We’ve blogged about multilingual language interpreters and translators as expert witnesses in federal court cases. Expert testimony plays an equally important role in many international law cases. For example, in international family law cases, the family lawyer is often called upon to act as an expert witness. Typically, testimony will be in regards to:
- The factors that indicate that an individual is likely to commit an international child abduction
- The degree of the risk of an international child abduction that is presented by an individual having specific risk factors
- The sufficiency of terms of a proposed custody order in preventing a potential international child abduction
- The likelihood that a foreign country will return an abducted child
- The lawyer’s experience with and knowledge of a specific legal system
- The division of foreign marital assets
- The discovery of hidden marital assets
- The enforcement of foreign divorce and custody judgments.
In such cases, the attorney acting as an expert witness will have to be careful not to violate any ethical requirements of their home jurisdiction. Further, they will want to be sure that all testimony is given via a qualified foreign language interpreter.