Translation and the Search for Justice in Contexts of Religious and Cultural Diversity: A Persistent and Complex Challenge

Translation has become a structural condition of legal practice in contemporary Europe, particularly in contexts shaped by increasing religious and cultural diversity. This article introduces a special issue that approaches translation not as a merely technical operation, but as a central element of legal reasoning, adjudication, and norm implementation in plural societies. Drawing on the Cultural and Religious Diversity under State Law across Europe (CUREDI) database project, the contribution situates translation at the intersection of comparative law, legal anthropology, and human rights law. It identifies five interrelated dimensions of translation: the search for legal equivalents across languages; the transposition of international and European norms into domestic legal systems; the use of translation and interpretation in judicial and administrative proceedings; interdisciplinary translation between law and the social sciences; and the literal translation of judicial decisions into a shared lingua franca. The article argues that translation choices shape the recognition of minority claims, influence judicial balancing exercises, and affect perceptions of legitimacy and fairness. Translation is therefore shown to be a normative and epistemic practice with concrete consequences for access to justice in culturally diverse societies.