The purpose of this workshop is to discuss the fundamental concepts of law and to develop theories and methods to systematize law. Legal scholars have long since endeavored to systematize law as a united order. The systematization of law has been an important goal of legal science. The systematization of law is also very important for the study on artificial intelligence and law, because law must be systematized in a knowledge base so that computers can infer the resolution of problems as a result of the application of the whole legal system to the problem.
The first edition of the Fundamental Concepts and Systematization of Law (FCASL) workshop was held at JURIX 2011 conference in Vienna on Dec. 14, 2011 (http://fundamentalconcepts.wordpress.com). The workshop was very successful and attracted many interesting contributions. The submitted papers are printed at first in the proceedings of the workshop and now going to review process in Artificial Intelligence and Law Journal as a special issue for the workshop. Many people ask us to continue the workshop further. Many things on the themes have been clarified, but many things have remained as future tasks for investigations. Therefore we think that we should organize another edition of the workshop.
In order to systematize law, it is necessary for us to clarify and define fundamental concepts of law such as legal rules or norms, their validity or invalidity, rights and duties etc., because the system of law could be or should be constituted only on the basis of clear definitions of such fundamental concepts. Considering the achievements of Hans Kelsen, we believe that it is worthwhile to challenge ourselves to clarify fundamental concepts of law and to systematize law applying recent scientific perspectives and methods of thought (in terms of artificial intelligence and law). Although we, organizers of this workshop, are standing on the assumption that systematization of law is necessary and possible, it ought to be emphasized that critical perspectives on the subject are also welcome.
JURIX 2011 was held in Vienna, where Hans Kelsen developed his general theory of law, in which he systematized law as a united order in terms of legal norms clarifying fundamental concepts of law. In consequence, the first edition of FCASL workshop wad dedicated mainly to topics discussed by Kelsen. JURIX 2012 will be held in Amsterdam in the Netherlands which is the country famous for research on Artificial Intelligence and Law on the one hand and for the discussions about laws for worldwide society on the other hand.Therefore we would like to focus on formal aspects of the systematization of law and to add the context of the globalization of law to this enterprise. In consequence, we think it is worthwhile to discuss also the problems of systematization of European law, international law and the possibility of world law. However, we should continue the main subject of the original workshop idea which is the discussion of the most general topics on the fundamental concepts and the systematization of law.
List of topics (including but not limited to):
The concept and/or the structure of
legal rules or norms, legal validity, formation of law, hierarchy in legal systems, the basic norm and rule of recognition, rights and duties, permissions, obligations and prohibitions, and states and legal persons.
Deductive, abductive and inductive reasoning in law, multi-layered reasoning, systematization and/or axiomatization of law and critical perspectives on fundamental legal concepts and systematization of law.