexts; discourse analysis of legal resources; language and disadvantage before the law; language minorities and the legal system; language rights; power and the law; intercultural matters and mediation in legal contexts.

• Language in the Legal Process: interviews with vulnerable witnesses; communicative challenges of vulnerable witnesses; police interviews; investigative interviewing; language testing of asylum seekers; bilingual courtrooms and second-language issues; courtroom interpreting; courtroom interaction; courtroom translating; courtroom language; police language; prison language; language addressed to judge and jury in common and civil law courtrooms.

• Language as Evidence: authorship analysis and attribution; plagiarism; speaker identification and voice comparison; compiling corpora (statements, confessions, suicide notes); computational author identification or profiling; consumer product warnings; language as evidence in civil cases (trademark, contract disputes, defamation, product liability, deceptive trade practices, copyright infringement); dialectology and sociolinguistics; semantics; pragmatics and speech act analysis.

• Research/Teaching: practice and ethics of expert testimony; presentation of linguistic evidence; linguists as expert witnesses; teaching/testing of forensic linguistics/language and law; language education for law professionals.

Found it while looking for "my" IAFL, the International Academy of Family Law, formerly the International Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers. Whose dues are about 10 times as much as this one.

US ignorance culture weakens us vs. other countries; Japan reveres teachers, pays them well.

Isaac Asimov [said:] "There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge." 

... 

This cult of ignorance is the most serious national security issue facing the U.S. today.

...

The fundamental reason that countries in places like East Asia present such a significant challenge to the U.S. ... is that these countries have core cultural values that are more akin to a cult of intelligence and education than a cult of ignorance and anti-intellectualism. In Japan, for example, teachers are held in high esteem and normally viewed as among the most important members of a community. I have never run across the type of suspicion and even disdain for the work of teachers that occurs in the U.S. Teachers in Japan typically are paid significantly more than their peers in the U.S. The profession of teaching is one that is seen as being of central value in Japanese society and those who choose that profession are well compensated in terms of salary, pension, and respect for their knowledge and their efforts on behalf of children.

- - From John W. Traphagan, "America's Cult of Ignorance Is No Match for Asia's Cult of Intelligence", huffingtonpost.com's WorldPost, 6/17/14.

Belgium gives children sweeping "right to die", King expected to sign new law

Belgium's upper and lower houses of parliament have now passed legislation extending to children the right to choose euthanasia for "constant and unbearable physical or mental suffering that cannot be alleviated." The issue has bitterly divided the country for years but 75% of the population supports the new law, USA Today reports. Opponents say children lack the maturity to make such a decision and are too often dominated by parents and caregivers. Supporters say it is not about whether, but how, to die.

The term euthanasia is used by the media and apparently by supporters, whereas in the U.S. it would probably be used only by opponents.

"Belgian lawmakers extend euthanasia law to children: Kids can ask to be put to death under bill."

By Sumi Somaskanda and Jabeen Bhatti, February 14, 2014, in USA Today

Some interesting background from the article:

Belgium, one of the few countries that has allowed euthanasia, first passed legislation legalizing euthanasia in 2002 and in 2012, the number of those opting for it increased 25% to 1,432 cases. The mainly secular country, which has a strong Roman Catholic tradition, is one of just a few European countries to allow some form of assisted dying.

Euthanasia for adults is permitted in Luxembourg and in special cases for terminally ill patients age 12 or older in the Netherlands. Switzerland has allowed assisted suicide by doctors since the 1940s, offering the service in clinics such as Dignitas. Still, euthanasia remains illegal.

Under current Belgian law, parents of terminally ill children can opt for palliative sedation, where high doses of sedatives are prescribed at the end of the patient's life. Food and liquids are then withdrawn to speed up death, which normally occurs within hours or days.

This, say opponents of the current measure, is the proper way for terminally ill children to die.

CNN's treatment of the bill includes a human-interest story about a supporter motivated by the suffering not of the child, but of the parent, who

"had to watch as her baby ... slowly faded away under palliative sedation, food and liquid withheld so her suffering was not further prolonged. "That whole period of sedation, you always need to give more and more medication, and you start asking questions. And you say, 'What's the use of keeping this baby alive?' " van Roy said. She wishes she could have administered a fatal dose of medication to make the end of her daughter's short life come more quickly.

CNN also says 175 pediatricians signed a letter opposing the law, saying children have never truly freely requested euthanasia and that palliative care makes it unnecessary.

Norway's crown princess poses as nanny in India, helps gay friend with international surrogacy baby

Norway princess in secret India trip to play nanny - Reuters

Reuters writes:

 Norway's Crown Princess Mette-Marit secretly traveled to India in order to care for infant twins born to the surrogate mother of a gay palace employee unable to get a travel visa, the palace said ... Armed with a diplomatic passport that granted her immediate access, the future queen jumped on a plane in late October when the employee, who is also a friend, and his husband were unable to travel to care for their newborns.

"For me, this is about two babies lying alone in a New Delhi hospital," Mette-Marit said in a statement. "I was able to travel and wanted to do what I could."

She did not alert Indian authorities and spent several days with the babies at the Manav Medicare Centre, where staff assumed the wife of Norway's Crown Prince Haakon was a nanny. ...

Surrogacy is a hotly debated issue in Norway and the government discourages Norwegians from paying surrogate parents for children. ... The Crown Princess acknowledged the debate and insisted she is not taking a side and only did what a friend had to do. "Sometimes life presents you with situations with few good solutions. This was one of those," she said. 

 

Being bilingual improves brain function, reduces Alzheimer's

Good news for many of our clients and their children. 

Why Bilinguals Are Smarter - NY Times

 

Outraged Dutch: Euthanasia actually only 2% of deaths, so no cause for #Santorum's alarm

Dutch Outraged Over Santorum's Euthanasia Claim

The view from Amsterdam: A “crazy extreme Catholic” with “a surreal view of the Netherlands.”

- Buzzfeed, Feb 20, 2012