Call for Papers: ICAIL 2013: International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Law

A call for papers — with paper submission deadline of 18 January 2013 — has been issued for ICAIL 2013: 14th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Law, to be held 10-14 June 2013 in Rome, Italy.

The Twitter account for the conference is @ICAIL2013 . The Twitter hashtag for the conference is #ICAIL2013. The conference organizers invite those interested to follow the Twitter account and hashtag and to comment and contribute with the latest news.

The conference features two tracks: one for “regular papers” and one for “innovative applications papers.”

Here is the complete list of deadlines:

• Mentoring program request deadline: November 9, 2012
• Mentoring program paper deadline: November 16, 2012
• Submission of workshop and tutorial proposals: December 7, 2012
• Submission of abstracts (optional): January 11, 2013
• Submission of papers deadline: January 18, 2013
• Notification of acceptance: March 20, 2013
• Final revised and formatted papers due: April 19, 2013
• Conference: June 10 – June 14, 2013

Papers are invited on the following topics:

• Formal and computational models of legal reasoning
• Knowledge acquisition techniques for the legal domain, including natural language processing and data mining
• Computational models of argumentation and decision making
• Legal knowledge representation including legal ontologies and common sense knowledge
• Automatic legal text classification and summarization
• Automated information extraction from legal databases and texts
• Machine learning and data mining applied to legal databases
• Conceptual or model-based legal information retrieval
• E-discovery and e-disclosure
• E-government and e-justice
• Computational models of evidential reasoning
• Modeling norms for multi-agent systems
• Modeling negotiation and contract formation
• Computational models of case-based legal reasoning
• Online dispute resolution
• Intelligent legal tutoring systems
• Intelligent support systems for the legal domain
• Interdisciplinary applications of legal informatics methods and systems

For more information, please see the call for papers.

HT Anne Gardner

[NOTE: Updated 23 November 2012 to add the Twitter account and hashtag. HT Enrico Francesconi]

Agnoloni et al.: Annotation Schema for Legal Doctrine: A Case Study on DoGi Database = Schema di annotazione per la dottrina giuridica: il caso di studio della banca dati DoGi-Dottrina Giuridica

Tommaso Agnoloni, Dr. Ginevra Peruginelli, Maria Teresa Sagri, and Dr. Daniela Tiscornia, all of ITTIG-CNR: Istituto di Teoria e Tecniche dell’Informazione Giuridica, have published Annotation Schema for Legal Doctrine: A Case Study on DoGi Database = Schema di annotazione per la dottrina giuridica: il caso di studio della banca dati DoGi-Dottrina Giuridica, JLIS.it: Italian Journal of Library and Information Science = rivista italiana di biblioteconomia, archivistica e scienza dell’informazione (2012).

Here is the abstract:

Interoperability today is the key term for the enhancement of databases published on the web: the data, when isolated, have little value, on the contrary, their value increases significantly when different datasets, produced and published independently by different providers, can be reused and freely mashed by third parties. The use of data for new purposes not foreseen by organizations and individuals who publish “raw data” is one of the advantages of linked open data model. To achieve these benefits content and relationships between the entities described in the dataset should be explicitly represented in standard web formats (XML, RDF, URI). The DoGi-Legal Literature database, one of the most valuable sources for online access to legal doctrine, created and managed by the Institute of Legal Information Theory and Techniques of the CNR is following this direction. This paper will define the schema of the data representing the database in RDF format. This will make the DoGi database interoperable between different data and service providers (libraries, publishers, information services for accessing national and European legal information), allowing the creation of new advanced services to be made available on the web of data. In particular, the contribution will focus on the goal to promote semantic interoperability between the DoGi classification schema and other semantic indexing tools in legal domain.

Bacci, Francesconi, and Sagri: A Rule-based Parsing Approach for Detecting Case Law References in Italian Court Decisions

Lorenzo Bacci, Professor Dr. Enrico Francesconi, and Maria Teresa Sagri, all of ITTIG/CNR, have published A Rule-based Parsing Approach for Detecting Case Law References in Italian Court Decisions, in LREC 2012 Conference Proceedings: Semantic Processing of Legal Texts (SPLeT-2012) Workshop, pp. 27-33.

Here is the abstract:

In this paper a procedure able to detect legal references in Italian court decisions, providing automatic document hyperlinking is described. It is based on the adoption of a naming convention for case law documents, based on the metadata typically used in citations. The parsing strategy in particular is based on regular expressions, able to extract, from legal citations, the metadata used in the adopted naming convention. In particular the parser is able to implement both the ECLI and the LEX naming conventions for case law material.

ICAIL 2013 to Be Held in Rome, 10-14 June 2013

[NOTE: Workshops and tutorials have been announced for ICAIL 2013. For workshops, submission deadline vary; please see the description of each workshop.]

[NOTE: The ICAIL 2013 call for papers is now available at http://icail2013.ittig.cnr.it/index.php/call . HT Anne Gardner]

ICAIL 2013: The International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Law, will be held 10-14 June 2013 in Rome, Italy, according to an email message sent on 11 May 2013 by the Executive Committee of the International Association for Artificial Intelligence and Law (IAAIL) to the IAAIL listserv.

The Twitter hashtag for the conference is #icail2013 and the Twitter account for the conference is @ICAIL2013

The call for papers submission deadline has not yet been announced.

According to the message, the conference will be hosted by the Institute of Legal Information Theory and Techniques of the National Research Council of Italy (ITTIG-CNR), and the conference officers will include:

• Conference Chair: Professor Dr. Enrico Francesconi;
• Program Chair: Professor Dr. Bart Verheij;
• Secretary-Treasurer: Dr. Anne Gardner.

HT Dr. Anne Gardner.

[NOTE: Updated on 21 September 2012 to link to the call for papers.]

Slides from 2011 ITTIG-CNR Workshop: From Information to Knowledge: On Line Access to Legal Information

Slides have been posted for presentations at From Information to Knowledge: On Line Access to Legal Information, a workshop organised by ITTIG-CNR in conjunction with Festival d’Europa 2011, on 6 May 2011, in Florence, Italy.

Full text of revised versions of many of the papers has been published in: Maria Angela Biasiotti and Sebastiano Faro (Eds.), From Information to Knowledge – Online Access to Legal Information: Methodologies, Trends and Perspectives (IOS, 2011).

Here is a list of the papers presented, with links to slides, abstracts, and revised full text where available:

• Giovanni Sartor, European University Institute: Access to legislation in the semantic web (click here for slides; click here for abstract and revised full text);
• Cedric Chailloux, Publications Office of the European Union – EUR-Lex Unit: The new EUR-Lex: improvement and redesign (Click here for slides; click here for abstract and revised full text, by Els Breedstraet);
• Carol Tullo, The National Archives – Information Policy and Services – UK: Online access to UK legislation: strategy and structure (Click here for slides; click here for abstract and revised full text);
• Filippo Donati, University of Florence: Access to legal information in the European Union (Click here for abstract and revised full text);
• G. Boella, L. Humphreys, P. Rossi, and L. van der Torre: Eunomos, a legal document management system based on legislative XML and ontologies (Click here for slides; click here for abstract and revised full text);
• K.E. Petersen: Experiences with “Lex Dania Live” (Click here for slides; click here for abstract and revised full text);
• B. Bassi: Automatic classification of documents for the Library of the Italian Chamber of Deputies (Click here for slides; click here for abstract and revised full text);
• Melih Karakullukçu: Proper treatment of gaps in legal data and in electronic legal research (Click here for abstract and revised full text);
• Marc van Opijnen: European Case-law identifier: a short history and the broad outlook (Click here for slides; click here for abstract and revised full text);
• G. Damele, M. Dogliani., A. Mastropaolo, F. Pallante and D.P. Radicioni: On legal argumentation tecniques: towards a systematic approach (Click here for slides; click here for abstract and revised full text.);
• D. Bourcier and M. Fernández-Barrera: Challenges regarding legal metadata. IP licensing and management of different cognitive levels in the Web 2.0 (Click here for slides; click here for abstract and revised full text);
• G. Peruginelli, D. Tiscornia, G. Greenleaf, A. Mowbray and P. Chung: A comprehensive free access legal information system for Europe (Click here for slides; click here for abstract and revised full text);
• R. Caso, P. Guarda and V. Moscon: Open Access to legal scholarship and Open Archives: towards a better future? (Click here for slides; click here for abstract and revised full text).

URN:LEX: New Version Available

A new version of the URN:LEX standard for legal identifiers has been posted. The new version is dated 2 April 2010, and expires 4 October 2010.

The new version has been published by Institute of Legal Information Theory and Techniques of the Italian National Research Council (ITTIG/CNR); Italy, National Centre for ICT in Public Administration (CNIPA); Brazil, Federal Senate, IT Department (PRODASEN); and Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute (LII).

The contacts for the draft are Professor Enrico Francesconi & Pierluigi Spinosa, both of ITTIG/CNR, and Caterina Lupo of CNIPA.

According to the new version, “The purpose of the ‘lex’ namespace is to assign an unequivocal identifier, in standard format, to documents that are sources of law.”

Here are some key differences between the new version and the previous version (dated 30 October 2009):

• The former term “National Registrar” has been changed to “Registrar” because that role may pertain to jurisdictions other than national jurisdictions;
• A new “Definitions” section has been added, providing definitions for the terms “Source of Law” and “Registrar”;
• The definition of “Source of Law” provides that that term denotes “anything that can be conceived of as the originator of legal rules,” presumably including constitutions; treaties and other international agreements; contracts; conveyancing instruments; and proposed legislation. Further, other parts of the new version expressly refer to:
• constitutions (see, e.g., the example of the 1988 Brazilian Constitution in section 4.4),
• treaties (see, e.g., section 4.5),
• proposed legislation (see, e.g., the example of a proposition from the Sénat de France in Section 4.4), and
• conveyancing instruments (see, e.g., the example of the Free Software Foundation’s General Public License in Section 4.4);
• The element formerly named “country” is now named “jurisdiction”, because that element may refer to national or international jurisdictions;
• The syntax of the “partition-id” element has been changed, such that the former character “#” has been replaced by “~”, in order to avoid resolution and retrieval problems arising from the fact that when a URN is resolved, a “#” character in the URN will not be transmitted to the server.

Full disclosure: I submitted comments respecting proposed revisions to the former version of URN:LEX, and some of my comments were incorporated into the new version. I am most grateful to Professor Francesconi and his colleagues for considering the comments offered and for incorporating many of those comments into the new version.

URN:LEX is one of the metadata standards being used in conjunction with the Law.gov legal open government data project.

Legal information systems developers are sharing examples of URN:LEX identifiers, and discussing how to use URN:LEX, on LexCraft, the wiki for sharing best practices in legal information systems development, hosted by the Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law School. To participate in this discussion, or to add further examples, if you’re not already a LexCraft member, one need only register as a LexCraft member. Registration is free. Click here to register on LexCraft.

HT Professor Enrico Francesconi.

URN:LEX Illustrative Examples: US Law

Several examples of how the URN:LEX legal identifier standard can be applied to US legal documents, have been posted on LexCraft, the wiki for sharing best practices in legal information systems development, hosted by the Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law School.

URN:LEX is one of the legal metadata standards proposed to be used in the Law.gov legal open government data project.

The URN:LEX examples available so far on LexCraft cover:

• U.S. federal statutes, regulations, and case law;
• U.S. state statutes and case law; and
• U.S. municipal ordinances.

Further, a discussion of the use of URN:LEX is now taking place on LexCraft.

To participate in this discussion, or to add further examples, if you’re not already a LexCraft member, one need only register as a LexCraft member. Registration is free. Click here to register on LexCraft.

Click here for more information about URN:LEX.

Click here for more information about LexCraft.

Click here for more information about Law.gov.

URN:LEX : A Uniform Resource Name Namespace for Sources of Law

An Internet-Draft of URN:LEX : A Uniform Resource Name Namespace for Sources of Law, has been published by Institute of Legal Information Theory and Techniques of the Italian National Research Council (ITTIG/CNR); Italy, National Centre for ICT in Public Administration (CNIPA); Brazil, Federal Senate, IT Department (PRODASEN); and Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute (LII). The contacts for the draft are Professor Enrico Francesconi & Pierluigi Spinosa, both of ITTIG/CNR, and Caterina Lupo of CNIPA. Here is a description of the draft standard:

“The purpose of the ‘lex’ namespace is to assign an unequivocal identifier, in standard format, to documents that are sources of law. The identifier is conceived so that its construction depends only on the characteristics of the document itself and is, therefore, independent from the document’s on-line availability, its physical location, and access mode. ‘Sources of law’ include any legal document within the domain of legislation (including bills), case law and administrative acts or regulations. This identifier will be used as a way to represent the references (and more generally, any type of relation) among the various sources of law. In an on-line environment with resources distributed among different Web publishers, uniform resource names allow simplified global interconnection of legal documents by means of automated hypertext linking.”

Romano, Il procedimento legislativo digitale: vincoli normativi e soluzioni tecniche

Francesco Romano, a researcher at Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Istituto di Teoria e Tecniche dell’Informazione Giuridica (ITTIG-CNR), has published Il procedimento legislativo digitale: vincoli normativi e soluzioni tecniche (2009). Here is a summary:

“…Come abbiamo visto il Codice dell’amministrazione digitale cerca di costituire un rimedio a una certa precarietà normativa che non ha facilitato il diffondersi degli strumenti ICT presso la Pubblica Amministrazione. Lo stesso CAD impone una serie di obblighi per digitalizzare la P.A. ma prevede poi dei limiti costituiti nell’ordine:

• dall’autonomia normativa degli enti,
• da questioni di opportunità,
• dalla disponibilità di idonee risorse tecnologiche,
• dalla normativa vigente,
• dall’emanazione di norme tecniche future.

“Nel procedimento legislativo sembrerebbe che con poche modifiche
legislative si dovrebbe potere prevedere la digitalizzazione dell’intero
flusso documentario presente nelle diverse istituzioni che producono
norme.

“Ma a ben vedere una serie di leggi e regolamenti impongono ancora che durante l’iter la proposta di atto legislativo e gli emendamenti ad essa, siano stampati su carta, oppure che la procedura di emanazione di una delibera comunale si concluda con la sua affissione presso un albo. Introdurre nuove leggi, così come pensare a soluzioni tecnologiche sempre più efficienti ed innovative da testare nel campo della Pubblica Amministrazione e più in generale come soluzioni di e-government può dunque non portare i risultati sperati se prima non si effettua una ricognizione di quelle norme o almeno di alcune fra esse che poi interrompono il flusso digitale che si vorrebbe introdurre.

“Nei capitoli che seguono sarà effettuata una verifica delle norme che a vario livello impediscono l’attuarsi dell’iter legislativo digitale. Partendo dalle norme costituzionali, si analizzerà la disciplina che regola l’iter legislativo parlamentare, per poi analizzare alcuni Statuti regionali e regolamenti consiliari per l’iter legislativo in uso nelle Regioni italiane, fino ad arrivare al flusso che regola l’emanazione degli atti normativi degli enti locali.

“In questo lavoro saranno evidenziate le esperienze di alcune regioni italiane in particolare Umbria, Toscana, Piemonte.”

Peruginelli, Multilinguismo e sistemi di accesso all’informazione giuridica

Professor Ginevra Peruginelli, Esq., a Researcher at the Institute of Legal Information Theory and Techniques of the Italian National Research Council (ITTIG-CNR), has published Multilinguismo e sistemi di accesso all’informazione giuridica (2009). Here is the abstract:

“Il volume mostra un quadro esaustivo dei problemi del multilinguismo giuridico e delle soluzioni che si stanno sperimentando anzitutto a livello europeo ma anche a livello mondiale.”

Here is the table of contents:

• Il principio del multilinguismo
• I sistemi di accesso multilingue
• Metodi e tecniche per l’accesso multilingue
• La ricerca giuridica multilingue
• Uno sguardo agli strumenti e ai sistemi di ricerca giuridica multilingue
• Conclusioni e prospettive
• Appendice
• Alcuni dizionari giuridici multilingue: dizionari giuridici unidirezionali;
• Alcuni dizionari giuridici multilingue: dizionari giuridici pluridirezionali.

Here is a detailed table of contents.