When: From Thursday, April 28 until Friday, April 29, 2022.

Venue: Faculty of Philosophy, University of Barcelona: Montalegre, 6. 08001, Barcelona.

• April, 28: Aula Magna (4th floor)
• April, 29: Aula Magna (morning) | Room 222 (evening) (4th and 2nd floor)

Overview:

While the benefit of using software tools in the public (e.g, customization of public services and good governance) and private sector is clear, several scenarios arising from the interaction between law and software raise a variety of interesting considerations and, at times, potentially troubling issues related to the failure or misuse of legal software.

For example, misinterpretations of the law and inadequate translations into computer code can cause the software to function correctly with respect to its specifications, but disastrously with respect to the rule passed by the legislature or the executive branch. This can open the door to biased automated decisions, whether due to cognitive biases of the programmers, the data used or statistical biases, resulting in mismanagement and discrimination on various grounds.

Another example is the use of behavioral insights in the digital domain, which has become extremely relevant during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this area, the possible use by the public and private sector of the so-called dark patterns, on which the European Parliament has recently proposed to include a ban in the future Digital Services Act, and the so-called hyper nudging, raise legal issues regarding a possible manipulation that violates the freedom of thought, as indicated by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe in a recent statement of 2019.

Moreover, it is a statistical truth that programs will occasionally contain a non-negligible error rate per thousand lines of code, even when they follow strict protocols such as those in aeronautical software development. Although no computer program operates with zero risk of failure, its output can result in legally binding decisions, posing a potential legal threat to the rights of individuals.

Possible solutions to these problems raise, in turn, questions about the linguistic nature of legal texts and about the extent to which they can be adequately translated into mathematical or formal language. This may have implications for the role that computer science could play in the drafting of certain legal texts.

These challenges pertain to both the legal and software engineering communities, and contributions from, among others, formal logic can help design a framework for reasoning accurately about algorithms and rules at the same time. In this sense, the digital literacy of jurists and public and private managers and the legal literacy of software programmers are goals that Algorithmic Law and Software Design aims to work towards.

The main questions of the conference include but are not limited to:

• Can legal texts be written in a semi-formal language?
• How to translate legal texts into unambiguous instructions for programmers?
• What are the challenges posed by algorithmic legal texts that grant discretionary powers to be exercised by public administrations?
• How to make sure that software complies with its specifications and is faithful to the legal text in natural language?
• What programming techniques can warrant zero-error software?
• What could the software homologation landscape look like?
• What legal and technical apparatus do we have at our disposal to impose programming rules?
• From a legal and technical point of view: is source code transparency compatible with existing regulations on software trade secrets and proprietary source code?
• Would the formal specification of the code of laws be acceptable for the spirit and philosophy of law?
• What can be expected from formal methods, such as proof assistants, model checkers, formal logics, etc., when applied to the field of law?

We aim to address these challenges from the combined perspective of academia, industry and public administration.

Keynote Speakers:

• Grant Olney Passmore (Imandra, USA)
• Bart Verheij (Bernoulli Institute of Mathematics, Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence, University of Groningen, The Netherlands)

Invited Speakers:

• Marlies van Eck (Hooghiemstra & Partners | Radboud University, The Netherlands)
• David Fernández-Duque (Ghent University, Belgium)
• Yannick Forster (Inria, Project Team Gallinette, France)
• Mireia González Bedmar (Formal Vindications, Spain)
• Liane Huttner (Université Paris 1 Pantéon-Sorbonne, France)
• Julius Lyk-Jensen (Agency for Digitalization, Ministry of Finance, Denmark)
• Christine Holmgreen Mejling (Agency for Digitalization, Ministry of Finance, Denmark)
• Denis Merigoux (Inria, Project Team Prosecco, France)
• Moritz Müller (Universitat de Barcelona, Spain)
• Fernando Nubla Durango (LEOS Project, European Commission)
• Monica Palmirani (University of Bologna, Italy)
• Willy van Puymbroeck (LEOS Project, European Commission)
• Mette Eigaard Rasmussen (Agency for Digitalization, Ministry of Finance, Denmark)
• Susana de la Sierra (Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Spain)

Schedule

Abstracts:

Conference Poster:

• Poster design by Eric Sancho Adamson, April 2022.

There will be a social dinner which will take place Thursday evening. The details have been sent to the participants of the dinner. In case you haven't received it please contact algorithmiclaw2022@protonmail.com

• An Automaton for Road Transport Legislation --- Moritz Müller, Raül Espejo Boix and Joost J. Joosten.
• Computing the law: beyond the code transparency. An epistemological approach. --- Alina Mierlus.
• Formal Verification --- Ana Borges, Quim Casals, Juan Conejero, Mireia González, Eduardo Hermo and Joost J. Joosten.
• FV Time --- Ana Borges, Quim Casals, Juan Conejero, Mireia González, Eduardo Hermo and Joost J. Joosten.
• Industrial Software Homologation: Theory and Case Study --- Guillermo Errezil Alberdi, Joost J. Joosten, Gina García Tarrach, Aleix Solé Sánchez, Ana Borges, Eric Sancho Adamson and David Fernández Duque.
• infix --- Mireia González, Joost J. Joosten, Eduardo Hermo Reyes and Raül Espejo Boix.
• Signed Primitive Integers in Coq --- Ana Borges, Raül Espejo and Joost J. Joosten.
• Specification languages for computable laws versus basic legal principles: Tension Table --- Aleix Solé Sánchez, Eric Sancho Adamson, Marta Soria Heredia and Joost J. Joosten.
• The Second Order Traffic Fine. Temporal Reasoning in European Transport Regulation --- Ana Borges, Juan Conejero, David Fernández Duque, Mireia González and Joost J. Joosten.
• To Drive or not to Drive. A Logical and Computational Analysis of European Transport Regulations --- Ana Broges, Juan Conejero, David Fernández Duque, Mireia González and Joost J. Joosten.
• When Logic Lays Down the Law --- Bjørn Jespersen, Ana Borges, Jorge del Castillo Tierz, Juan Conejero, Eric Sancho Adamson, Aleix Solé Sánchez, Nika Pona and Joost J. Joosten.

Via email: algorithmiclaw2022@protonmail.com

Faculty of Philosophy, University of Barcelona: Montalegre, 6. 08001, Barcelona.

Useful phone numers:

• Citizen inquiries: 012
• Emergency: 112
• Health related issues: 061