Workshop on Programming Languages and the Law 2023

Law at large underpins modern society, codifying and governing many aspects of citizens’ daily lives. Oftentimes, law is subject to interpretation, debate and challenges throughout various courts and jurisdictions. But in some other areas, law leaves little room for interpretation, and essentially aims to rigorously describe a computation, a decision procedure or, simply said, an algorithm.

The current state of affairs is concerning: in many cases, human-critical systems are implemented using technology that is several decades old, resulting in e.g. the IRS relying on assembly code from the 60s or its French counterpart relying on a home-made language from the 90s with tens of thousands of global variables. For institutions stuck with this unfortunate status quo, consequences are many: legacy systems cannot be evolved, in spite of hundreds of millions of dollars spent on “modernization” budgets; mistakes are made and rarely noticed; automatic analyses remain elusive, meaning policymakers are “flying dark”; and in the worst case, as happened with the French military pay computation, families are on the verge of bankruptcy because of incorrect code.

In recent years, the programming languages community has begun to tackle the problem of creating transparent, user-friendly, and accountable systems that model, operate within or interface with legal domains and problems. In 2022, we held the first Workshop on Programming Languages and the Law (ProLaLa 2022). The workshop was a strong success, with participants from around the world, and from both academia and industry. Presentations included work on languages for legal domains, verification tools for legal expert systems, and emerging platforms and technologies like smart contracts. This year, we hope to build on last year’s success by showcasing novel and interesting work at the intersection of programming languages, and legal areas and applications.

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Sun 15 Jan

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09:00 - 10:30
Session #1ProLaLa at Kenmore
Chair(s): Shrutarshi Basu Harvard University, Jonathan Protzenko Microsoft Research, Redmond
09:00
10m
Day opening
Opening comments
ProLaLa
Jonathan Protzenko Microsoft Research, Redmond, Denis Merigoux INRIA, Shrutarshi Basu Middlebury College
09:10
45m
Keynote
Academic keynote : A Logician and Lawyer walk into a Classroom
ProLaLa
Scott Shapiro Yale Law School, Ruzica Piskac Yale University
09:55
25m
Talk
Formal Modeling and Analysis of Legal Contracts using ContractCheck
ProLaLa
Alan Khoja University of Konstanz, Martin Kölbl CertiK, Stefan Leue University of Konstanz, Rüdiger Wilhelmi University of Konstanz
DOI Pre-print
10:20
10m
Talk
What do Relational Properties Have to Say About Legal Expert Systems ?
ProLaLa
Arthur Correnson École Normale Supérieure de Rennes & Saarland University
11:00 - 12:30
Session #2ProLaLa at Kenmore
Chair(s): Shrutarshi Basu Harvard University, Thomas T. Hildebrandt University of Copenhagen, Jonathan Protzenko Microsoft Research, Redmond
11:00
25m
Talk
Building Information Modeling Using Constraint Logic Programming (Extended Abstract)Virtual
ProLaLa
Joaquín Arias Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Seppo Törmä VisuaLynk Oy, Finland, Manuel Carro IMDEA Software Institute and T.U. of Madrid (UPM), Gopal Gupta University of Texas at Dallas, USA
Link to publication DOI Pre-print File Attached
11:25
25m
Talk
Exploring Consequences of Privacy Policies with Narrative Generation via Answer Set Programming
ProLaLa
Chinmaya Dabral North Carolina State University, Emma Tosch Northeastern University, USA, Chris Martens Northeastern University
Link to publication Pre-print File Attached
11:50
25m
Talk
The Structure and Legal Interpretation of Computer ProgramsVirtual
ProLaLa
James Grimmelmann Cornell University
File Attached
12:15
10m
Talk
Deontic Paradoxes in Library Lending Regulations: A Case Study in Flint
ProLaLa
Sterre Lutz Utrecht University and TNO
DOI Pre-print
12:25
10m
Talk
Defeasible Semantics for L4Virtual
ProLaLa
Guido Governatori Singapore Management University, Meng Weng Wong Singapore Management University
Link to publication DOI
16:00 - 18:00
Session #4ProLaLa at Kenmore
Chair(s): Shrutarshi Basu Harvard University, Jonathan Protzenko Microsoft Research, Redmond
16:00
45m
Keynote
Research keynote
ProLaLa
Chris Bailey University of Illinois College of Law
16:45
25m
Talk
Designing an experiment for comparing user interfaces for legal formalization
ProLaLa
Tereza Novotná Masaryk university, Tomer Libal
17:10
10m
Talk
Blawx: User-friendly Goal-Directed Answer Set Programming for Rules as CodeVirtual
ProLaLa
File Attached
17:20
10m
Talk
Formalising Criminal Law in CatalaVirtual
ProLaLa
Luca Arnaboldi The University of Edinburgh, David Aspinall University of Edinburgh, Ronny Bogani University of Edinburgh, Burkhard Schafer University of Edinburgh, Scott Herman Conan & Herman, Jonathan Protzenko Microsoft Research, Redmond, Ekaterina Komendantskaya Heriot-Watt University, UK, Remi Desmartin Heriot-Watt University, Yue Li Heriot-Watt University, UK
Pre-print File Attached

Accepted Papers

Title
Blawx: User-friendly Goal-Directed Answer Set Programming for Rules as CodeVirtual
ProLaLa
File Attached
Building Information Modeling Using Constraint Logic Programming (Extended Abstract)Virtual
ProLaLa
Link to publication DOI Pre-print File Attached
DCR Graphs as Co-created Executable Models of the Law
ProLaLa
File Attached
Defeasible Semantics for L4Virtual
ProLaLa
Link to publication DOI
Deontic Paradoxes in Library Lending Regulations: A Case Study in Flint
ProLaLa
DOI Pre-print
Designing an experiment for comparing user interfaces for legal formalization
ProLaLa
Experience report: implementing a real-world, medium-sized program derived from a legislative specification
ProLaLa
Pre-print File Attached
Exploring Consequences of Privacy Policies with Narrative Generation via Answer Set Programming
ProLaLa
Link to publication Pre-print File Attached
Formalising Criminal Law in CatalaVirtual
ProLaLa
Pre-print File Attached
Formal Modeling and Analysis of Legal Contracts using ContractCheck
ProLaLa
DOI Pre-print
Legal Contracts Amending in StipulaVirtual
ProLaLa
The Structure and Legal Interpretation of Computer ProgramsVirtual
ProLaLa
File Attached
Towards an Automatic Consolidation of French LawVirtual
ProLaLa
File Attached
Visual Propositional Logic With yscriptVirtual
ProLaLa
Link to publication
What do Relational Properties Have to Say About Legal Expert Systems ?
ProLaLa

Call for Papers

Description

Law at large underpins modern society, codifying and governing many aspects of citizens’ daily lives. Oftentimes, law is subject to interpretation, debate and challenges throughout various courts and jurisdictions. But in some other areas, law leaves little room for interpretation, and essentially aims to rigorously describe a computation, a decision procedure or, simply said, an algorithm.

The current state of affairs is concerning: in many cases, human-critical systems are implemented using technology that is several decades old, resulting in e.g. the IRS relying on assembly code from the 60s or its French counterpart relying on a home-made language from the 90s with tens of thousands of global variables. For institutions stuck with this unfortunate status quo, consequences are many: legacy systems cannot be evolved, in spite of hundreds of millions of dollars spent on “modernization” budgets; mistakes are made and rarely noticed; automatic analyses remain elusive, meaning policymakers are “flying dark”; and in the worst case, as happened with the French military pay computation, families are on the verge of bankruptcy because of incorrect code.

In recent years, the programming languages community has begun to tackle the problem of creating transparent, user-friendly, and accountable systems that model, operate within or interface with legal domains and problems. In 2022, we held the first Workshop on Programming Languages and the Law (ProLaLa 2022). The workshop was a strong success, with participants from around the world, and from both academia and industry. Presentations included work on languages for legal domains, verification tools for legal expert systems, and emerging platforms and technologies like smart contracts. This year, we hope to build on last year’s success by showcasing novel and interesting work at the intersection of programming languages, and legal areas and applications.

Submission guidelines

This will be an informal workshop without any proceedings, meant to stimulate discussion and collaboration, and build community. To that end, submitting ongoing and experimental work, and position papers is encouraged. However, starting this year we require that work presented be novel, or at least represent a meaningful and substantial extension of work that has been presented at the 2022 instance of this workshop.

Two types of submissions will be considered: extended abstracts (up to 5 pages without references) and short talk proposals (up to 2 page without references).

All submissions should be formatted using the official ACM acmsmall article format, similar the format for major programming languages conference proceedings. Instructions for authors can be found here.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

  • language design for legal matters
  • static analysis of legal texts
  • program synthesis and repair for legal software components
  • formal modeling of legal semantics
  • program verification for legal expert systems.

Submissions should be sent via the ProLaLa HotCRP instance.

Extended abstracts

The default submission is an extended abstract, which, if accepted, will result in a 20 min. presentation slot during the workshop.

Short talks proposals

Alternatively, for work that is very speculative or brief previews of ongoing work, we also offer the option of submitting short talks proposal, whose length shall not exceed 10 min.

Important dates

  • Submission deadline: Thursday, October 27th 2022 AoE
  • Notification of acceptance: Thursday, November 10th 2022

Remote participation policy

We plan to coordinate with the POPL conference on remote participation. We would like to have remote participation even if the workshop happens in person. Our plan is to create an inclusive environment that does not demand traveling for COVID-19 (or other) reasons.