The processes of drafting consistent and coherent legislation and upholding and applying valid la... more The processes of drafting consistent and coherent legislation and upholding and applying valid law are getting more and more complicated. In this paper we sketch the components of an integrated Knowledge Management architecture for Legislative Drafting and deployment of legislation in an international setting and discuss prob-lems conceptual mismatches in legal vocabulary of competing legislative authorities. Such a support environment should at least provide the following functionalities: Man-agement of references, version management, management of subsumption structures between concepts and norms, access to similar legal documents for 'best practices', and access to guidelines or norms about drafting. We identify the key problem of man-aging a large and complicated repository of legislation as the problem of comparing (models of) legislation.
Within the (E-)Power research program a new approach for supporting the chain of processes from t... more Within the (E-)Power research program a new approach for supporting the chain of processes from the creation of legal texts to the implementation of normative (juridical) information systems has been developed. According to this approach cre- ating formal knowledge models starts with the analysis of the legal text. This process executed by knowledge analysts is very time consuming. Within the
Knowledge engineers have been working in the legal domain since the rise of their discipline in t... more Knowledge engineers have been working in the legal domain since the rise of their discipline in the mid-eighties of the last century. More and more knowledge engineering is not just seen as a way of capturing and distributing (legal) knowledge by means of the knowledge-based systems created, but as an analytical approach that helps to improve legal quality. Improving legal
Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Law - ICAIL '09, 2009
Since the eighties of last centuries many developments in information science and artificial inte... more Since the eighties of last centuries many developments in information science and artificial intelligence have influenced legal practice. These changes are for example visible in the way case decisions are distributed, i.e. by means of digital publishing, using portal technology and the extensive use of legal content management techniques that have improved access to and availability of case decisions. Artificial
Page 1. Traceability and Change in Legal Requirements Engineering Alexander Boer, Tom van Engers,... more Page 1. Traceability and Change in Legal Requirements Engineering Alexander Boer, Tom van Engers, and Radboud Winkels Leibniz Center for Law, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands {AWFBoer,TMvanEngers,RGFWinkels}@uva.nl Abstract. ...
MetaLex is a generic and extensible interchange framework for the XML encoding of the structure o... more MetaLex is a generic and extensible interchange framework for the XML encoding of the structure of, and metadata about, documents that function as a source of law. It aims to be jurisdiction and language-neutral, and is based on modern XML publishing concepts like a strict separation between text, markup, and metadata, building on top of structure instead of syntax, accommodation
Applications and Innovations in Intelligent Systems XIII, 2006
Knowledge engineers have been working in the legal domain since the rise of their discipline in t... more Knowledge engineers have been working in the legal domain since the rise of their discipline in the mid-eighties of the last century. Traditionally their main focus was capturing and distributing knowledge by means of the knowledge-based systems, thus improving legal access. More and more legal knowledge engineering has become an analytical approach that helps to improve legal quality. An example
More and more people on the working floor are expected to have knowledge of the sources of law th... more More and more people on the working floor are expected to have knowledge of the sources of law that are applicable to their field. While coping with vast volumes of regulations is a challenge, dealing with changes in legislation is even more challenging. Organizational change also affects the amount and complexity of legal rules people in organizations have to deal
The Leibniz Center for Law is involved in the project Digitale Uitwisseling Ruimtelijke Plannen (... more The Leibniz Center for Law is involved in the project Digitale Uitwisseling Ruimtelijke Plannen (DURP 1 ; digital exchange of spatial plans) which develops a digital exchange format for spatial regulations. For the researchers of the Leibniz Center for Law, hav- ing designed the META Lex XML schema (cf. Boer et al., 2002 and Boer et al., 2003) for 'regular'
The introduction of e-Government thus far has been largely focused on improving service delivery ... more The introduction of e-Government thus far has been largely focused on improving service delivery and governmental back office integration. Nevertheless the State of Affairs in e-Government in Europe shows a growing mismatch between supply and demand in e-Services to the public. The current focus on the reduction of the administrative burden however has opened up new perspectives in the development
This paper describes extensions to our native XML legislative editor MetaVex, dealing with specif... more This paper describes extensions to our native XML legislative editor MetaVex, dealing with specific requests of legislative drafters: The automatic generation of amending documents based on the editing of an existing law or proposal, and the automatic consolidation of (proposed) legislation based on the original and its amending documents. Moreover, we try to automatically detect (potential) clashes of amendments and
Page 34. 34| eGovernment Review| www. egovernment-review. org| Nr. 9| Januar 2012 service E-Gover... more Page 34. 34| eGovernment Review| www. egovernment-review. org| Nr. 9| Januar 2012 service E-Government Publikationen Christian Bach Der Online-Europawahlkampf der „Grünen “2009: Wie stellt sich die Partei „Bündnis 90/Die Grünen “im Web 2.0 dar und wie kann man den Internet-Auftritt verbessern? Grin Verlag, ISBN: 978-3640954407, Juli 2011 Kati Schulz Digitale Kluft-Die Informationsgesellschaft unter dem Einfluss neuer Technologien ...
The knowledge management problems involved in managing the consequences of organizational change ... more The knowledge management problems involved in managing the consequences of organizational change processes triggered by changes in the law, for instance for business processes, services, databases, fielded applications, forms and documents, and internal education, make a good case for application of some state-of-the-art concepts in legal knowledge representation. The recently started AGILE project addresses the legal dimension of management of
The processes of drafting consistent and coherent legislation and upholding and applying valid la... more The processes of drafting consistent and coherent legislation and upholding and applying valid law are getting more and more complicated. In this paper we sketch the components of an integrated Knowledge Management architecture for Legislative Drafting and deployment of legislation in an international setting and discuss prob-lems conceptual mismatches in legal vocabulary of competing legislative authorities. Such a support environment should at least provide the following functionalities: Man-agement of references, version management, management of subsumption structures between concepts and norms, access to similar legal documents for 'best practices', and access to guidelines or norms about drafting. We identify the key problem of man-aging a large and complicated repository of legislation as the problem of comparing (models of) legislation.
Within the (E-)Power research program a new approach for supporting the chain of processes from t... more Within the (E-)Power research program a new approach for supporting the chain of processes from the creation of legal texts to the implementation of normative (juridical) information systems has been developed. According to this approach cre- ating formal knowledge models starts with the analysis of the legal text. This process executed by knowledge analysts is very time consuming. Within the
Knowledge engineers have been working in the legal domain since the rise of their discipline in t... more Knowledge engineers have been working in the legal domain since the rise of their discipline in the mid-eighties of the last century. More and more knowledge engineering is not just seen as a way of capturing and distributing (legal) knowledge by means of the knowledge-based systems created, but as an analytical approach that helps to improve legal quality. Improving legal
Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Law - ICAIL '09, 2009
Since the eighties of last centuries many developments in information science and artificial inte... more Since the eighties of last centuries many developments in information science and artificial intelligence have influenced legal practice. These changes are for example visible in the way case decisions are distributed, i.e. by means of digital publishing, using portal technology and the extensive use of legal content management techniques that have improved access to and availability of case decisions. Artificial
Page 1. Traceability and Change in Legal Requirements Engineering Alexander Boer, Tom van Engers,... more Page 1. Traceability and Change in Legal Requirements Engineering Alexander Boer, Tom van Engers, and Radboud Winkels Leibniz Center for Law, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands {AWFBoer,TMvanEngers,RGFWinkels}@uva.nl Abstract. ...
MetaLex is a generic and extensible interchange framework for the XML encoding of the structure o... more MetaLex is a generic and extensible interchange framework for the XML encoding of the structure of, and metadata about, documents that function as a source of law. It aims to be jurisdiction and language-neutral, and is based on modern XML publishing concepts like a strict separation between text, markup, and metadata, building on top of structure instead of syntax, accommodation
Applications and Innovations in Intelligent Systems XIII, 2006
Knowledge engineers have been working in the legal domain since the rise of their discipline in t... more Knowledge engineers have been working in the legal domain since the rise of their discipline in the mid-eighties of the last century. Traditionally their main focus was capturing and distributing knowledge by means of the knowledge-based systems, thus improving legal access. More and more legal knowledge engineering has become an analytical approach that helps to improve legal quality. An example
More and more people on the working floor are expected to have knowledge of the sources of law th... more More and more people on the working floor are expected to have knowledge of the sources of law that are applicable to their field. While coping with vast volumes of regulations is a challenge, dealing with changes in legislation is even more challenging. Organizational change also affects the amount and complexity of legal rules people in organizations have to deal
The Leibniz Center for Law is involved in the project Digitale Uitwisseling Ruimtelijke Plannen (... more The Leibniz Center for Law is involved in the project Digitale Uitwisseling Ruimtelijke Plannen (DURP 1 ; digital exchange of spatial plans) which develops a digital exchange format for spatial regulations. For the researchers of the Leibniz Center for Law, hav- ing designed the META Lex XML schema (cf. Boer et al., 2002 and Boer et al., 2003) for 'regular'
The introduction of e-Government thus far has been largely focused on improving service delivery ... more The introduction of e-Government thus far has been largely focused on improving service delivery and governmental back office integration. Nevertheless the State of Affairs in e-Government in Europe shows a growing mismatch between supply and demand in e-Services to the public. The current focus on the reduction of the administrative burden however has opened up new perspectives in the development
This paper describes extensions to our native XML legislative editor MetaVex, dealing with specif... more This paper describes extensions to our native XML legislative editor MetaVex, dealing with specific requests of legislative drafters: The automatic generation of amending documents based on the editing of an existing law or proposal, and the automatic consolidation of (proposed) legislation based on the original and its amending documents. Moreover, we try to automatically detect (potential) clashes of amendments and
Page 34. 34| eGovernment Review| www. egovernment-review. org| Nr. 9| Januar 2012 service E-Gover... more Page 34. 34| eGovernment Review| www. egovernment-review. org| Nr. 9| Januar 2012 service E-Government Publikationen Christian Bach Der Online-Europawahlkampf der „Grünen “2009: Wie stellt sich die Partei „Bündnis 90/Die Grünen “im Web 2.0 dar und wie kann man den Internet-Auftritt verbessern? Grin Verlag, ISBN: 978-3640954407, Juli 2011 Kati Schulz Digitale Kluft-Die Informationsgesellschaft unter dem Einfluss neuer Technologien ...
The knowledge management problems involved in managing the consequences of organizational change ... more The knowledge management problems involved in managing the consequences of organizational change processes triggered by changes in the law, for instance for business processes, services, databases, fielded applications, forms and documents, and internal education, make a good case for application of some state-of-the-art concepts in legal knowledge representation. The recently started AGILE project addresses the legal dimension of management of
Electronic Government and the Information Systems Perspective, First International Conference, EGOVIS 2010, Jan 1, 2010
Within a framework for enriched on-line discussion forums for e-government policy-making, pro and... more Within a framework for enriched on-line discussion forums for e-government policy-making, pro and con statements for positions are input, structurally related, then logically represented and evaluated. The framework builds on current technologies for multi-threaded discussion, natural language processing, ontologies, and formal argumentation frameworks. This paper focuses on the natural language processing of statements in the framework. A small sample policy discussion is presented. We adopt and apply a controlled natural language (Attempto Controlled English) to constrain the domain of discourse, eliminate ambiguity and unclarity, allow a logical representation of statements which supports inference and consistency checking, and facilitate information extraction. Each of the policy statements is automatically translated into first-order logic. The result is a logical representation of the policy discussion which we can query, draw inferences (given ground statements), test for consistency, and extract detailed information.
This work presents elements for an alternative oper-ationalization of monitoring and diagnosis of... more This work presents elements for an alternative oper-ationalization of monitoring and diagnosis of multi-agent systems (MAS). In contrast to traditional accounts of model-based diagnosis, and most proposals concerning non-compliance, our method does not consider any commitment towards the individual unit of agency. Identity is considered to be mostly an attribute to assign responsibility , and not as the only referent that may be source of intentionality. The proposed method requires as input a set of prototypical agent-roles known to be relevant for the domain, and an observation, i.e. evidence collected by a monitor agent. We elaborate on a concrete example concerning tax frauds in real-estate transactions.
Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Agents and Artificial Intelligence (ICAART 2013)
This paper presents a multi-agent framework intended to animate scenarios of compliance and non-c... more This paper presents a multi-agent framework intended to animate scenarios of compliance and non-compliance in a normative system. With the purpose of describing social human behaviour, we choose to reduce social complexity by creating models of the involved agents starting from stories, and completing them with background theories derived from common-sense and expert knowledge. For this reason, we explore how an institutional perspective can be taken into account in a computational framework. Roles, institutions and rules become components of the agent architecture. The social intelligence of the agent is distributed to several cognitive modules, performing the institutional thinking, whose outcomes are coordinated in the main decision-making cycle. The institutional logic is analyzed from a general simulation perspective, and a concrete possible choice is presented, drawn from fundamental legal concepts. As a concrete result, a preliminary implementation of the framework has been developed with Jason.
Proceedings of the 27th International Conference on Legal knowledge and information systems (JURIX 2014). Volume: 271, Frontiers in artificial intelligence and applications, Dec 10, 2014
Rather than as abstract entities, jural relations are analyzed in terms of the bindings they crea... more Rather than as abstract entities, jural relations are analyzed in terms of the bindings they create on the individual behaviour of concurrent social agents. Investigating a simple sale transaction modeled with Petri Nets, we argue that the concepts on the two Hohfeldian squares rely on the implicit reference to a "transcendental" collective entity, to which the two parties believe or are believed to belong. From this perspective, we observe that both liabilities and duties are associated to obligations, respectively of an epistemic or practical nature. The fundamental legal concepts defined by Hohfeld are revisited accordingly, leading to the construction of two Hohfeldian prisms.
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Papers by Tom Van Engers