Workshop AICOL 2009
In conjunction with the JURIX 2009 conference, a Workshop will be organized. This workshop will take place on Wednesday, 16 December 2009. For this Workshop, a separate Call for Papers has been issued, which is shown below. Contributions for the Workshop can be registered at the Workshop web site. Those who want to participate in the Workshop should indicate this on the Conference registration form.
Call for Papers
AI Approaches to the Complexity of Legal Systems: Multilingual ontologies, Multiagent systems, Distributed networks (AICOL-09)
16 December 2009
Rotterdam, The Netherlands
JURIX 2009
AICOL 2009 web site: http://idt.uab.es/IVRXXIV-aicol09/
Organisers:
Ugo Pagallo
ugo.pagallo@unito.it
Gianmaria Ajani
gianmaria.ajani@unito.it
Giovanni Sartor
giovanni.sartor@eui.eu
Pompeu Casanovas
pompeu.casanovas@uab.cat
Introduction
This is a follow-up Workshop. After a first experience in Beijing (IVR XXIV (September 15-20, 2009 Beijing, China), the organizers decided to formally apply for an extension in conjunction with JURIX-09 (Rotterdam).
Work on Artificial Intelligence and Law has been particularly fruitful in the last decade. Besides providing advanced computer applications for the legal domain such as knowledge based systems and intelligent information retrieval, research on AI and law has developed innovative interdisciplinary models for understanding legal systems and legal reasoning, which are highly significant for philosophy of law and legal theory. Among such models, we can mention, for instance, logical frameworks for feasible legal reasoning and dialectical argumentation, logics of normative positions, theories of case-based reasoning, and computable models of legal concepts.
Recently, research on models of legal systems and legal reasoning has merged with research on multiagent systems, which enable the animation of such models: normative structures may provide guidance to, and result from, the interaction of digital agents, that is autonomous entities able to act and communicate, in the pursuit of their purposes, possibly accepting the constraints of violable rules. By developing computable models including not only legal norms and concepts but also legal agents (with the associated roles and procedures) we can go beyond the statics of a legal system, i.e., its representation as a set of norms and concepts, and capture the social, interactive and dialectical dynamics of the law (using also ideas from game theory). An even more recent line of research in AI and law uses social network analysis to model the evolution of the law: This means identifying the patterns of emergent behavior of complex social networks and the ways to anticipate and control such dynamic.
Today there is a strong need not only to integrate research in AI and law within legal theory, but also to encompass the different branches of research in AI and law: When different branches are developing quickly, the risk is in fact missing the opportunities to exchange knowledge and methodologies. This is particularly so in the case of 'multiagent systems'-approach and social network analysis, that share concepts and objects of study, but often present merely superficial convergences in practice as well as in theory.
Multilingual ontologies provide an important opportunity for integrating different trends of research in AI and law as those mentioned above: Logical models of norms and concepts, multiagent systems, and distributed networks.
About this Workshop
The inspiring idea of AICOL-09 can indeed be approached by developing models of legal knowledge concerning both its structure and content, in order to promote mutual understanding and communication between different legal systems and cultures. By achieving all the more precise models of legal concepts - from multilingual dictionaries to taxonomies and legal ontologies, namely formal models of legal conceptualization - we enhance our comprehension of legal cultures, of their commonalities and differences. Moreover, in this way we profit increasingly from computer support in managing legal knowledge, drawing on commonalities and bridging differences for deeper understanding.
Legal ontologies, in particular, support the creation of multiagent systems for the law - where the different agents can understand one-another by sharing the same ontologies, or through the awareness of their different conceptual structures - which can be useful, for instance, in electronic commerce. Legal ontologies can profit from social network analysis, which could indicate what terms are fundamental for comparison. The study of how legal information is produced and distributed in complex social systems makes it possible to follow the semantic evolution of the network through its own topology, since the set of nodes with highest degree represents the main core of the taxonomy with the shortest average distance-concepts. The domain of multi-system and multi-lingual ontologies not only offers the opportunity to integrate artificial intelligence with legal theory, but also with comparative legal studies.
The relation of legal ontologies, multiagent systems, and distributed networks, is only one, albeit important, among many other examples of AI and law. The aim of the workshop is thus to offer effective support for the exchange of knowledge and methodological approaches between scholars from different scientific fields, by highlighting their similarities and differences. The comparison of multiple formal approaches to the law - such as logical models, cognitive theories, argumentation frameworks, graph theory, game theory, as well as opposite perspectives like the internal and the external viewpoints - should stress possible convergences in the realm, say, of conceptual structures, argumentation schemes, emergent behaviors, learning evolution, adaptation, simulation, etc. The overall aim is to promote a fruitful interaction between some of the most striking contributions to AI research on contemporary legal systems.
Topics
- Legal Ontologies
- Complex Systems
- Legal Theory
- Legal Culture
- Multi-Agent Systems (MAS)
- Legal Concepts
- Legal Thesauri
- Taxonomies
- Natural Language Processing (NLP)
- Online Dispute Resolution
- Legal Knowledge Acquisition
- Legal Knowledge Representation
- Knowledge Management
- Formalization of Legal Systems and Norms
- Artificial Societies
- Electronic Institutions
- Argumentative Frameworks
- Agreement technologies
- Game Theory
- Legal Information Retrieval
- Cognitive schemas
- Trends in e-Discovery, e-Courts, e-Administration
- Users' studies
Scientific Committee Members
Pablo Noriega (IIIA-CSIC, Barcelona, Spain)
Carles Sierra (IIIA-CSIC, Barcelona, Spain)
Marco Schorlemmer (IIIE-CSIC, Barcelona, Spain)
Joost Breuker (Leibniz Institute, Amsterdam University, The Nederlands)
Rinke Hoekstra (Leibniz Institute, Amsterdam University)
Tom van Engers (Leibniz Institute, Amsterdam University, The Nederlands)
Radboud Winkels (Leibniz Institute, Amsterdam University, The Nederlands)
Danièle Bourcier (CERSA-CNRS, Paris, France)
Daniela Tiscornia (ITTIG-CNR, Florence, Italy)
Enrico Francesconi (ITTIG-CNR Florence, Italy)
Tom Bruce (University of Cornell, USA)
Michael Geneseret (Stanford University, USA)
Barry Smith (University of Buffalo, USA)
Guido Boella (Università degli Studi di Torino, Italy)
Cristiano Castelfranchi (ISTC - CNR, Italy)
Guido Governatori (NICTA, Australia)
Kevin Ashley (University of Pittsburgh, USA)
Piercarlo Rossi (Facolta' di Economia, Universita' del Piemonte Orientale, Italy)
Marta Poblet (ICREA, UAB Institute of Law and Technology, Barcelona, Spain)
John Zeleznikow (University of Victoria, Australia)
Arno Lodder (Vrije University, The Nederlands)
V. Richard Benjamins (Telefonica, Spain)
Henry Prakken(Universiteit Utrecht, Groningen University; The Netherlands)
Monica Palmirani (Università di Bologna, Italy)
Joan Josep Vallbé (UAB Institute of Law and Technology, Barcelona, Spain)
Núria Casellas (UAB Institute of Law and Technology, Barcelona, Spain)
Important dates:
Paper submission: November 15th, 2009
Peer Review Communications: December 4th, 2009
Camera Ready: December 11th, 2009
AICOL Workshop: December 16th, 2009
Publication: February/March 2010 (LNAI volume)
