The European Legal Semantic Web: Completed Building Blocks and Future Work

Abstract

If constructed properly the European legal semantic web will improve access to legal information, stimulate innovative applications and legal services, and reinforce judicial and legal cooperation within Europe.

In this paper we will discuss why we still we do not have one-click answers on very basic legal questions, what building blocks are already in place and what still has to be done to have the European Legal Semantic Web really functioning.

We will start with some illustrations from legal practice to demonstrate the blessings of the semantic web, and the definition of some terminology (§ 1). Next, we will review the state of play regarding the most important building blocks for identifying legal sources (§ 2). In § 3 we will summarize the most necessary steps that have to be taken in the near future, both at European and national level, to make substantial headway. One of these steps might be the development of a European Legal Doctrine Identifier.

Some concluding remarks are made in § 4.

Keywords: European case law identifier, European legislation identifier, European legal doctrine identifier, EUR-Lex, CELEX, semantic web, citation