British and US spelling rant/Britische und amerikanische Rechtschreibung

This rant developed out of my reply to a comment. There are some spelling differences between BE and AE. This is not a secret, and I would think that every person educated enough to be using a bilingual law dictionary knows what they are or can check up somewhere else. Nevertheless, I have seen a number of bilingual law dictionaries that give both spellings, even though space for legal content is limited. (I’m limiting this to DE>EN dictionaries, but the problem arises in the other direction too). For instance, in the latest Romain DE>EN, I find: Entziehung einer Lizenz: recovation of a US license/GB licence The old Romain just had revocation of a licence. In Romain, the same abbreviations are used for spelling and law. Thus: Gesellschaftssatzung f US (corporate) charter/GB memorandum and articles of association The small dictionary by Karin Linhart uses AE and BE for spelling and US and Br for law. zu Geld machen: to realize (AE), to realise (BE) Nachlassverwalter bei gesetzlicher Erbfolge: ErbR administrator (US) This is odd, because this is the UK term too (of course, one can’t always generalize for the whole of the UK or the US, but that is a separate question) Even odder: Tagebuch: diary (BE) There may be some confusion with Kalender here. Kalender: m calendar, diary; Terminkalender diary (BE), in den Kalender eintrag to diarize (AE), to diarise (BE), to calendar. But as far as I am concerned the AE/BE spelling distinctions could be thrown out. Of course, this would leave situations where a purely US term, for instance 'Your Honor' (used in only one court in England and Wales – most common is 'My Lord') might be spelt in the US way and the rest in the British way, depending on the editor’s decision. This is illogical, but many things are illogical in dictionaries – complete consistency is not achievable because language and law are complex. Similarly, the Langenscheidt Alpmann Fachwörterbuch Recht gives both spellings and uses AE and BE for both spelling and law: Straftat f (CrLaw) criminal act; criminal offence (AE offense); crime Erblasser m (BE) deceased; (AE) decedent; testator The spelling differences are not given in Cornelson’s Wörterbuch Recht, only the law differences. Dietl has: Straftat criminal offence (offense); penal act (Verbrechen, Vergehen) This at least doesn’t waste space telling us which spelling is which. Lundmark’s Talking Law Dictionary has: Lizenz: licence (-se) This is also an improvement from the point of view of space. Now two particular points that annoy me: ise/ize and judgment/judgement The fact is that the –ize ending is quite common in BE, though not as common as –ise. I’ve mentioned this before, and here is some evidence. I therefore wish dictionaries, and the EU English style guide, would not prescribe what is right and wrong here in BE. Above all, as said before, I think nearly all Germans believe that –ize is wrong in BE. Possibly it’s easier to remember: US is A, UK is B. If peo…