From Mistranslation to Material Prejudice: The Right to Be Heard in International Commercial Arbitration

Errors in the translation and interpretation of evidence in international commercial arbitration may distort meaning without necessarily denying procedural fairness. This article asks when a linguistic discrepancy becomes a legally cognisable impairment of the right to be heard, rather than an impermissible invitation to revisit the merits of an award. It combines a doctrinal comparison of the New York Convention, the UNCITRAL Model Law, and English and Singaporean arbitration law with a discourse-sensitive analysis of evidentiary translation. The analysis distinguishes lexical and pragmatic distortion, procedural exclusion, and departure from an agreed linguistic procedure. It finds that the critical transition is not the presence of an alternative translation but the loss of a meaningful opportunity to understand, contest, or correct material used by the tribunal, followed by satisfaction of the applicable test of causation or prejudice. The article develops a four-stage framework requiring proof of a reliable linguistic discrepancy, identification of a protected procedural opportunity or independent procedural ground, demonstration of the legally required connection to the award, and selection of an available proportionate remedy. Unlike a universalised due-process test, the framework preserves differences between English substantial injustice, Singaporean prejudice, and Convention-based enforcement review. It also proposes targeted safeguards for source-language preservation, timely objections, expert clarification, and transparent use of machine translation. The contribution is a legally bounded method for evaluating linguistic unfairness without turning judicial review into a second arbitral hearing.