As far as issues touching on translation are concerned, international copyright law is inadequate to the realities and perspectives of a multicultural world, particularly with respect to the right to translate educational works in developing countries. This inadequacy may be traced through the history of copyright agreements, from the Berne Convention (1971) to the Nairobi Recommendations (1976) and the Trips Agreement of the World Trade Organization (1995). Calls to integrate ethical and cultural considerations into such international conventions tend to conflict with the purely economic trends that dominate the World Trade Organization, which is currently appropriating a large part of the international law system. Here it is proposed that far more than being a mere practice, translation can be the horizon and pretext for a new opening to the Other, for an ethics of rights and solidarity.