Claudia Cevenini

ICT-Supported Dispute Resolution

This paper aims at describing how the use of Information and Communication Technologies can positively contribute to the resolution of disputes. Once a conflict arises, the parties have on the one side the possibility to resort to Courts (judicial dispute resolution); on the other side, they can agree to submit the issue to an arbitrator or mediator (alternative dispute resolution). While in judicial dispute resolution and partly in arbitration the introduction of ICT necessarily has to comply with the rules of procedural law, mediation allows for a higher freedom and possibly for entirely on-line procedures. Both cases are examined below.

Agent-Based Contracting in Virtual Enterprises

Virtual Enterprises (VEs) use software agents (SAs) to reduce costs, speed up operations, and increase efficiency and competitiveness. Agents can carry out negotiations and make contracts without any human intervention. This makes them useful both in negotiations to set up a VE and in contracting with VE partners. Agents raise legal problems about the relevance and validity of their actions. The law may not always offer a solution to agent-based interactions. This paper investigates whether current laws are suitable to regulating agents and what new rules may need to be introduced.

HARE: an Italian application of SoftLaw's STATUTE expert technology

This paper presents HARE, a rule-based system addressing a section of the Italian law, and in particular the taxes to be paid to start legal proceedings. HARE uses an Italian version of Softlaws STATUTE Expert. We will then shortly describe the main aspects of STATUTE Expert approach and some recent developments of this system.

Development of the ALIS IP Ontology: Merging Legal and Technical Perspectives

The paper is partly based on research done for the EU-funded (IST- 2004-2.4.9) project ALIS (Automated Legal Intelligent System) on Intellectual Property Law. We describe the development process of the ALIS Intellectual Property ontology from both a legal and a technical perspective. We discuss the scope and the features of this IP ontology, the lessons learned, and the problems solved. This is done by comparing our ontology (the ALIS IP ontology) with the IPRonto ontology, which too is dedicated to IP. The paper also points out the benefits of both the ALIS system in general and the ALIS IP ontology in particular. Future development of ALIS will involve expanding its ontology to also include law and trademark law. Once these three legal ontologies are in place, they will be consolidated into a single ontology that will provide the framework for a general IP ontology.

Privacy Through Anonymisation in Large-Scale Socio-Technical Systems: Multi-lingual Contact Centres Across the EU

Large-scale socio-technical systems (STS) inextricably interconnect individual–e.g., the right to privacy–, social–e.g., the effectiveness of organisational processes–, and technology issues—e.g., the software engineering process. As a result, the design of the complex software infrastructure involves also non-technological aspects such as the legal ones—so that, e.g., law-abidingness can be ensured since the early stages of the software engineering process.