Ferrara and Gaglioti: Legal Values and Legal Entropy: A Suggested Mathematical Model

Professor Dr. Massimiliano Ferrara of Università Mediterranea di Reggio Calabria – Facoltà di Giurisprudenza, and Angelo, Roberto Gaglioti of MEDAlics, have published Legal Values and Legal Entropy: a suggested Mathematical Model, International Journal of Mathematical Models and Methods in Applied Sciences, 6(3), 490-498 (2012).

Here is the abstract:

We will describe the fundamentals of a mathematical model for the quantitative analysis of the legal phenomena, intended to provide with a framework of legal general theory, allegedly applicable to every legal situation. In particular, the model can identify any legally material event using a logical hypothetical tool (the Model Situation) and associating to any Situation a certain axiological potential, what makes possible to determine even the amount of axiological potential, at disposal for the discretionary policies of the legal operator. Legal conflicts among axiological potentials may be easily and property rights objectively entitled and adjudicated amongst many challengers. We will try and apply the model to one legal rule of universal applicability (art. 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, attributing the right to life) and put some seminal considerations regarding the concept of Legal Entropy as related to the welfare level within the legal system.

Click here for other papers describing Professor Ferrara and colleagues’ Mathematical Model of Law.

Gros et al. on Ethics and Authority Sharing for Autonomous Armed Robots

Florian Gros and Catherine Tessier of ONERA, and Thierry Pichevin of CREC, Ecoles de Saint-Cyr Coetquidan, presented a paper entitled Ethics and Authority Sharing for Autonomous Armed Robots (scroll down), at RDA2 2012: the First Workshop on Rights and Duties of Autonomous Agents, held 28 August 2012 in Montpellier, France.

Click here for slides of the presentation.

Here is the abstract:

The goal of this paper is to review several ethical questions that are relevant to the use of autonomous armed robots and to authority sharing between such robots and the human operator. First, we discern the commonly confused meanings of morality and ethics. We continue by proposing leads to answer some of the most common ethical questions raised by literature, namely the autonomy, responsibility and moral status of autonomous robots, as well as their ability to reason ethically. We then present the possible advantages that authority sharing with the operator could provide with respect to these questions.

The principal ethical rules addressed in the paper are the Laws of War and related legal rules.

Click here for the complete proceedings of RDA2 2012: the First Workshop on Rights and Duties of Autonomous Agents.

Click here for abstracts and slides of presentations at RDA2 2012: the First Workshop on Rights and Duties of Autonomous Agents.

Danner on Transnational Law, International Law, and Open Access to Law and Legal Scholarship

Senior Associate Dean Richard A. Danner of the Duke University School of Law, has posted two new papers on open access to legal information, on SSRN:

Open Access to Legal Scholarship: Dropping the Barriers to Discourse and Dialogue (2011), forthcoming in Journal of International Commercial Law and Technology. Abstract:

This article focuses on the importance of free and open access to legal scholarship and commentary on the law. It argues that full understanding of authoritative legal texts requires access to informed commentary as well as to the texts of the law themselves, and that free and open access to legal commentary will facilitate cross-border dialogue and foster international discourse in law. The paper discusses the obligations of scholars and publishers of legal commentary to make their work as widely accessible as possible. Examples of institutional and disciplinary repositories for legal scholarship are presented, as are the possible impacts of such initiatives as the Durham Statement on Open Access to Legal Scholarship.

Defining International Law Librarianship in an Age of Multiplicity, Knowledge, and Open Access to Law (2011). Abstract:

Many law librarians are experts in international law and legal research. The concept of ‘international law librarianship,’ however, encompasses something more than a field of study in which a group of experts practice their profession. In the broader sense, the idea suggests a common calling, similar interests, and goals shared by librarians with a range of specialties beyond international law, working in all types of law libraries. What commonalities create and sustain the concept of international law librarianship? This paper suggests that they can be found in: law librarians’ common need to respond to the ‘multiplicity’ of information sources facing twenty-first century legal researchers; the development and nurturing of a shared base of professional knowledge; and a common commitment to work toward ensuring free and open access to legal information globally.

HT @cottinstef.

New on VoxPopuLII: Poast, Katz, and Bommarito on the Electronic World Treaty Index

The Electronic World Treaty Index is a new post by Paul Poast of the University of Michigan Department of Political Science, Daniel Martin Katz of the University of Michigan’s Center for the Study of Complex Systems and Computational Legal Studies, and Michael J. Bommarito II of Systematic Global Macro and Computational Legal Studies, on the VoxPopuLII Blog, published by the Legal Information Institute at Cornell University Law School.

In this post, the authors describe the content and functionality of The World Treaty Index (WTI), a new, updated, digital version of Peter Rohn’s pioneering reference source.

The new digital World Treaty Index includes metadata for nearly 75,000 treaties that entered into force in the twentieth century. Users may search by numerous access points, including citation; title keyword; party name (including countries and organizations); “Correlates of War” country code; subject; whether the treaty is unilateral, bilateral, or multilateral; and signature date.

Visualizations and data export are among the notable functionality in the new digital WTI. Display results include a visualization “of the distribution of the requested treaties over the requested time period,” a function that highlights the data visualization expertise of the founders of Computational Legal Studies. In addition, users may export search results for bilateral treaties, and may download metadata for multilateral treaties in bulk, in both instances in .csv format, for use in standard statistical packages. These features render WTI both a legal reference source and a valuable data set for research in political science and law.

In the coming months, the authors plan to extend WTI’s coverage through 2011, add metadata about “treaty terminations and renegotiations,” enhance the multilateral treaties interface, and add links to full text of treaties.

This post should be of interest to researchers in international law and political science, legal information professionals, developers of legal information systems, and those who study legal metadata.

Call for Papers: LVI 2011: Law via the Internet Conference

A call for papers — with submission deadline of 15 February 2011 — has been issued for LVI 2011: Law via the Internet Conference, to be held 8-10 June 2011, at the University of Hong Kong in Hong Kong, China.

The conference will be hosted by the Hong Kong Legal Information Institute (HKLII).

LVI is the conference of the Free Access to Law Movement and the legal information institutes.

For LVI 2011, papers are invited on the following topics:

• Challenges and barriers in free access to law in Asia and elsewhere
• Multi-lingual legal databases and searching
• Legal issues in the provision of free legal information
• Governance and funding models for sustainability of free legal databases
• Making historical legal materials accessible online
• Social networking technologies and their implications for free access to law?
• Keeping track of legislative evolution online
• Quality control and timeliness of online legal services
• Standards for legal information on the web?
• Free access to law as community services
• International law on the web: Treaties, International Courts etc
• Finding law across the web – indexing and searching
• Litigation support on the web
• Innovative uses of online legal data
• Court registries and electronic filing / transactions
• Interactive and ‘intelligent’ legal services on the web
• Teaching law using internet resources
• Automation of large-scale legal data on the web
• Legal publishing via the web

For more information, please see the call for papers.

HT Steven C. Perkins.

Bommarito, Katz, & Poast: The New, Digital World Treaty Index

A new digital version of World Treaty Index (WTI) has been released in beta by Michael J. Bommarito II and Daniel Martin Katz, both of the University of Michigan’s Center for the Study of Complex Systems and creators of the Computational Legal Studies blog, and Paul Poast of the University of Michigan Department of Political Science.

The new digital WTI is a revised version of Peter H. Rohn’s World Treaty Index, the last print edition of which appears to have been published by William S. Hein & Co.

The editors describe the content of the new digital WTI as follows:

The currently available product provides access to information on more than 50,000 bilateral and multilateral treaties formed between 1945 and 1997. When full coverage for the 20th century is complete, the database should feature in excess of 80,000 agreements. [...]

By the end of 2010, we will add (1) all treaties formed between 1900 and 1944, (2) all treaties formed between 1998 and 1999, and (3) a list of all parties to a given multilateral agreement. If you know of an agreement that is not ultimately featured on the site please contact us and we will be happy to add it to the list.

Respecting future enhancements to WTI, the editors write:

Planned extensions include bringing the World Treaty Index forward so as to provide coverage up to 2010. In addition, we plan to collect information regarding treaty terminations. Finally, we would like to enhance the granularity of our topic codes and allow for agreements with multiple dimensions to feature multiple topic codes.

The editors’ post announcing the system describes several sample searches that demonstrate the new WTI’s capabilities. The editors invite users to try the new WTI and provide comments.

HT Daniel Martin Katz.