NLP-based Metadata Extraction for Legal Text Consolidation

The paper describes a system for the automatic consolidation of Italian legislative texts to be used as a support of an editorial consolidating activity and dealing with the following typology of textual amendments: repeal, substitution and integration. The focus of the paper is on the semantic analysis of the textual amendment provisions and the formalized representation of the amendments in terms of metadata. The proposed approach to consolidation is metadata- oriented and based on Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques: we use XML-based standards for metadata annotation of legislative acts and a flexible NLP architecture for extracting metadata from parsed texts. An evaluation of achieved results is also provided

Avoiding terminological confusion between the notions of 'biometrics' and 'biometric data':An investigation into the meanings of the terms from a European data protection and a scientific perspective

This article has been motivated by an observation: the lack of rigor by European bodies when they use scientific terms to address data protection and privacy issues raised by biometric technologies and biometric data. In particular, they improperly use the term ‘biometrics’ to mean at the same time ‘biometric data’, ‘identification method’, or ‘biometric technologies’.Based on this observation, there is a need to clarify what ‘biometrics’ means for the biometric community and whether and how the legal community should use the term in a data protection and privacy context.In parallel to that exercise of clarification, there is also a need to investigate the current legal definition of ‘biometric data’ as framed by European bodies at the level of the European Union and the Council of Europe.The comparison of the regulatory and scientific definitions of the term ‘biometric data’ reveals that the term is used in two different contexts. However, it is legitimate to question the role that the scientific definition could exercise on the regulatory definition. More precisely, the question is whether the technical process through which biometric information is extracted and transformed into a biometric template should be reflected in the regulatory definition of the term

Semantic Finlex : Transforming, Publishing, and Using Finnish Legislation and Case Law As Linked Open Data on the Web

Peer reviewe

Legal, Linguistic, and Cultural Aspects in International Commercial Arbitration Discourse: A Corpus-Based Study of Arbitral Awards

In today's globalized landscape, disputes between parties from different countries are on the rise (Bhatia et al. 2018, 1), leading to a growing reliance on international arbitration as the primary method for resolving such issues (Born 2001, 1; Gotti 2008, 221; Bhatia et al. 2008, 2018). Arbitral awards, the outcomes of such procedures, are crucial in understanding the evolution of international arbitration practices (Bhatia et al. 2012, 1).A decade ago, arbitral awards were considered a "relatively unexplored genre" (Bhatia et al. 2012, 1) due to the historical perception of arbitration as a highly protected practice. However, over the past decade, there has been a shift towards transparency in arbitration, with a growing commitment to publishing arbitral awards. This trend, supported by scholars and professionals (e.g., Bhatia 2010, 468; Resnik et al. 2020, 612; Mourre and Vagenheim 2023, 265), aims to contribute to legal development. In 2019, Jus Mundi, an Al-powered legal search engine, was launched, facilitating access to a vast array of legal information through partnerships with arbitral institutions worldwide. This cultural shift marks significant progress in democratizing access to legal knowledge through technology, enhancing accessibility to discoursal data (e.g., Swales 1990; Bhatia 1993).Drawing on previous analyses conducted by prominent scholars on arbitration discourse (e.g., Bhatia et al. 2003; Bhatia et al. 2008; Bhatia et al. 2010; Bhatia et al. 2012; Bhatia et Bhatia et al. 2018), in this research project, a selection of arbitral awards in English is collected via Jus Mundi for linguistic analysis. The assertion posited is that, even in the era of globalization, cultural differences continue to manifest as cultural variations in the form of reasoning. The study recognizes the influence of legal traditions on linguistic choices in arbitration texts (Gotti 2008, 232). Thus, this approach aligns with the understanding that texts and genres are inseparable from their institutional and professional contexts (Bhatia et al. 2012, 1). In particular, legal discourse, shaped by its environment (Fairclough and Wodak 1997, 276), varies across different legal systems. Specifically, this study operates within the field of corpus linguistics and conducts a syntactic-lexical analysis on the genre of arbitral awards from various arbitration seats, using both quantitative and qualitative methods

Proceedings of the Eighth Italian Conference on Computational Linguistics CliC-it 2021

The eighth edition of the Italian Conference on Computational Linguistics (CLiC-it 2021) was held at Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca from 26th to 28th January 2022. After the edition of 2020, which was held in fully virtual mode due to the health emergency related to Covid-19, CLiC-it 2021 represented the first moment for the Italian research community of Computational Linguistics to meet in person after more than one year of full/partial lockdown

Proceedings of LOAIT '07 : II Workshop on Legal Ontologies and Artificial Intelligence Techniques

Proceedings of the 2nd Workshop on Legal Ontologies and Artificial Intelligence Techniques June 4th, 2007, Stanford Universit

Terminological Equivalence and Variation in the EU Multi-level Jurisdiction: A Case Study on Victims of Crime

2011/2012Il progetto di ricerca ha lo scopo di analizzare la terminologia giuridica in lingua inglese e italiana relativa alla figura della vittima di reato e radicata nello spazio giuridico europeo, caratterizzato dalla coesistenza dell’ordinamento giuridico sovranazionale dell’Unione europea (UE) e degli ordinamenti giuridici nazionali del Regno Unito e dell’Italia. Secondo l’ipotesi principale alla base del progetto, il linguaggio giuridico è intrinsecamente caratterizzato da un certo grado di dinamismo terminologico, che si esprime sia a livello linguistico, con una serie di termini utilizzati per riferirsi a uno stesso concetto, sia a livello concettuale, dove si riflettono le diverse concettualizzazioni della stessa area del diritto. Poiché la terminologia giuridica analizzata nella presente tesi si colloca in uno spazio giuridico che vede il sovrapporsi di vari ordinamenti, si presume che detto dinamismo si manifesti in due diversi contesti linguistici. Nel primo contesto, che è di tipo intralinguistico, viene presa in considerazione la terminologia utilizzata nelle varianti nazionale e sovranazionale della stessa lingua, mentre nel secondo contesto, di tipo interlinguistico, la terminologia è esaminata da una prospettiva multilingue. Al fine di verificare la veridicità di tale ipotesi, è stata sviluppata una metodologia per l’analisi della terminologia giuridica in cui la distinzione tra genotipi e fenotipi introdotta da Sacco (1991) si unisce ai principi metodologici proposti da Cabré (1999a) per il lavoro terminografico. Per poter applicare detta metodologia è stato necessario costruire un corpus bilingue di testi dell’Unione europea e una collezione di testi di origine nazionale, entrambi incentrati sulla figura della vittima di reato. L’analisi della terminologia estratta ha rivelato che, nel primo contesto linguistico, il dinamismo intralinguistico si riflette nella variazione terminologica, che può interessare sia la sfera linguistica della terminologia (variazione denominativa) sia la sfera concettuale (variazione concettuale). La variazione denominativa consiste nell’esistenza di più unità terminologiche per designare uno stesso concetto, che però non comporta modifiche sostanziali nei relativi fenotipi. Nel caso della variazione concettuale, invece, è possibile riscontrare un certo anisomorfismo nei fenotipi. In entrambi i casi, tuttavia, tutti i termini interessati dal fenomeno della variazione terminologica mantengono la relazione con uno stesso genotipo. Si è proposta una classificazione della variazione denominativa prendendo in considerazione quattro variabili, ossia il livello di specializzazione, il periodo temporale, l’ordinamento giuridico e la valenza giuridica. Visto l’approccio metodologico adottato nel presente progetto di ricerca, in cui la terminologia giuridica dell’Unione europea è presa come punto di partenza ai fini dell’analisi terminologica e della strutturazione preliminare del sistema concettuale relativo al dominio, la variazione concettuale è stata riscontrata con minor frequenza rispetto alla variazione denominativa. Nell’analisi del secondo tipo di variazione terminologica, ossia della variazione concettuale, è stata presa in considerazione un’unica variabile, ovvero l’ordinamento giuridico. In base a tale variabile, la variazione concettuale è stata classificata come intra-sistemica, qualora sia riscontrata nell’ambito dello stesso ordinamento giuridico, ed inter-sistemica, qualora l’ordinamento sovranazionale e quello nazionale elaborino due fenotipi concettualmente diversi che, a prescindere dalle divergenze concettuali, possono essere ricondotti allo stesso genotipo. Nel secondo contesto linguistico, ovvero quello multilingue, la terminologia giuridica si è dimostrata caratterizzata da diversi gradi di equivalenza interlinguistica. Essendo la terminologia esaminata radicata in tre sistemi giuridici diversi, sono stati individuati due diversi tipi di equivalenza terminologica, ossia l’equivalenza intra- e inter-sistemica, e tre diversi gradi di equivalenza terminologica, ovvero l’equivalenza assoluta, l’equivalenza relativa e la non equivalenza. Altro scopo della presente tesi era quello di registrare le informazioni terminologiche raccolte in una base di conoscenza terminologica orientata alla traduzione giuridica. Giacché la terminologia esaminata è caratterizzata da un alto tasso di dipendenza dall’ordinamento giuridico a cui fa riferimento, la base di conoscenza terminologica MuLex è stata concepita specificamente come ausilio alla traduzione giuridica. MuLex ha quindi lo scopo di esplicitare le differenze riscontrate tra i sistemi giuridici esaminati e spiegare le peculiarità dell’uso di tale terminologia giuridica agli utenti finali. Al fine di ottimizzare la rappresentazione della conoscenza soggiacente la terminologia giuridica, le schede terminografiche in MuLex sono dotate di uno strumento di visualizzazione che consente la rappresentazione grafica delle strutture relazionali concettuali che raffigurano i concetti analizzati registrati nella base di conoscenza stessa.The research project aims at studying the English and Italian legal terminology related to the area of law of victims of crime and embedded in the multi-level jurisdiction provided by the supranational legal system of the European Union (EU), on the one hand, and the British and Italian national legal systems, on the other. The main hypothesis is that legal language is inherently characterised by terminological dynamism, which emerges both at the linguistic level – with different terms used to refer to individual legal concepts – and at the conceptual level, where different conceptualisations of the same legal domain are reflected. Since the bilingual legal terminology that has been examined occurs within a judicial space in which several legal systems are interconnected, such dynamism is expected to manifest itself in two different linguistic settings. In the first, the terminology in a national and an EU variety of the same language is taken into consideration, while in the second setting, terminology is studied from a multilingual perspective. In order to verify the main hypothesis, a methodological framework has been set out, on the basis of both the methodological premises for terminological analysis proposed by Cabré (1999a) and the distinction between genotypes and phenotypes introduced by Sacco (1991). Such a methodology required the compilation of a bilingual corpus of EU legal texts and a collection of national legal texts focusing on the figure of the victim of crime. The examination of the terminology extracted has shown that in the first linguistic setting envisaged, intralingual dynamism is reflected in terminological variation, which can affect either the linguistic layer (denominative variation) or the conceptual layer (conceptual variation) of terminology, with denominative variation consisting in the co-existence of several terminological units in which no substantial difference in the phenotypes involved is produced, while in conceptual variation anisomorphism among the phenotypes can be observed. In both cases, all the terms affected by the phenomenon of terminological variation are related to the same genotype. A classification of denominative variation has been proposed based on four variables, i.e. degree of specialisation, time span, legal system, and legal force. Due to the methodology adopted in this research project, in which the EU legal terminology has been taken as the starting point for both the terminological analysis and the preliminary conceptual structuring of the legal area of the study, conceptual variation has emerged to be less frequent than denominative variation. By taking the legal system as a variable in the analysis of conceptual variation, such variation has been subdivided into intra-systemic variation, occurring within a single legal system, and inter-systemic variation, when the supranational and the national legal systems elaborate two conceptually different phenotypes which, in spite of their conceptual anisomorphism, can be linked to the same genotype. In the second linguistic setting, where terminology is studied from a multilingual perspective, legal terminology has turned out to be characterised by different degrees of interlingual equivalence. On account of the embeddedness of the legal terminology examined in three different legal systems, different types and degrees of terminological equivalence have been identified and discussed: the types of terminological equivalence are intra-systemic and inter-systemic equivalence, while the degrees of equivalence are absolute equivalence, relative equivalence and non-equivalence. Another aim of this thesis was to record the collected terminological data in a legal translation-oriented terminological knowledge base (TKB). The terminology under discussion is characterised by a high degree of dependency on the legal system it refers to and the MuLex terminological knowledge base was specifically designed for helping the work of legal translators. This TKB aims at capturing the differences among the legal systems involved in the study and showing the peculiarities in the usage of legal terminology in such legal systems to its end users. For optimising the representation of the domain-specific knowledge implied by legal terminology, in MuLex terminographic entries integrate a tool enabling the graphic representation of the conceptual relational structures among the concepts analysed and recorded in the TKB.XXV Ciclo198