Law and Electronic Agents

LEA 2005: Workshop on the Law and Electronic Agents

Publications

The articles of the workshop can be found in the here and in the publication section of this website.

Presentations

Authors and Title	Link
Frances Brazier and Anja Oskamp, Invited talk	slides
M. Palmirani and R. Riveret , A Multiagent System for Managing Normative Consolidation	slides

Call for Papers LEA 2005

The fourth Workshop on the Law and Electronic Agents (LEA 2005) will be held in Bologna on Friday 10 June 2005, as a workshop of the 10th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Law (ICAIL 2005).

Scope

Recent years have seen an increasing deployment of electronic agents (or software agents) for numerous network applications such as personalised information management, electronic commerce and management of commercial processes. As electronic agents enter the information environment and electronic marketplaces, they engage in a number of activities which are significant for the law: accessing computer systems and networks, retrieving and spreading information, mediating personal and business relations, buying and selling material and immaterial goods. Through such activities agents may trigger off relevant consequences for their users, owners and developers, as well as their counter-parties, consequences pertaining to different areas of the law, such as contract, tort, criminal responsibility, intellectual property and data protection. How to legally conceptualise and regulate agent-based interaction is both a stimulating theme for lawyers and legal theorists, and a crucial issue for the success of agent-based applications and the secure development of the information society. But there is also the challenge to customise electronic agents for the support of lawyers. The workshop aims at providing a forum for investigating the law of electronic agents, keeping into account the most recent advances in the study of autonomous agents and multi-agent systems, as well as the societal, economic and legal framework in which agent-based systems are employed.

Topics of interes

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

Legal capacity and personality of agents
Legal relevance of mental states of agents (intention, negligence, etc.)
Ownership and other entitlements over agents
Agents as holders of rights, duties and powers
Agents as legal representatives
Agents as mediators in legal transactions
Agent-to-agent and agent-to-human interaction in a legal perspective
Contracts made through/by electronic agents (contractual liability)
Liability for the damage caused by electronic agents (liability in tort)
Agents and data protection
Agents and copyright/patent/sui generis/know how infringement
Intellectual property rights over agent-based software
Agents and computer crime
Agents as self-enforcing regulatory tools
Electronic agents and dispute resolution
Codes of conduct and best practices for agents
Agents for legal practice
Agents in B2C transactions
Agent-based commercial applications

Submissions and Attendance

Participants should submit a paper (of about 20000 - 25000 characters with footnotes and spaces), describing relevant preliminary or completed work to be presented at the workshop. People interested in making a presentation without submitting a paper are encouraged to submit a statement of interest, consisting of a single page description of research interests and current work, to be used to encourage discussion and to ensure the maximum contribution and participation. All submissions should include: author's name(s), affiliation, (complete) mailing address, phone and fax number and e-mail address. Preferably, papers should be submitted in a standard format (txt, pdf, doc, rtf) to C. Cevenini or A. Oskamp.

The deadline for receipt of submissions is April 11th 2005 (12:00AM). All papers will be reviewed by the programme committee and selected on their originality, timeliness, relevance and clarity. Notification of acceptance will be communicated by April 25th 2005. Final paper due May 10th 2005.

The accepted papers will be published in the proceedings of the workshop and on the LEA website http://www.lea-online.net/

Important dates

Submission deadline: April 11th (12:00AM)(Changed date!)
Notification of acceptance: April 25th
Final paper due: May 10th

Programme committee

Anja Oskamp, CLI, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (A.Oskamp@rechten.vu.nl) (co-chair)
Claudia Cevenini, CIRSFID, University of Bologna (cevenini@cirfid.unibo.it) (co-chair)

Jon Bing, University of Oslo
Giovanni Sartor, University of Bologna
Kevin Ashley, University of Pittsburgh
Sonia Bergamaschi, University of Modena
Danièle Bourcier, CNRSA, University of Paris 2
Frances Brazier, Free University of Amsterdam
Cristiano Castelfranchi, University of Siena
Jim Cunningham, Imperial College London
Andrew J.I. Jones, Kings College London
Daniela Memmo, University of Bologna
Andrea Omicini, University of Bologna
Giovanni Pascuzzi, University of Trento
Jeremy Pitt, Imperial College London
Burkhard Schäfer, University of Edinburgh
Marek Sergot, Imperial College London
Emily Weitzenbock, University of Oslo