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MEETINGS
Legal Informatics – An Arab Perspective
United Nations House,
Beirut, 12-14 December 2005
1. Background
Legal informatics is an evolving field that has its origin in the
old interdisciplinary science of “Jurimetrics.” In essence,
Jurimetrics was meant to deal with the application of computer
science to the law, and, hence, was limited to considering the
interaction of new technologies and the law from a technical
perspective only. As such, the domain of legal informatics comprised
three fundamental areas, namely: data storage and retrieval,
behavioral analysis, and the use of symbolic logic, and
accordingly, the following three branches [Lucchi]:
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Management legal informatics, comprising software tools for
managing legal and administrative procedures, computer use in the
legal profession, automation of judicial procedures, and drafting
of legislations.
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Document legal informatics, dealing with information retrieval and
legal document databases. This includes the design and
development of technologies for text search, classification,
summarization, information extraction, and legal thesauri.
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Decision legal informatics, focusing on the construction and
utilization of legal expert systems, decision-making tools, and
intelligent agents for legal advising.
Legal
informatics is now emerging as a discipline that is concerned with
the social and economic implications of informatics use, as much as
with the technical aspects of applying technology in the legal
domain. In widest sense, scope of legal informatics may also be
construed to encompass other issues with info-legal aspects,
including peace and security, international law, e-commerce,
democracy, and human rights. Cyberlaw, as the law concerned with
cybercrimes within computer mediated communication networks, is a
closely related, albeit distinct, discipline.
The transformation of legal informatics is due to the evolution of
civil society towards the information society. The information
society represents a modern phenomenon characterized with a
globalization movement that transcends towns, states, and
countries. The evolution is based on the fusion of new business
paradigms, policy rules, and information and communication
technologies [ICTs], and is having the effect of transforming our
social systems from ones bound up in hierarchically arranged,
relatively homogeneous, densely knit, bounded groups to social
networks. This has brought bussing technological advances for legal
informatics applications together with new legal challenges. The
challenges stem from the social changes due to the unprecedented
scope, anonymity, and reproducibility associated with computer
networks that make up the physical infrastructure underlying the
information society, as well as the need to adopt to the various
arrangements that implement the resulting changes in societal
context. These arrangements are not necessarily stationary, static,
or even mutually exclusive. Individuals, and hence, the law, have
always adapted to existing social arrangements; in the future,
social arrangements, and, hence, the law, may have to become
accustomed to individuals, a dictum of the networked individual
order. Legal informatics can serve to empower the civil society not
only by providing the means and ways to make information and
knowledge widely available, but also by allowing for accurate
measurement of the impact of improved access and dissemination of
legal information and application of cyberlaws on the society.
2. Issues
The lack of a functional legal infrastructure is a major hurdle in
the development of the information society in Western Asia and the
Arab region. Such an infrastructure is an essential component of the
trust infrastructure that embodies all of the societal constraints,
in the form of social, political, and moral values that must be
asserted for the elements of the society that are part of the
virtual society. On the one hand, the lack of a functional legal
infrastructure is manifested in diminishing public awareness and
undue restriction of access. On the other hand, access, privacy, and
accountability issues are scarcely, if at all, considered in
national reports and legislations in the region. This double
jeopardy is an indication of the nature of difficulties facing the
legislative mechanisms employed rather than a measure of the level
of interest in such issues.
Access to legal information is a key phase of the cycle of
awareness. It is not only a public right but is also a common
denominator of the elements critical to the establishment of a
viable system of rule of law; viz.: rules assessment, good
governance, and development and planning. Deficiency of needed
information and the inability to render available information into
applicable knowledge are hindering elements in decision making
quality. To be legally competent, efficiently active, and
appropriately empowered, citizens must have access to the legal
information that make them aware that their problems have a legal
aspect, enlighten them as to the possible legal solutions to their
problems, help them to act to obtain a legal solution, and guide
them towards available resources to obtain a legal solution.
Examination of these and other issues is a key to creating an
enabling environment with a view towards supporting effective
public participation in civil and democratic processes.
3. Objectives
The workshop emphasizes the essential role of legal informatics in
enhancing access and dissemination of legal information, in
particular the information within the possession of governments and
necessary for informing the public as to their rights and
obligations, or that would assist them in doing so. The objective
of the workshop is to create an ICT enabling environment to
facilitate the administration of justice and harmonization among
different judicial and legislative codes at the national level, as
well as at the regional and international levels. A legal
informatics-based approach is utilized to interconnect available
Arab legal and legislative resources into a virtual common
knowledge reservoir that employs a standardized processing
methodology of legal language and legal information according to
documents structure. The common knowledge reservoir sought would be
comprised of:
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Information system for Arabic legal document management and
decision making.
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Arabic
legal thesaurus to be used not only as a search tool on Arabic
legal databases but also as a reference to understand and
harmonize legal vocabularies among Arab legal, legislative,
research, and professional bodies.
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Legal
databases that can facilitate building an Arabic legal ontology.
4.
Outcome
The expected outcomes from this workshop are as follows:
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Participants acquire understanding of the role information
society applications play with regard to the accessibility of
information and accountability;
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Guidelines are established for added-value applications and
services in the legal field responding to the common needs of
Arab legislative bodies, academic and research institutions, and
civil society organizations;
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Arabic
legal information processing standards are elaborated to ensure
better dissemination of legal information, enhance the
possibility of harmonizing Arab legislations, and provide better
understanding of the various societies’ particularities and
needs.
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A plan
for building and deploying a virtual common Arab knowledge
reservoir inter-connecting available Arab legal and legislative
resources is considered. The virtual Arab legal knowledge
reservoir sought would be based on legal Arabic thesaurus and
ontology essential for research in a legal semantic web.
5.
Organization
The workshop is jointly organized by the Lebanese Information
Technology Association (LITA), ESCWA, and the Friedrich Ebert
Stiftung (FES) Foundation in Lebanon. The workshop will be held at
the United Nations House, Beirut, during 12-14 December 2005.
6. Participants
The workshop will be attended by jurists, legal professionals,
decision makers, ICT experts, and researchers in the fields of ICT
and law from Arab legislative and judicial bodies, regional and
international organizations, academic and research institutions,
and the private sector. Participants need to register online, using
the Web site: http://www.escwa.un.org/wsis/meetings.
7. Language
The working languages of the workshop will be Arabic, English, and
French. Simultaneous translation will be provided.
8. Additional Information
Enquiries and requests for additional information regarding
participation and substantive matters should be addressed to:
Ms. Mona Al-Achkar Jabbour
Professor of Law and President
Lebanese Information Technology Association (LITA)
Beirut, Lebanon
Email: moacja@ul.edu.lb,
maj_4_0000@yahoo.fr
Tel: +961-3-253732
Fax: + 961-4-911931
Mr. Hesham Auda
First Information Technology Officer & Team Leader
Information and Communication Technology Division
Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia
PO Box 11-8575, Beirut, Lebanon
Email: auda@un.org
Tel: +961-1-978554
Fax: +961-1-981510
Mr. Samir Farah
Representative in Lebanon
Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES)
Beirut, Lebanon
Email: samir.farah@feslb.org
Tel/Fax: +961-1-353698
Inquiries regarding logistics, including travel and accommodation,
should be directed to:
Mr. Aziz Barbar
Vice President
Lebanese Information Technology Association
Beirut, Lebanon
Email: abarbar@aust.edu.lb
Tel: +961-3-296121
Fax: + 961-4-911931
Ms. Juliana Daher
Research Assistant, ICT Division
Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia
PO Box 11-8575, Beirut, Lebanon
Email: daher@un.org
Tel: +961-1-978548
Fax: +961-1-981510
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