Universal Rights, Local Frames? Metaphors in UN Human Rights Instruments in English, Spanish, and Polish

The presence and function of metaphors in legal texts is well-documented, nevertheless, investigation is needed into their role as rhetorical tools in legislative documents. Therefore, this study investigates metaphors in UN human rights instruments, comparing the original English texts with their Spanish and Polish translations. Drawing on Lakoff and Johnson’s conceptual metaphor theory [25], this analysis explores how universally conceptualized metaphors used to express human rights are shaped by linguistic and cultural framing in translation. The mixed-method analysis of metaphors found in UN human rights instruments in three linguistic versions involves several stages—from a preliminary search, conducted with the assistance of Sketch Engine, of the most frequently occurring nouns in the English versions of the selected documents, through manual identification and categorization as ontological, structural, or orientational. Subsequently, metaphors were interpreted within their context, and their rhetorical effect was assessed. The findings show that metaphors—especially ontological ones—constitute a core cognitive and rhetorical resource in human rights discourse. Therefore, in English, Spanish, and Polish, metaphors overwhelmingly conceptualize rights as tangible entities, institutions as agents, violations as acts of destruction, and discrimination as barriers. Quantitatively, all three languages display a strong dominance of ontological metaphors, followed by structural metaphors, and a small number of orientational ones. Cross-linguistically, metaphor preservation proves consistent, both in terms of metaphor presence and metaphor type. Yet, systematic differences emerge: Spanish shows a higher tendency toward de-metaphorization and nominal abstraction, aligning with UN institutional drafting norms, whereas Polish more frequently mirrors the English metaphorical architecture and retains greater figurative concreteness. The results suggest that the metaphorical framework of human rights is largely shared across the three languages examined, that translation practices can modify its rhetorical force, and that universal concepts are mediated through language-specific frames.