A Core Legal Reference Ontology

Law permeates our social lives. It is not surprising thus that legal phenomena have made their way into our information systems and have become a common subject in conceptual modeling. In the last decades, several approaches have been proposed to address the conceptualization and representation of legal phenomena, addressing normative notions, e.g., rights, prohibitions, duties, claims, etc.

Despite the advances in the literature, we have observed that existing approaches often fail to capture some important aspects of legal phenomena. For example, many of the existing approaches lack support for legal relations between parties, given their root in monadic (standard) deontic logics.  This poses a challenge to the adequate representation of a number of real-life settings involving legal relations, such as legal contracts in general, and service contracts in particular. Moreover, much of the existing work in the conceptual modeling of legal aspects has emerged from the disciplines of computer science (and logics) and has failed to incorporate the state-of-the-art in legal theories. As a consequence, they often leave out key concepts underlying complex legal phenomena (such as power and legal liberty).

Our response to these challenges is the UFO-L Legal Core Ontology. UFO-L is based on Hohfeld’s seminal theory of fundamental legal concepts and Alexy’s relational theory of constitutional rights. As a result, UFO-L accounts for legal notions that include: rights and duties, no-rights and permissions, powers and liabilities, disabilities and immunities, as well as liberties. A key aspect of the approach is the representation of legal relations based on the notion of relator from the Unified Foundational Ontology (UFO).

Publications

Publications describing UFO-L and applying  it to conceptual modeling of legal aspects include:

• C. L. Griffo, J. P. A. Almeida, and G. Guizzardi, “Legal theories and judicial decision-making: an ontological analysis,” in Formal ontology in information systems, IOS Press, 2020, vol. 330, p. 63–76.
  [Bibtex]

  @inbook{legal_theories_and_judicial_decision_making_an_ontological_analysis_2020,
  series = {Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence and Applications},
  title = {Legal Theories and Judicial Decision-Making: An Ontological Analysis},
  volume = {330},
  isbn = {9781643681283, 9781643681290},
  issn = {09226389, 18798314},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.3233/FAIA200661},
  doi = {10.3233/FAIA200661},
  booktitle = {Formal Ontology in Information Systems},
  publisher = {IOS Press},
  author = {Griffo, C.L. AND Almeida, J.P.A. AND Guizzardi, G.},
  year = {2020},
  pages = {63--76},
  collection = {Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence and Applications}
  }

• C. Griffo, J. P. A. Almeida, G. Guizzardi, and J. C. Nardi, “Service contract modeling in enterprise architecture: an ontology-based approach,” Information systems, vol. 101, p. 101454, 2021.
  [Bibtex]

  @article{service_contract_modeling_in_enterprise_architecture__an_ontology_based_approach_2019,
  doi = {10.1016/j.is.2019.101454},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.is.2019.101454},
  publisher = {Elsevier {BV}},
  author = {Griffo, C. AND Almeida, J.P.A AND Guizzardi, G. AND Nardi, J.C.},
  title = {Service contract modeling in enterprise architecture: An ontology-based approach},
  journal = {Information Systems},
  volume = {101},
  pages = {101454},
  year = {2021},
  issn = {0306-4379}
  }

• C. Griffo, J. P. A. Almeida, and G. Guizzardi, “Conceptual Modeling of Legal Relations,” in Conceptual Modeling – 37th International Conference, ER 2018, 2018, p. 169–183.
  [Bibtex]

  @inproceedings{conceptual_modeling_of_legal_relations_2018,
  title = {{Conceptual Modeling of Legal Relations}},
  author = {Griffo, C. AND Almeida, J.P.A. AND Guizzardi, G.},
  booktitle = {{Conceptual Modeling - 37th International Conference, ER 2018}},
  pages = {169--183},
  publisher = {{Springer}},
  year = {2018},
  doi = {10.1007/978-3-030-00847-5_14}
  }

• C. Griffo, J. P. A. Almeida, G. Guizzardi, and J. C. Nardi, “From an Ontology of Service Contracts to Contract Modeling in Enterprise Architecture,” in 2017 IEEE 21st International Enterprise Distributed Object Computing Conference (EDOC), 2017, p. 40–49.
  [Bibtex]

  @inproceedings{from_an_ontology_of_service_contracts_to_contract_modeling_in_enterprise_architecture_2017,
  title = {{From an Ontology of Service Contracts to Contract Modeling in Enterprise Architecture}},
  author = {Griffo, C. AND Almeida, J.P.A. AND Guizzardi, G. AND Nardi, J.C.},
  booktitle = {{2017 IEEE 21st International Enterprise Distributed Object Computing Conference (EDOC)}},
  pages = {40--49},
  doi = {10.1109/edoc.2017.15},
  year = {2017}
  }

• C. Griffo, J. P. A. Almeida, and G. Guizzardi, “A Pattern for the Representation of Legal Relations in a Legal Core Ontology,” in Legal Knowledge and Information Systems (JURIX 2016), 2016, p. 191–194.
  [Bibtex]

  @inproceedings{a_pattern_for_the_representation_of_legal_relations_in_a_legal_core_ontology_2016,
  title = {{A Pattern for the Representation of Legal Relations in a Legal Core Ontology}},
  author = {Griffo, C. AND Almeida, J.P.A. AND Guizzardi, G.},
  booktitle = {{Legal Knowledge and Information Systems (JURIX 2016)}},
  pages = {191--194},
  doi = {10.3233/978-1-61499-726-9-191},
  publisher = {{IOS Press}},
  year = {2016}
  }

• C. Griffo, J. P. A. Almeida, and G. Guizzardi, “A Systematic Mapping of the Literature on Legal Core Ontologies,” in Proceedings of the Brazilian Seminar on Ontologies (ONTOBRAS 2015), 2015, p. 1–12.
  [Bibtex]

  @inproceedings{a_systematic_mapping_of_the_literature_on_legal_core_ontologies_2015,
  title = {{A Systematic Mapping of the Literature on Legal Core Ontologies}},
  author = {Griffo, C. AND Almeida, J.P.A. AND Guizzardi, G.},
  booktitle = {{Proceedings of the Brazilian Seminar on Ontologies (ONTOBRAS 2015)}},
  pages = {1--12},
  publisher = {{CEUR Workshop Proceedings}},
  year = {2015}
  }

• C. L. Griffo, J. P. A. Almeida, and G. Guizzardi, “Towards a Legal Core Ontology based on Alexy’s Theory of Fundamental Rights,” in MWAIL2015 ICAIL Multilingual Workshop on AI & Law Research, 2015, p. 89–100.
  [Bibtex]

  @inproceedings{towards_a_legal_core_ontology_based_on_alexy_s_theory_of_fundamental_rights_2015,
  title = {{Towards a Legal Core Ontology based on Alexy's Theory of Fundamental Rights}},
  author = {Griffo, C. L. AND Almeida, J.P.A. AND Guizzardi, G.},
  booktitle = {{MWAIL2015 ICAIL Multilingual Workshop on AI \& Law Research}},
  pages = {89--100},
  publisher = {{Österreichische Computer Gesellschaft}},
  year = {2015}
  }

The Ph.D. thesis of Cristine Griffo discusses the development of UFO-L in detail (Portuguese only):

• C. L. P. G. Becalli, “UFO-L: Uma Ontologia Núcleo de Aspectos Jurídicos Construída sob a Perspectiva das Relações Jurídicas,” PhD Thesis, Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo, 2018.
  [Bibtex]

  @phdthesis{ufo_l__uma_ontologia_nucleo_de_aspectos_juridicos_construida_sob_a_perspectiva_das_relacoes_juridicas_2018,
  title = {{UFO-L: Uma Ontologia Núcleo de Aspectos Jurídicos Construída sob a Perspectiva das Relações Jurídicas}},
  author = {Becalli, Cristine Leonor Pereira Griffo},
  institution = {Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo},
  year = {2018}
  }

Our work on UFO-L also led us to contribute to legal theory:

• J. A. O. Lima, C. Griffo, J. P. A. Almeida, G. Guizzardi, and M. I. Aranha, “Casting the light of the theory of opposition onto hohfeld’s fundamental legal concepts,” Legal theory, p. 1–34, 2021.
  [Bibtex]

  @article{casting_the_light_of_the_theory_of_opposition_onto_hohfelds_fundamental_legal_concepts_2021,
  title = {Casting the Light of the Theory of Opposition onto Hohfeld's Fundamental Legal Concepts},
  doi = {10.1017/S1352325221000070},
  journal = {Legal Theory},
  publisher = {Cambridge University Press},
  author = {Lima, J.A.O. AND Griffo, C. AND Almeida, J.P.A. AND Guizzardi, G. AND Aranha, M.I.},
  year = {2021},
  pages = {1--34}
  }