Post on 15-Feb-2019
1
Legal ontologies
Historical origins and state of the art
Meritxell Fernández BarreraLaw Department (EUI)
• History of ontologies in legal thought• Approaches to legal knowledge acquisition• Brief state of the art
2
History of ontologies in legal thought
Concept of “legal ontology”
• Computational ontologies: Formal specification ofa conceptualisation [Gruber]
• Philosophical Ontology (Metaphysics): study ofbeing qua being [Aristotle]
• Wide sense: network in which nodes are conceptsand arches are semantic relations betweenconcepts
3
Historical examples
• Reasons for building legal ontologies:– Consolidation of an autonomous domain– Clarity of legal terms and concepts –better
language better thought-– Systematisation: easier access to legal materials– Scientific rigour: influence of biological
taxonomies
IUS
things actionsPersons
Free Slaves dependent independent In curatorship In guardianship
Freeborn Freedmen
Romancitizens Latins dediticii
In potestate In manu In mancipio
children slaves
GAIUS Institutiones
4
IUS
things actionsPersons
GAIUS Institutiones
Subject todivine right
Subject tohuman right
corporeal incorporeal Nec mancipimancipi
sacred
religious
holy public private
Right ofinheritance
Right ofusufruct
Right ofobligation
Lands onItalic soil
slaves
Wildbeasts
Urbanservitudes
XIXth century: the age of legal classifications
• Analytical tradition –Bentham- (common law)– Austin– Hohfeld
• Jurisprudence of concepts (German legal thought)– Savigny– Puchta– Windscheid
5
Savigny Persons
Natural Legal
Free
slaves
citizens
latins
peregrini
Sui iuris Alieniiuris
freeborn freedmen
artificialnatural
city village
foundation
association
Puchta Persons
Natural Legal
Slaves Free
Romancitizens
Non Romancitizens
Sui iuris Alieno iuri
subiecti
statuliberi
In libertateesse
freeborn
freedmen
Latin peregrini
Universitas personarum
Universitas bonorum
Intermediateclasses
De facto slavery
6
WindscheidReal rights
Servitude Pledge Emphyteusis Right ofsuperficies
Positive NegativePersonal Praedial
Continuous Discontinuous
Usus HabitationUsusfructus
WindscheidThings
simple compound movable
immovable
consumablewhich
wear out
replaceable
non replaceableParts not
connectedphysically
Partsconnectedphysically
Forming a whole
Not forminga whole
7
Sacco 2005 Natural reality
objects facts
Non legal Legal facts
Legal acts Other human facts
Natural events
Non transactional
transactional
Financial Non financial
unilateral bilateral
plurilateral
unipersonal
pluripersonal
Some problems with conceptual representation of the legal domain
• Concepts vs. Norms• Open texture of legal concepts• Dynamics of legal concepts
– Version management– Cost of ontology updating
8
Knowledge acquisition in Legal Ontology Design
Approaches to legal knowledge
• Ontology: Formalising the meaning of the objectsof a discourse [Antoniou, Van Harmelen]
• The languages/discourses of the law [Tiscornia]:– Language of the legislator– Language of the judges– Language of legal doctrine– Language of legal theory– Language of legal practice [Casanovas]
9
Different approaches, differentmethodologies
• Authoritative sources approach:– Corpus of normative texts– NLP– Manual conceptual analysis
• Practical knowledge approach– Ethnographic work (interviews, transcription)– NLP– Manual conceptual analysis
Legal ontologies
State of the art
10
Typology
• Degree of abstraction– Foundational or upper– Core– Domain-specific
• Degree of formalisation– Heavyweight– Lightweight
Foundational ontologiesTaxonomy of DOLCE basic categories
11
Legal ontologies (until 2002)• LLD [Language for Legal Discourse, L.T. McCarty, 1989]:
– Atomic formula, Rules and Modalities.• NOR [Norma, R.K. Stamper, 1991, 1996]:
– Agents Behavioral invariants, Realizations.• LFU [Functional Ontology for Law, R.W. van Kranlinger; P.R.S. Visser,
1995]: – Normative Knowledge, World knowledge, Responsibility knowledge,
Reactive knowledge and Creative knowledge.• FBO [Frame-Based Ontology of Law, A. Valente, 1995]:
– Norms, Acts and Concepts Descriptions].• LRI-Core Legal Ontology [J. Breuker et al., 2002]:
– Objects, Processes, Physical entities, Mental entities, Agents, Communicative Acts.
• IKF-IF-LEX Ontology for Norm Comparaison [A. Gangemi et al., 2001]: – Agents, Institutive Norms, Instrumental provisions; Regulative norms;
Open-textured legal notions, Norm dynamics.
Casellas 2008http://idt.uab.es/~ncasellas/nuria_casellas_thesis.pdf
12
(Casellas 2008)http://idt.uab.es/~ncasellas/nuria_casellas_thesis.pdf
Core legal ontologiesFunctional Ontology of Law (Valente 1995)
13
LRI-Core (1st two layers) [Breuker et al.]
Core Legal Ontology
• The CLO provides the general categories of the legal domain that are in principle found in all the legal systems and sub domains, like, for instance, law, legal norm, regulation, legal agent, legal role, among others [Gangemi et al. 2005]
• DOLCE+
14
LKIF-Core Ontology [Breuker et al.]
Types vs. Roles of legal ontologies
• Semantic indexing• Conceptual search• Knowledge organisation• Data sharing and interchange• Reasoning, inference drawing
15
Ontology of Professional Judicial Knowledge (OPJK) [Casanovas, Casellas
et al.]
MCO: Mediation Core Ontology[Poblet et al.]
16
Legal ontologies and approaches to legal knowledge
PositivismConceptual school
Sources: legal textsAuthoritative sources + doctrine
Content, Sources
Legal realismLegal sociologyLegal anthropology
Sources: case law, ethnography
Pragmatic
Legal theoryBasic building blocks of the law
Global
Legal doctrineDomain centeredDomainAbstraction
Law as an evolutionary dynamic system
Complements: fuzzy logics, probability
Complex systemsLimitations of logical formalisms
Legal theoryLegal doctrine
AxiomatisationConceptual
Legal lexicographyLegal translation
Language dependence
TerminologicalFormality,Methodology
Roots in legal thought, methodology
CharacteristicsApproaches to Legal Knowledge
Criteria for distinction
(M. Fernandez-Barrera 2009)
Conclusions
• Historical roots in legal thought that can provideinputs for conceptual analysis in legal ontologydesign
• Controversies in legal theory that have an effecton knowledge acquisition for ontology design
• Variety of legal ontologies according to degree ofabstraction and degree of formality that supportdifferent applications and processes