As every serious and responsible professional should, I embrace and endorse a Code of Ethics that includes the following main features:
- Be polite, serious and honourable.
- Fully collaborate to solve disagreements.
- Put in writing all the relevant factors of an assignment before it begins; the particulars of the service, the deadlines, the costs and taxes, etc.
- Fulfil all agreements, independently of the personal cost, except when otherwise agreed with the client or if a force majeure situation arises.
- Never accept assignments that subordinate payment to the success or failure of operations or factors not related to the professional service provided or not under the responsibility of the translator.
- One must present one's background and competencies with honesty.
- Advise a client fairly about the features of translation services without trying to take advantage from lack of knowledge, by commission or omission. Such expert advice should be paid if it entails the analysis of a specific case.
- A translator should only accept assignments he can perform competently or satisfactorily.
- If the translator makes a mistake or faces an unexpected obstacle, he must promptly solve the problem.
- The translator must establish a fee proportional to his experience, competences, and the quality level he can deliver.
- Never try to dictate or provide a service a client has not requested.
- All information that a client has established as confidential must be protected with reasonable known methods.
- A translator must not take personal advantage from privileged information put in his hands during an assignment.
- A translator must bear responsibility for the quality of a translation in all extent that is under his control. This responsibility includes warning the client of any mistake detected in the original text and which might jeopardize or endanger the success of a proposal or of the existence of unlawful or illegal elements in as far as the translator can infer, and if these are not suppressed, the translator will be freed of all obligation, including confidentiality in these last cases. A translator cannot be accountable when his translation is modified without his consent.
- When facing a complaint the translator must address it as soon as possible, taking into consideration the interests of the client, his own interests, and the interests of the profession.
- Professional development and keeping up with progress should be carried out permanently.
- Any activity related to unfair competition is not acceptable (i.e. Dumping; bringing a colleague into disrepute before his clients without sound evidence; making offensive comments about the private life of a colleague which are unrelated to his/her professional qualifications; induce confusion to take advantage of the reputation, position or scope of a colleague; comparing competencies without true and verifiable or incomplete information; induce a client to dishonour his agreements with a competitor; harass through legal or administrative procedures to obstruct the activity of a competitor or another player in the market).
- Plagiarism is an infraction of intellectual property and ethically unacceptable.
- A translator must not delegate work to another translator without the client's approval.
- Colleagues must be loyal and solidary with peers, collaborating in the solution of issues that may bring disrepute to the profession, avoiding any comment that brings dishonour to a colleague and to his profession and referring all internal disputes of a professional organisation using transparent, fair and established procedures.
- When a translator has an issue of ethical significance with a client he must let him know he is committed with a Code of Ethics he can't ignore and the translator must solve the issue with responsibility.
This translator does not belong to any organisation which has evidenced unlawful behaviour in its governing body, contrary to the rule of law, opposed to ethics or in favour of any kind of violence, and will immediately leave those where he finds evidence of these behaviours or any unwillingness to address the problem with honesty. For these reasons, this translator does not belong to the Colegio de Traductores e Intérpretes de Chile, COTICH, since May 27th, 2011, nor does he endorse the Federation International des Traducteurs, who are complaisant with these unethical practices.