Computational Law and Digital Trade: Envisioning the Legal-Technical Convergence
Webinar with Craig Atkinson for the Trade Policy Exchange (June 28, 2023)
Concept Note:
With the increasing use of information and communications technology (ICT) to mediate cross-border transactions and dematerialize the format / medium of ‘product’ and service delivery, this webinar explores an emergent branch of legal informatics – Computational Law – and its potential to bring coherence to the digitalization of international trade. As first described by Nathaniel Love and Michael Genesereth in their seminal 2005 paper for the 10th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Law (ICAIL), Computational Law (CompLaw) refers to:
“...an approach to automated legal reasoning focusing on semantically rich laws, regulations, contract terms, and business rules in the context of electronically-mediated actions. Current computational tools for electronic commerce fall short of the demands of business, organizations, and individuals conducting complex transactions... the growth of semantic data in the world of electronic commerce and online transactions, coupled with grounded rulesets that explicitly reference that data, provides a setting… [to] yield fruitful results, reducing inefficiencies, enabling transactions and empowering individuals...”
At present, diverse legal frameworks are being developed and implemented to create a legal basis for digital trade: trade that is ‘digitally ordered’ and/or ‘digitally delivered’, where digitally ordered is “the international sale or purchase of a good or service, conducted over computer networks by methods specifically designed for the purpose of receiving or placing orders” and digitally delivered reflects “international transactions that are delivered remotely in an electronic format, using computer networks specifically designed for the purpose.” Globally, relevant sources include those of the World Trade Organization and the World Customs Organization .
Other international agreements as well as national and supranational laws for paperless trade, e-commerce, e-payments, e-contracting, e-invoicing, e-signatures, digital identification, and data governance are also influential. In addition, ‘transnational’ outputs of bodies like the UNCITRAL: United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (e.g., conventions, model laws) create harmonization mechanisms and ‘templates’ for promulgation of laws concerning ICT-mediated trade.?
While such sources may clarify legal aspects of digital trade (e.g., functional equivalence) and specify ‘types’ of systems (e.g., electronic ‘Single Windows’) for exchange and processing of documents/data, questions remain on how systems are developed. For example, how are rules in diverse natural language texts – treaties, legislation, regulations, guidelines, business policies, and standards – made accessible/useful for human agents and operationalized/applied via machines? CompLaw brings legal-technical rigour to such inquiries. Through a one-hour webinar, a panel of experts will provide insights on key questions, including:
Expert panel:
Jason Grant Allen , Director, Singapore Management University , SMU Yong Pung How School of Law – SMU Centre for Digital Law
Craig Atkinson , Trade Development Specialist, United Nations / World Trade Organization – International Trade Centre
领英推荐
Dr. Megan Ma , Assistant Director, 美国斯坦福大学 , Stanford Law School – CodeX, The Stanford Center for Legal Informatics
Moderated by:
Rutendo Tavengerwei , Research Officer, 英国牛津大学 – Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford
Recording:
https://youtu.be/wM3fvowrSCI (Website)
Bonus Slides: