This study aims at investigating the important role that language plays as a medium of legal norms and cultural values as surfacing in documents in the United Nations system. The author focuses on diplomatic documents (bi- and multilateral treaties and correspondence) that simultaneously have official status ("authenticity") both in Arabic and in other languages. The investigation of the role of language as a window onto culture and religious background is especially relevant in the case of Arabic due to the interference of religion with law in most Islamic societies. More specifically,...