idnits 2.17.1 draft-spinosa-urn-lex-00.txt: Checking boilerplate required by RFC 5378 and the IETF Trust (see https://trustee.ietf.org/license-info): ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ** The document seems to lack a License Notice according IETF Trust Provisions of 28 Dec 2009, Section 6.b.ii or Provisions of 12 Sep 2009 Section 6.b -- however, there's a paragraph with a matching beginning. Boilerplate error? (You're using the IETF Trust Provisions' Section 6.b License Notice from 12 Feb 2009 rather than one of the newer Notices. See https://trustee.ietf.org/license-info/.) Checking nits according to https://www.ietf.org/id-info/1id-guidelines.txt: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- No issues found here. Checking nits according to https://www.ietf.org/id-info/checklist : ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- No issues found here. Miscellaneous warnings: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- == The copyright year in the IETF Trust and authors Copyright Line does not match the current year == Line 145 has weird spacing: '...ruction depen...' == Line 621 has weird spacing: '...e other in ac...' == The document doesn't use any RFC 2119 keywords, yet seems to have RFC 2119 boilerplate text. -- The document date (October 30, 2009) is 5291 days in the past. Is this intentional? Checking references for intended status: Informational ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- == Missing Reference: 'ISO 3166' is mentioned on line 413, but not defined == Missing Reference: 'RFC 2141' is mentioned on line 443, but not defined ** Obsolete undefined reference: RFC 2141 (Obsoleted by RFC 8141) -- Looks like a reference, but probably isn't: '7' on line 708 == Missing Reference: 'RFC 2045' is mentioned on line 730, but not defined == Missing Reference: 'RFC 3403' is mentioned on line 906, but not defined == Missing Reference: 'RFC 5226' is mentioned on line 1040, but not defined ** Obsolete undefined reference: RFC 5226 (Obsoleted by RFC 8126) == Unused Reference: 'RFC3406' is defined on line 1057, but no explicit reference was found in the text == Unused Reference: 'RFC2141' is defined on line 1061, but no explicit reference was found in the text == Unused Reference: 'RFC3403' is defined on line 1068, but no explicit reference was found in the text == Unused Reference: 'RFC2434' is defined on line 1072, but no explicit reference was found in the text == Unused Reference: 'ISO3166' is defined on line 1076, but no explicit reference was found in the text == Unused Reference: 'ISO639' is defined on line 1078, but no explicit reference was found in the text == Unused Reference: 'RFC2169' is defined on line 1082, but no explicit reference was found in the text == Unused Reference: 'RFC2045' is defined on line 1085, but no explicit reference was found in the text ** Obsolete normative reference: RFC 3406 (Obsoleted by RFC 8141) ** Obsolete normative reference: RFC 2141 (Obsoleted by RFC 8141) ** Obsolete normative reference: RFC 2434 (Obsoleted by RFC 5226) Summary: 6 errors (**), 0 flaws (~~), 17 warnings (==), 2 comments (--). Run idnits with the --verbose option for more detailed information about the items above. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2 INTERNET-DRAFT P. Spinosa (ITTIG/CNR) 3 Intended Status: Informational E. Francesconi (ITTIG/CNR) 4 Expires: May 3, 2010 C. Lupo (CNIPA) 5 October 30, 2009 7 A Uniform Resource Name (URN) Namespace 8 for Sources of Law (LEX) 9 draft-spinosa-urn-lex-00.txt 11 Status of this Memo 13 This Internet-Draft is submitted to IETF in full conformance with the 14 provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79. 16 Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering 17 Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that 18 other groups may also distribute working documents as 19 Internet-Drafts. 21 Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months 22 and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any 23 time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference 24 material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." 26 The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at 27 http://www.ietf.org/1id-abstracts.html 29 The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at 30 http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html 32 This Internet-Draft will expire on May 3, 2010. 34 Copyright Notice 36 Copyright (c) 2009 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the 37 document authors. All rights reserved. 39 This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal 40 Provisions Relating to IETF Documents in effect on the date of 41 publication of this document (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info). 42 Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights 43 and restrictions with respect to this document. 45 Abstract 47 This document describes a Uniform Resource Name (URN) Namespace 48 Identification (NID) convention as prescribed by the World Wide Web 49 Consortium (W3C) for identifying, naming, assigning, and managing 50 persistent resources in the legal domain. 52 Table of Contents 54 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 55 1.1 The Purpose of Namespace "lex" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 56 1.2 Entities Supporting this Standard . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 57 1.3 The Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 58 1.4 General Characteristics of the System . . . . . . . . . . . 7 59 1.5 Linking a "lex" Name to a Document . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 60 1.6 Use of "lex" Names in References . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 61 1.7 Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 62 2 Specification Template . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 63 2.1 Namespace ID . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 64 2.2 Registration Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 65 2.3 Syntax Used in this Document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 66 2.4 Identifier structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 67 3 General Syntax of the "lex" Identifier . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 68 3.1 Allowed and Not Allowed Characters . . . . . . . . . . . 11 69 3.2 Reserved Characters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 70 3.3 Case sensitivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 71 3.4 National Characters and Diacritic Signs . . . . . . . . . 12 72 3.5 Replacement of Spaces, Connectives and Punctuation Marks 12 73 3.6 Abbreviation Expansion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 74 3.7 Acronyms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 75 3.8 Date Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 76 3.9 Ordinal Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 77 4 Creation of the Source of Law "lex" Identifier . . . . . . . . 13 78 4.1 Basic Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 79 4.2 Model of Sources of Law Representation . . . . . . . . . 13 80 4.3 The Structure of the Local Name . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 81 4.4 Structure of the Document Identifier at Work Level . . . 14 82 4.5 Aliases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 83 4.6 Structure of the Document Identifier at Expression Level 16 84 4.7 Structure of the Document Identifier at Manifestation 85 Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 86 4.8 Sources of Law References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 87 5 The Procedure of Uniform Names Assignment . . . . . . . . . . 18 88 5.1 Specifying the element of the URN "lex" . . . . 18 89 5.2 National Registrar for Names Assignment . . . . . . . . . 18 90 5.3 Identifier Uniqueness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 91 5.4 Identifier persistence considerations . . . . . . . . . . 19 92 6 Principles of the Resolution Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 93 6.1 The General Architecture of the System . . . . . . . . . 20 94 6.2 Catalogues for Resolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 95 6.3 Suggested resolver behaviour . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 96 7 Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 97 7.1 Conformance with URN Syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 98 7.2 Validation mechanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 99 7.3 Scope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 100 7.4 Namespace Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 101 7.5 Community Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 102 7.6 IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 103 7.7 Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 104 8 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 105 8.1 Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 106 8.2 Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 107 9 Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 108 10 Author's Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 109 Attachment A -- Summary of the syntax of the uniform names of 110 the "lex" namespace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 111 Attachment B -- Specific Syntax of the Identifier at Work Level . 30 112 B1 The element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 113 B1.1 Indication of the Authority . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 114 B1.2 Multiple Issuers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 115 B1.3 Indication of the Issuer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 116 B1.4 Indication of the Body . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 117 B1.5 Indication of the Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 118 B1.6 Conventions for the Authority . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 119 B2 The element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 120 B2.1 Criteria for the Indication of the Type of Measure . . . 31 121 B2.2 Further Specification to the Type of Measure . . . . . . 32 122 B2.3 Aliases for Sources of Law with Different Normative 123 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 124 B2.4 Relations between Measure and Authority in the Aliases . 32 125 B3 The
element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 126 B3.1 Indication of the Details . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 127 B3.2 Multiple Dates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 128 B3.3 Unnumbered Measures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 129 B3.4 Multiple Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 130 B4 The element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 131 B4.1 Formal Annexes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 132 B4.2 Annexes of Annexes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 133 Attachment C -- Specific Syntax of the Element of the 134 Expression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 135 C1 The element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 136 C1.1 Different Versions of a Legislative Document . . . . . . 36 137 C1.2 Identification of the Version . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 139 1 Introduction 141 1.1 The Purpose of Namespace "lex" 143 The purpose of the "lex" namespace is to assign an unequivocal 144 identifier, in standard format, to documents that are sources of law. 145 The identifier is conceived so that its construction depends only on 146 the characteristics of the document itself and is, therefore, 147 independent from the document's on-line availability, its physical 148 location, and access mode. 149 "Sources of law" include any legal document within the domain of 150 legislation (including bills), case law and administrative acts or 151 regulations. 152 This identifier will be used as a way to represent the references 153 (and more generally, any type of relation) among the various sources 154 of law. In an on-line environment with resources distributed among 155 different Web publishers, uniform resource names allow simplified 156 global interconnection of legal documents by means of automated 157 hypertext linking. 159 1.2 Entities Supporting this Standard 161 The following entities support this proposal: 163 - ITTIG/CNR (Institute of Legal Information Theory and Techniques of 164 the Italian National Research Council) - Italy; 165 - CNIPA (National Centre for ICT in Public Administration) - Italy; 166 - PRODASEN - IT Department of the Federal Senate - Brazil; 167 - LII (Legal Information Institute), Cornell Law School - USA 169 1.3 The Context 171 In the last few years a number of initiatives have arisen in the 172 field of legal document management. 174 Since 2001 the Italian Government, through the CNIPA (National 175 Authority for Information Technology in the Public Administration), 176 the Ministry of Justice and ITTIG-CNR (the Institute of Legal 177 Information Theory and Techniques of the Italian National Research 178 Council) promoted the NormeInRete project. It was aimed at 179 introducing standards for sources of law description and 180 identification using XML and URN techniques. 182 Other national initiatives in Europe introduced standards for the 183 description of legal sources [FRAN]: for example the Metalex project, 184 promoted by the University of Amsterdam and adopted by the Dutch Tax 185 and Customs Administration, the Belgian Public Centers for Welfare 186 and others; LexDania project in Denmark supported by the Danish 187 Ministry of Justice; CHLexML in Switzerland developed by COPIUR, the 188 Coordination Office for the Electronic Publication of Legal Data 189 Federal Office of Justice; eLaw in Austria mainly coordinated by the 190 Austrian Parliament. 192 Such initiatives, based in synergies between government, national 193 research institutes, and universities, have defined national XML 194 standards for legal document management, as well as schemes for legal 195 document identification. 197 Outside Europe, similar initiatives have faced similar problems. For 198 example, the Brazilian Senate carried out a feasibility study to 199 provide unique and transparent identifiers to sources of law on the 200 basis of the IFLA-FRBR model. 201 Similarly, the Akoma Ntoso (Architecture for Knowledge-Oriented 202 Management of African Normative Texts using Open Standards and 203 Ontologies) project provides a set of guidelines for e-Parliament 204 services in a Pan-African context by proposing an XML document schema 205 providing sophisticated description possibilities for several 206 Parliamentary document types (including bills, acts and parliamentary 207 records, etc.). 208 Finally, the Tasmanian Government provided advanced legislative 209 information services through the EnAct project. It gave searchable 210 consolidated Tasmanian legislation by automating much of the 211 legislative drafting and consolidation process, as well as using SGML 212 document representation. Numerous less-visible efforts in the United 213 States and elsewhere have struggled with similar issues. 215 Several of these identifiers are based on a URN schema. The first 216 national standard was defined in Italy within the NormeInRete 217 project; to this the Danish LexDania and the Brazilian Lexml standard 218 followed. Hungary, Slovenia and Switzerland expressed their interest 219 in URN identifier for legislation as well. All these standards have a 220 common internal structure, regarding both the hierarchy and the 221 elements content. 223 In today's information society the processes of political, social and 224 economic integration of European Union member states as well as the 225 increasing integration of the world-wide legal and economic processes 226 are causing a growing interest in exchanging legal information 227 knowledge at national and trans-national levels. 228 The growing desire for improved quality and accessibility of legal 229 information amplifies the need for interoperability among legal 230 information systems across national boundaries. A common open 231 standard used to identify sources of law at international level is an 232 essential prerequisite for interoperability. 234 Interest groups within several countries have already expressed their 235 intention to adopt a shared solution based on a URN technique. 236 The need for a unequivocal identifier of sources of law in different 237 EU Member States, based on open standards and able to provide 238 advanced modalities of document hyper-linking, has been expressed in 239 several conferences by representatives of the Office for Official 240 Publications of the European Communities (OPOCE), with the aim of 241 promoting interoperability among national and European institution 242 information systems. Similar concerns have been raised by 243 international groups concerned with free access to legal information, 244 and the Permanent Bureau of the Hague Conference on Private 245 International Law is considering a resolution that would encourage 246 member states to "adopt neutral methods of citation of their legal 247 materials, including methods that are medium-neutral, provider- 248 neutral and internationally consistent". In a similar direction the 249 CEN Metalex initiative is moving, at European level, towards the 250 definition of a standard interchange format for sources of law, 251 including recommendations for defining naming conventions to them. 252 The "urn:lex" naming convention has interpreted all these 253 recommendations, proposing an original solution for sources of law 254 identification. 256 1.4 General Characteristics of the System 258 Registrants wish now to promote interoperability among legal 259 information systems by the definition of a namespace convention and 260 structure that will create and manage identifiers for legal 261 documents. The identifiers will be: 262 - globally unique 263 - transparent 264 - persistent 265 - location-independent, and 266 - language-neutral. 267 These qualities will facilitate legal document management as well as 268 provide a mechanism of stable cross-collections and cross-country 269 references. 270 Language-neutrality is an especially important feature that will 271 promote adoption of the standard by organizations that must adhere to 272 official-language requirements. The proposed standard will provide 273 useful guidance to both public and private groups that create, 274 promulgate, and publish legal documents. Registrants wish to minimize 275 the potential for creating conflicting proprietary schemes, while 276 preserving sufficient flexibility to allow for diverse document types 277 and to respect the need for local control of collections by an 278 equally diverse assortment of administrative entities. 280 As usual, the problem is to provide the right amount guidance at the 281 core of the standard while providing sufficient flexibility to cover 282 a wide variety of needs. The proposed "lex" standard does this by 283 splitting the identifier into parts. The first part uses a 284 predetermined standard ("country name standard") to specify the 285 country of origin for the legal document being identified; the 286 remainder ("local name") is intended for local use in identifying 287 documents issued in that country. This second part depends only on 288 sources of law identification system operating in that nation and it 289 is mainly composed by a formalized information related to the 290 enacting authority, the type of measure, the details and possibly the 291 annex. 293 The identification system based on uniform names must include: 294 - a schema for assigning names capable of representing unambiguously 295 any source of law (legislation, case law and administrative acts), 296 issued by any authority (national, regional and local) at any time 297 (past, present and future); 298 - a resolution mechanism - in a distributed environment - that ties a 299 uniform name to the on-line location of the corresponding 300 resources. 301 This document only considers the first of these requirements. It also 302 contains a few references to the architecture of the resolution 303 service and to the corresponding software. 305 1.5 Linking a "lex" Name to a Document 307 The "lex" name is linked to the document through meta-information 308 which may be specified: 309 - internally to the document itself through a specific element within 310 an XML schema or by an HTML META tag; 311 - externally by means of an RDF triple, a specific attribute in a 312 database, etc. 313 One of these modalities is necessary for enabling automated 314 construction and updating of catalogues (distributed and centralized) 315 and the implementation of resolvers that associate the uniform name 316 of a document with its physical location(s). The standard assumes no 317 particular relationship between the originator of the document, its 318 publisher, and the implementer of catalogues or resolution services. 319 They may be the same entity, or not. 321 1.6 Use of "lex" Names in References 323 "lex" names will be used on a large scale in references as a HREF 324 attribute value of the hypertext link to the referred document. 325 This link can be created in two ways: 326 - by manually inserting, in the referring document, the link with the 327 uniform name: this is a burdensome procedure especially for 328 documents that are already on-line; 329 - by automatically constructing (either permanently or temporarily) 330 the link with the uniform name, through reference parsers of a 331 text: this is a more time-saving procedure even if subject to a 332 certain percentage of errors, since references are not always 333 accurate or complete. This solution could nevertheless be 334 acceptable for already published documents. 335 In any case, whatever the method adopted is, new documents produced 336 in XML format compliant with the relative DTD/XMLSchema, should 337 express references through the uniform name of the document referred 338 to. 340 1.7 Terminology 342 The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", 343 "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this 344 document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119]. 346 2 Specification Template 348 2.1 Namespace ID 350 "lex" 352 2.2 Registration Information 354 Version Number: 1.0 Date: 2009-07-01 356 Declared registrant of the namespace: 358 Institute of Legal Information Theory and Techniques (ITTIG) Italian 359 National Research Council (CNR) Via de' Barucci, 20 50127 Florence 360 Italy 362 e-mail: lex@ittig.cnr.it 364 2.3 Syntax Used in this Document 366 This document uses the syntax common to many Internet RFCs, which is 367 based on the BNF (Backus-Naur Form) meta-language. In particular: 368 - elements are included between angle brackets ("<" and ">"); 369 - an element is separated from its specification by the string "::="; 370 - alternative elements are separated from each other by a vertical 371 slash ("|"); 372 - character strings are enclosed in quotes (" and "); 373 - optional parts are enclosed by square brackets ("[" and "]"); 374 - a group of elements is enclosed by round brackets ("(" and ")"); 375 - a symbol or an expression following an element or a group of 376 elements indicates a factor of repetition, and, as in the regular 377 expressions, takes the following formats: 378 - ? : 0 or 1 time; 379 - + : 1 or more times; 380 - * : 0 or more times; 381 - {n} : times; 382 - {n,m}: from to times. 384 2.4 Identifier structure 386 The identifier has a hierarchical structure as follows: 388 "urn:lex:" 390 where NSS is the Namespace Specific String composed as follows: 392 ::=":" 394 where: 396 is the part providing the identification of the country 397 where the source of law was issued; 399 is the uniform name of the source of law in the country 400 where it is issued; its internal structure is common to the already 401 adopted schema. It is able to represent all the aspects of an 402 intellectual production, as it is a legal document, from its initial 403 idea, through its evolution during the time, to its realisation by 404 different means (paper, digital, etc.). 406 The element is composed of two specific fields: 408 ::=[";"]* 410 where: 412 is the identification code of the country where the 413 source of law is issued. This code follows the standard [ISO 3166] 414 Alpha-2 (it=Italy, fr=France, dk=Denmark, etc.). In case of multi- 415 national (e.g., European Union) or international (e.g., United 416 Nations) organizations the Top Level Domain Name (e.g., "eu") or the 417 Domain Name (e.g., un.org, wto.int) is used instead of ISO 3166 code; 419 are the possible administrative hierarchical sub- 420 structures defined by each country according to its own organisation. 421 This additional information can be used where two or more levels of 422 legislative or judicial production exist (e.g., federal, state and 423 municipality level) and the same bodies may be present in each 424 jurisdiction. Then acts of the same type issued by similar 425 authorities in different areas differ for the country-unit 426 specification. An example can be the following: "br:governo:decreto" 427 (decree of federal government), "br;sao.paulo:governo:decreto" 428 (decree of SU+00E3o Paulo state) and "br;sao.paulo;campinas:governo: 429 decreto" (decree of Campinas municipality). 431 Examples of law sources identifiers are: 433 urn:lex:it:stato:legge:2003-09-21;456 (Italian act) 434 urn:lex:fr:etat:lois:2004-12-06;321 (French act) 435 urn:lex:es:estado:ley:2002-07-12;123 (Spanish act) 436 urn:lex:ch;glarus:regiere:erlass:2007-10-15;963 (Glarus Swiss Canton 437 decree) 439 3 General Syntax of the "lex" Identifier 441 3.1 Allowed and Not Allowed Characters 443 These characters are defined in accordance with the [RFC 2141] "URN 444 Syntax". For various reasons, later explained, in the "lex" 445 only a sub-set of characters is allowed. All other characters are 446 either eliminated or converted. 448 For the full syntax of the uniform names in the "lex" space, please 449 see Attachment A. 451 3.2 Reserved Characters 453 These characters must always and uniquely be used for the assigned 454 purpose. 455 The first category includes those characters bearing a specific 456 meaning in the general creation of the URI (Uniform Resource 457 Identifier)[RFC3986]: 459 "%" "/" "?" "#" 461 The following characters instead are reserved in the specific "lex" 462 namespace: 464 - "@" separator of the expression, that contains information on 465 version and language; 466 - "$" separator of the manifestation, that contains information on 467 format, editor, etc.; 468 - ":" separator of the main elements of the name at any entity; 469 - ";" separator of level. It identifies the introduction of an 470 element at a hierarchically lower level, or the introduction of a 471 specification; 472 - "+" separator of the repetitions of an entire main element (e.g., 473 multiple authorities); 474 - "," separator of the repetitions of individual components in the 475 main elements, each bearing the same level of specificity (e.g., 476 multiple numbers); 477 - "*" and "!" are reserved for future expansions. 479 3.3 Case sensitivity 481 The specific name of the URN, as with URLs, is case-sensitive. 482 Since the case does not change the logical identification of the 483 source of law, the names belonging to the "lex" namespace are 484 considered functionally equivalent independently from the case. To 485 take advantage of memory caching, the specific name is always created 486 in lower case. 487 (e.g., "Ministry" will be recorded as "ministry") 489 3.4 National Characters and Diacritic Signs 491 In order to keep editing and communication more simple and to avoid 492 character percent-encoding, it is strongly recommended that national 493 characters and diacritic signs are turned into base characters (e.g., 494 the Italian term "sanitU+00E0" converted into "sanita", the French 495 term "ministU+00E8re" converted into "ministere"). Otherwise, the 496 characters have to be percent-encoded according to the UTF-8 497 character encoding [STD63] (e.g., "sanitU+00E0" encoded into 498 "sanit%C3%A1"). 499 Anyway each country decides the uniform names encoding modality of 500 all the sources of law issued within its territory. 502 3.5 Replacement of Spaces, Connectives and Punctuation Marks 504 All the language connectives (e.g., articles, prepositions, etc.), 505 the punctuation marks and all the special characters (as apostrophes, 506 dashes, etc.) are eliminated. The words left are connected each other 507 by a dot (".") which substitutes the "space". 508 (e.g., "Ministry of Finances, Budget and of Economic Planning" 509 becomes "ministry.finances.budget.economic.planning") 511 3.6 Abbreviation Expansion 513 All abbreviations indicating institutions (e.g., Min.), structures 514 (e.g., Dept.), or legal measures (e.g., reg.), must be expanded. 515 (e.g., "Min." must be reported as "ministry") 517 3.7 Acronyms 519 The use of acronyms might be confusing and encourage ambiguity in 520 uniform names (the same acronym may indicate two different 521 institutions or structures), therefore their expansion is strongly 522 recommended. 524 (e.g., "FAO" is to be expanded as "food.agriculture.organization") 526 3.8 Date Format 528 Dates are expressed by numbers in the ISO-8601 format: 530 yyyy-mm-dd 532 (e.g., "September 2, 99" will be written as "1999-09-02") 534 3.9 Ordinal Numbers 536 Any ordinal number in a document (e.g., in the description of an 537 institution body) must be indicated in Arabic numerals, regardless to 538 the original expression: whether in Roman numerals, or with an 539 adjective, or in Arabic numeral with apex, etc. (IV, third, 1U+00B0, 540 2^, etc.). 541 (e.g., "Department IV" becomes "department.4") 543 4 Creation of the Source of Law "lex" Identifier 545 4.1 Basic Principles 547 The uniform name must identify one and only one document and is 548 created in such a way that it is: 549 - self-explanatory ; 550 - identifiable through simple and clear rules; 551 - compatible with the practice commonly used for references; 552 - able to be created by references in the text, automatically (by 553 parser) or manually; 554 - representative of both the formal and the substantive aspects of 555 the document. 557 4.2 Model of Sources of Law Representation 559 According to FRBR (Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records) 560 model developed by IFLA (International Federation of Library 561 Associations and Institutions), in a source of law, as in any 562 intellectual production, 4 fundamental entities (or aspects) can be 563 specified. 565 The first 2 entities reflect its contents: 566 - work: identifies a distinct intellectual creation; in our case, it 567 identifies a source of law both in its being (as it has been 568 issued) and in its becoming (as it is modified over time); 569 - expression: identifies a specific intellectual realisation of a 570 work; in our case it identifies every different (original or up-to- 571 date) version of the act over time and/or language in which the 572 text is expressed; 573 while the other 2 entities relate to its form: 574 - manifestation: identifies a concrete realisation of an expression; 575 in our case it identifies realizations in different media 576 (printing, digital, etc.), encoding formats (XML, PDF, etc.), or 577 other publishing characteristics; 578 - item: identifies a specific copy of a manifestation; in our case it 579 identifies individual physical copies as they are found in 580 particular physical locations. 582 4.3 The Structure of the Local Name 584 The of "lex" namespace must contain all the necessary 585 pieces of information enabling the unequivocal identification of a 586 legal document. 587 In the legal domain, at the "work" level, they are essentially four: 588 the enacting authority, the type of measure, the details and possibly 589 the annex. 590 It is often necessary to differentiate various expressions, that is: 591 - the original version and all the amended versions of the same 592 document; 593 - the versions of the text expressed in the different official 594 languages of the state or organization. 595 Finally the uniform name allows a distinction among diverse 596 manifestations, which may be produced in multiple locations using 597 different means and formats. 598 In every case, the basic identifier of the source of law (work) 599 remains the same, but information is added regarding the specific 600 version under consideration (expression); similarly a suffix is added 601 to the expression for representing the characteristics of the 602 publication (manifestation). 603 All this set of information is expressed in the jurisdiction official 604 language; in case of more official languages, more names (aliases) 605 are created. 607 Therefore, the more general structure of the national name appears as 608 follows: 610 ::=["@"]?["$"]? 612 However, consistent with legislative practice, the uniform name of 613 the original provision becomes the identifier of an entire class of 614 documents which includes: the original document, the annexes, and all 615 its versions, languages and formats subsequently generated. 617 4.4 Structure of the Document Identifier at Work Level 619 The structure of the document identifier is made of the four 620 fundamental elements mentioned above, clearly distinguished one from 621 the other in accordance with an order identifying increasingly 622 narrow domains and competences: 624 ::=":"":"
[":"]* 626 where: 628 is the issuing authority of the measure (e.g., State, 629 Ministry, Municipality, Court, etc.); 631 is the type of the measure (e.g., act, decree, decision, 632 etc.); 634
are the terms associated to the measure, typically the date 635 and the number; 637 is the identifier of the annex, if any (e.g., Annex 1); 639 In case of annexes, both the main document and its annexes have their 640 own uniform name so that they can individually be referenced; the 641 identifier of the annex adds a suffix to that of the main document. 642 In similar way the identifier of an annex of an annex adds an ending 643 to that of the annex which it is attached to. 645 The main elements of the national name are generally divided into 646 several elementary components, and, for each, specific rules of 647 representation are established (criteria, modalities, syntax and 648 order). 649 For the details regarding each element, please see the Attachment B. 651 Examples of identifiers are: 653 urn:lex:it:stato:legge:2006-05-14;22 654 urn:lex:uk:ministry.justice:decree:1999-10-07;45 655 urn:lex:ch;glarus:regiere:erlass:2007-10-15;963 656 urn:lex:es:tribunal.supremo:decision:2001-09-28;68 658 4.5 Aliases 660 In the states or organisations that have more than one official 661 language, a document has more identifiers, each of them expressed in 662 a different official language, basically a set of equivalent aliases. 663 This system permits manual or automated construction of the uniform 664 name of the referred source of law in the same language used in the 665 document itself. 666 (e.g., "urn:lex:eu:council:directive:2004-12-07;31", 667 "urn:lex:eu:consiglio:direttiva:2004-12-07;31", etc.) 668 Moreover, a document can be assigned more than one uniform name in 669 order to facilitate its linking to other documents. This option can 670 be used for documents that, although unique, are commonly referenced 671 from different perspectives. For example, the form of a document's 672 promulgation and its specific content (e.g., a Regulation promulgated 673 through a Decree of the President of the Republic). 675 4.6 Structure of the Document Identifier at Expression Level 677 There may be several expressions of a legal text, connected to 678 specific versions or languages. 679 Each version is characterized by the period of time during which that 680 text is to be considered as the valid text (in force or effective). 681 The lifetime of a version ends with the issuing of the subsequent 682 version. 683 New versions of a text may be brought into existence by: 684 - changes in the text (amendments) due to the issuing of other legal 685 acts and to the subsequent production of updated or consolidated 686 texts; 687 - correction of publication errors (rectification or errata corrige); 688 - entry into or departure from a particular time span, depending on 689 the specific date in which different partitions of a text come into 690 force. 691 Each such version may be expressed in more than one language, with 692 each language-version having its own specific identifier. 693 The identifier of a source of law expression adds such information to 694 the work identifier, using the following main structure: 696 ::="@"[":"]? 698 where: 700 is the identifier of the version of the (original or 701 amended) source of law. In general it is expressed by the 702 promulgation date of the amending act; anyway other specific 703 information can be used for particular documents. If necessary, the 704 original version is specified by the string "original" (for the 705 details regarding this element, please see the Attachment C); 707 is the identification code of the language in which the 708 document is expressed, according to ISO 639-1 [7] (it=Italian, 709 fr=French, de=German, etc.); in case the code of a language is not 710 included in this standard, the ISO 639-2 (3 letters) is used. This 711 information is not necessary when the text is expressed in the unique 712 official language of the country. 714 Examples of document identifiers for expressions are: 716 urn:lex:ch:etat:lois:2006-05-14;22@originel:fr (original version in 717 French) 718 urn:lex:ch:staat:gesetz:2006-05-14;22@original:de (original version 719 in German) 720 urn:lex:ch:etat:lois:2006-05-14;22@2008-03-12:fr (amended version in 721 French) 722 urn:lex:ch:staat:gesetz:2006-05-14;22@2008-03-12:de (amended version 723 in German) 725 4.7 Structure of the Document Identifier at Manifestation Level 727 To identify a specific manifestation, the uniform name of the 728 expression is followed by a suitable suffix describing the: 729 - digital format (e.g., XML, HTML, PDF, etc.) expressed according to 730 the MIME Content-Type standard [RFC 2045], where the "/" character 731 is to be substituted by the "-" sign; 732 - publisher or editorial staff who produced it; 733 - possible components of the expressions contained in the 734 manifestation. Such components are expressed by "body" (the default 735 value), representing the whole or the main part of the document, or 736 by the caption of the component itself (e.g. Table 1, Figure 2, 737 etc.); 738 - other features of the document (e.g., anonymized decision text). 739 To indicate possible features or peculiarities, each principal 740 element of the manifestation may be followed by a further 741 specification. 743 The suffix will thus read: 745 ::=[";""]* 746 ":"[";"]* 747 [":"[";"]*]? 748 [":"[";"]*]? 750 (e.g., the original version the Italian act 3 April 2000, n. 56 might 751 have the following manifestations with their relative uniform names: 752 - PDF format (vers. 1.7) of the whole act edited by the Parliament: 753 "urn:lex:it:stato:legge:2000-04-03;56$application-pdf;1.7: 754 parliament" 755 - XML format (version 2.2 DTD NIR) of the text of the act and PDF 756 format (version 1.7) of the Picture 1 contained in the body, edited 757 by the Senate: 758 "urn:lex:it:stato:legge:2000-04-03;56$text-xml;dtd-nir-2.2:senate. 759 republic" 760 "urn:lex:it:stato:legge:2000-04-03;56$application-pdf;1.7:senate. 761 republic:picture.1"). 763 Furthermore, it is useful to be able to assign a uniform name to a 764 manifestation (or to a part of it) in case non-textual objects are 765 involved. These may be multimedia objects that are non-textual in 766 their own right (e.g. geographic maps, photographs, etc.), or texts 767 recorded in non-textual formats, such as image scans of documents. 769 In these ways, a "lex" name permits: 770 - exploitation of all the advantages of an unequivocal identifier 771 that is independent of physical location; 772 - a means to provide choice among different existing manifestations 773 (e.g. XML or PDF formats, resolution degree of an image etc.) of 774 the same expression. 776 4.8 Sources of Law References 778 References to sources of law often refer to specific partitions of 779 the act (article, paragraph, etc.) and not to the entire document. 780 Therefore, for allowing applications to manage this information 781 (e.g., pointing a specific partition on the browser), it is necessary 782 that a partition identifier within the act is present (i.e. an 783 unequivocal label or ID). 785 The syntax of a reference is: 787 ::= ["#" ]? 789 For enabling the partition ID construction between different document 790 collections, this label should be defined, within each country, for 791 any document type (e.g., for legislation, the paragraph 2 of the 792 article 3 could have as ID the value "art3-par2"). 794 5 The Procedure of Uniform Names Assignment 796 5.1 Specifying the element of the URN "lex" 798 Under the "lex" namespace, each country or international organization 799 is assigned with a country code, which characterizes the URNs of the 800 source of law of that country. This code is assigned according to the 801 ISO 3166 Alpha-2 (as well as TLDN or DN for the organizations) 802 representation and it is the value of the element, 803 which preserves cross-country uniqueness of the identifiers. 805 5.2 National Registrar for Names Assignment 807 Any country, who intends to adopt this schema, identifies a National 808 Registrar, an organization which shares and defines the structure of 809 the optional part () of the name, according to the 810 organization of the state. For example, in a federal state a 811 corresponding to the name of each member state (e.g. 813 "br;sao.paolo", "br;minas.gerais", etc.) may be defined. 815 The process of assigning the will be managed by each 816 specific country under the related element. 817 In any country the National Registrar shares and defines the 818 assignment of the primary elements (issuing authority and type of 819 legal measure) of the local names considering the characteristics of 820 its own state organization. 821 Such a Registrar should establish, according to the guidelines 822 indicated in the current document, a uniform procedure within the 823 country to define elements, to take decisions upon 824 normalizations and finally to solve and avoid possible name 825 collisions as well as to maintain authoritative registries of various 826 kinds (e.g., for authorities, types of measures, etc.). In 827 particular, accurate point-in-time representations of the structure 828 and naming of government entities are important to semantically-aware 829 applications in this domain. 830 Moreover, the Registrar shares and defines the rules to construct 831 partition IDs for each document type. 832 Finally, the Registrar will develop and publish the rules and the 833 guidelines for the construction as well as the 834 predefined values and codes. 836 5.3 Identifier Uniqueness 838 Identifiers in the "lex" namespace are defined through a 839 element assigned to the sources of law of a specific country, and a 840 assigned by the issuing authority. The main elements 841 (authority and type of measure) of the are defined by 842 the national Registrar, so that it is ensured that the constructed 843 URNs are unique. The national Registrar should provide clear 844 documentation of rules by which names are to be constructed, and 845 should update and make accessible its registries. 847 Any issuing authority is responsible to define formal parameters to 848 guarantee local name uniqueness by attributing, if necessary, a 849 conventional internal number, which, combined with the other components (authority, measure and date), builds an unequivocal 851 identifier. Uniqueness is achieved by checking against the catalogue 852 of previously assigned names. 854 5.4 Identifier persistence considerations 856 The persistence of identifiers depends on the durability of the 857 institutions that assign and administer them. The goal of the "lex" 858 namespace schema is to maintain uniqueness and persistence of all 859 resources identified by the assigned URNs. 861 In particular, CNIPA and ITTIG-CNR, as proposers, are responsible of 862 maintaining the uniqueness of the element; given that the 863 is assigned on the basis of the long-held ISO 3166 Alpha-2 864 representation of the country (or the TLD name of the organization) 865 and that the country or organization associated code is expected to 866 continue indefinitely, the URN also persists indefinitely. 868 The rules for the construction of the name are conceived to delegate 869 the responsibility of their uniqueness to a set of authorities which 870 is identified within each country. 872 Therefore, each authority is responsible of assigning URNs which have 873 a very long life expectancy and can be expected to remain unique for 874 the foreseeable future. Practical and political considerations, as 875 well as diverse local forms of government organization, will result 876 in different methods of assigning responsibility for different levels 877 of the name. 878 Where this cannot be accomplished by the implementation of an 879 authoritative hierarchy, it can and should be done by creating 880 consensus around a series of published rules for the creation and 881 administration of names by institutions and bodies that operate by 882 means of collaboration rather than compulsion. 884 Issuing authorities that operate in more localized scopes, ranging 885 from the national down to the very local, must equally take 886 responsibility for the persistence of identifiers within their 887 scope. 889 6 Principles of the Resolution Service 891 6.1 The General Architecture of the System 893 The task of the resolution service is that of associating a "lex" 894 identifier with a specific document address on the network. By 895 contrast with systems that can be constructed around rigorous and 896 enforceable engineering premises, such as DNS, the "lex" resolver 897 will be expected to cope with a wide variety of "dirty" inputs, 898 particularly those created by the automated extraction of references 899 from incomplete or inaccurate texts. In this document, the result is 900 a particular emphasis on a flexible and robust resolver design. 902 The system has a distributed architecture based on two fundamental 903 components: a chain of information in DNS (Domain Name System) and a 904 series of resolution services from URNs to URLs, each competent 905 within a specific domain of the namespace. 906 Through the NAPTR records of the DNS (described in [RFC 3403]), the 907 client identifies the characteristics (protocol, port, site) of the 908 service capable of associating the relative URLs with the URN in 909 question, thereby allowing access to the document. 911 A resolution service can delegate the resolution and management of 912 hierarchically-dependent portions of the name. 913 Delegation of this responsibility will not be unreasonably withheld 914 provided that the processes for their resolution and management are 915 robust and are followed. 917 For the "lex" namespace, CNIPA and ITTIG-CNR will maintain the root 918 zone "lex.urn.arpa" and, in correspondence with the adhesion of a new 919 country (e.g., "br"), will update the DNS information with a new 920 record to delegate the relative resolution. This may be obtained by a 921 regular expression that matches the initial part of the URN (e.g., 922 "urn:lex:br") and redirects towards the proper zone (e.g., 923 "lex.senado.gov.br"). 925 Likewise the institution responsible for the country uniform names 926 (e.g., "urn:lex:br") has the task of managing the relative root in 927 the DNS system (e.g., "lex.senado.gov.br" zone) and routing the 928 resolution towards its resolvers on the basis of parts of the uniform 929 names. In similar way it can delegate the resolution of country sub- 930 levels (e.g., "urn:lex:br;sao.paolo") towards the relative zone 931 (e.g., "lex.sao-paolo.gov.br"). 933 The resolution service is made up of two elements: a knowledge base 934 (consisting in a catalogue or a set of transformation rules) and a 935 software to query the knowledge base itself. 937 6.2 Catalogues for Resolution 939 Incompleteness and inaccuracy are rather frequent in legal citations, 940 and incomplete or inaccurate uniform names of the referred document 941 are thus likely to be built from textual references (this is even 942 more frequent if they are created automatically through a specific 943 parser). For this reason, the implementation of a catalogue, based on 944 a relational-database, is suggested, as it will lead to a more higher 945 flexibility in the resolution process. 946 In addition the catalogue must manage the aliases, the various 947 versions and languages of the same source of law as well as the 948 related manifestations. 950 It is suggested that each enacting authority implements its own 951 catalogue, assigning a corresponding unambiguous uniform name to each 952 resource. 954 6.3 Suggested resolver behaviour 956 First of all the resolution process should implement a normalization 957 of the uniform name to be resolved. This may involve transforming 958 some components to the canonical form (e.g., filling out the 959 acronyms, expanding the abbreviations, unifying the institution 960 names, standardizing the type of measures, etc.). For this function 961 authorities and types of measure registers are useful. 963 The resolver should then query the catalogue searching for the URN 964 which corresponds exactly to the given one (normalized if necessary). 965 Since the names coming from the references may be inaccurate or 966 incomplete, an iterative, heuristic approach (based on partial 967 matches) is indicated. It is worth remarking that incomplete 968 references (not including all the elements to create the canonical 969 uniform name) are normal and natural; for a human reader, the 970 reference would be "completed" by contextual understanding of the 971 reference in the document in which it occurs. 973 Lacking more specific indications, the resolver should select the 974 best (most recent) version of the requested source of law, and 975 provide all the manifestations with their related items. 976 A more specific indication in the uniform name to be resolved will, 977 of course, result in a more selective retrieval, based on any 978 suggested expression and/or manifestations components (e.g. date, 979 language, format, etc.). 981 7 Considerations 983 7.1 Conformance with URN Syntax 985 No special considerations. 987 7.2 Validation mechanism 989 The national Authority (or those it delegates) of each adhering 990 country is responsible of the definition or acceptance of the uniform 991 name's primary elements (issuing authority and type of legal 992 measure). 994 7.3 Scope 996 Global interest. 998 7.4 Namespace Considerations 1000 In collaboration with the legislative XML community, registrants 1001 carried out a preliminary study of the URI alternatives to satisfy 1002 the key requirements. 1003 The options analysed were: a private URI scheme, URL, PURL and URN. 1004 URN was considered the most appropriate URI given the requirements 1005 analysis. 1006 Advantages we would emphasize are: 1007 - greater flexibility in building the identifier; 1008 - the capacity to represent name components that are not strictly 1009 hierarchical; 1010 - the potential for clear division of the identifier into macro 1011 parts, main elements and components, using different separators; 1012 - ease of managing optional parts of a name. 1014 7.5 Community Considerations 1016 The use of the "lex" namespace facilitates the interoperability of 1017 information systems used in the Public Administration at the national 1018 and international level. Moreover it allows the distribution of the 1019 legal information towards a federated architecture. In such an 1020 architecture, documents are directly managed by the issuing 1021 authorities, with resulting benefits in information authenticity, 1022 quality and currency. A shared identification mechanism resources 1023 guarantees that a distributed system will be as efficient and 1024 effective as a comparable centralized system. 1026 Creators of Internet content that references legal materials - 1027 including publishers operating well outside the traditional arenas of 1028 legal publishing - benefit by the registration of the namespace 1029 because facilitates the linking of legal documents, whether by manual 1030 or automated means, and reduces the cost of maintaining documents 1031 that contain such references. 1033 Any citizen or organisation with Internet web browser capability will 1034 be entitled to access the namespace and its associated application, 1035 registers, and resolution services, to facilitate document access. 1037 7.6 IANA Considerations 1039 This document includes a URN NID registration for "lex" for entry in 1040 the IANA registry of URN NIDs (see [RFC 5226] for more information). 1042 7.7 Security Considerations 1044 This document introduces no additional security considerations beyond 1045 those associated with the use and resolution of URNs in general. 1047 8 References 1049 8.1 Normative References 1051 [STD63] F. Yergeau, "UTF-8, a transformation format of ISO 1052 10646", STD 63, RFC 3629, November 2003. 1054 [RFC2119] S. Bradner, "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate 1055 Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997. 1057 [RFC3406] D Daigle, L., van Gulik, D., Iannella, R., and P. 1058 Faltstrom, "Uniform Resource Names (URN) Namespace 1059 Definition Mechanisms", BCP 66, RFC 3406, October 2002. 1061 [RFC2141] R. Moats, K. R. Sollins, "URN Syntax", RFC 2141, May 1062 1997. 1064 [RFC3986] Berners-Lee, T., Fielding, R., and L. Masinter, "Uniform 1065 Resource Identifiers (URI): Generic Syntax", STD 66, RFC 1066 3986, January 2005. 1068 [RFC3403] M. Mealling, Dynamic Delegation Discovery System (DDDS), 1069 Part Three: The Domain Name System (DNS) Database, RFC 1070 3403, October 2002. 1072 [RFC2434] Narten, T. and H. Alvestrand, "Guidelines for Writing an 1073 IANA Considerations Section in RFCs", BCP 26, RFC 2434, 1074 October 1998. 1076 [ISO3166] ISO 3166, "Country name codes", ISO 3166-1:1997. 1078 [ISO639] ISO 639, "Codes for the representation of names of 1079 languages" - Part 1: alpha-2 code - Part 2: alpha-3 code. 1080 (1998, 2002) 1082 [RFC2169] R. Daniel, "A Trivial Convention for using HTTP in URN", 1083 RFC 2169, June 1997 1085 [RFC2045] N. Freed, N. Borenstein, "Multipurpose Internet Mail 1086 Extensions (MIME) Part One: Format of Internet Message 1087 Bodies", RFC 2045, November 1996. 1089 8.2 Informative References 1091 [SPIN] P.L. Spinosa, "The Assignment of Uniform Names to Italian 1092 Legal Documents", May, 2006 1093 http://www.nir.it/sito_area3- 1094 ap_stan_assegnazione_nomi.htm 1096 [FRAN] E. Francesconi, "Technologies for European Integration. 1097 Standards-based Interoperability of Legal Information 1098 Systems", ISBN 978-88-8398-050-3, European Press Academic 1099 Publishing, 2007. 1101 9 Acknowledgments 1103 The authors of this document wish to thank all the registrants for 1104 giving suggestions and comments. 1105 They are also grateful to the Legislative XML community for the 1106 interesting discussions on this topic and to the Working Group 1107 "Identification of the legal resources through URNs" of Italian 1108 NormeInRete project for the provided guidance [SPIN]. 1109 The authors owe a debt of gratitude to Tom Bruce, director of the 1110 Legal Information Institute of the Cornell University Law School, for 1111 his contribution in revising this document and sharing fruitful 1112 discussions which greatly improved the final result. A special thank 1113 goes also to Joao Alberto de Oliveira Lima, legislative system 1114 analyst of the Brazilian Federal Senate, and to Attila Torcsvari, 1115 information management consultant, for their detailed comments on the 1116 first drafts of this document, which provided significant hints to 1117 the final version of the standard. 1118 Finally, many thanks go to Loriana Serrotti who significantly 1119 contributed to the drafting of this document. 1121 10 Author's Addresses 1123 PierLuigi Spinosa, Enrico Francesconi 1124 Istituto di Teoria e Tecniche dell'Informazione Giuridica (ITTIG) 1125 Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR) 1126 Via de' Barucci, 20 1127 50127 Firenze 1128 Italy 1129 Telephone: +39 055 43995 1130 e-mail: {pierluigi.spinosa, enrico.francesconi}@ittig.cnr.it 1132 Caterina Lupo 1133 Centro Nazionale per l'Informatica nella Pubblica Amministrazione 1134 (CNIPA) 1135 Viale Carlo Marx, 31/49 1136 00137 Roma 1137 Italy 1138 Telephone: +39 06 85264262 1139 e-mail: caterina.lupo@cnipa.it 1141 Attachment A -- Summary of the syntax of the uniform names of the "lex" 1142 namespace 1144 *------------------------------------------------------------------- 1145 * General Structure of a Uniform Resource Name (URN) 1146 * NID = namespace 1147 * NSS = specific name 1148 *------------------------------------------------------------------- 1149 ::= "urn:"":" 1151 *------------------------------------------------------------------- 1152 * Structure of a Uniform Resource Name (URN) of the "lex" namespace 1153 *------------------------------------------------------------------- 1154 ::= "lex" 1156 ::= "urn:lex:" 1158 *------------------------------------------------------------------- 1159 * Structure of a "lex" specific name 1160 *------------------------------------------------------------------- 1161 ::= ":" 1163 *------------------------------------------------------------------- 1164 * Structure of the element 1165 *------------------------------------------------------------------- 1166 ::= [";"]* 1168 ::= {2,4} 1170 ::= []* 1172 *------------------------------------------------------------------- 1173 * Structure of the element 1174 *------------------------------------------------------------------- 1175 ::= ["@"]?["$"]? 1177 *------------------------------------------------------------------- 1178 * Structure of the element 1179 *------------------------------------------------------------------- 1180 ::= ":"":"
[":"]* 1182 *------------------------------------------------------------------- 1183 * Structure of the element 1184 *------------------------------------------------------------------- 1185 ::= ["+"]* 1187 ::= ([";"]*[";"]*) | 1188 ::= []* 1190 ::= []* 1192 ::= []* 1194 ::= []* 1196 *------------------------------------------------------------------- 1197 * Structure of the element 1198 *------------------------------------------------------------------- 1199 ::= [";"]* 1201 ::= []* 1203 ::= []* 1205 *------------------------------------------------------------------- 1206 * Structure of the
element 1207 *------------------------------------------------------------------- 1208
::= (|)";" 1210 ::= [","]* 1211 "lex" 1212 ::= []* 1214 ::= ([","]*)| 1216 ::= [|]* 1218 ::= "lex-"+ 1220 *------------------------------------------------------------------- 1221 * Structure of the element 1222 *------------------------------------------------------------------- 1223 ::= [";"]* 1225 ::= []* 1227 *------------------------------------------------------------------- 1228 * Structure of the element 1229 *------------------------------------------------------------------- 1231 ::= [":"]? 1233 *------------------------------------------------------------------- 1234 * Structure of the element 1235 *------------------------------------------------------------------- 1236 ::= (|) 1237 [";"(|)]* 1239 ::= 1241 ::= 1243 ::= []* 1245 *------------------------------------------------------------------- 1246 * Structure of the element 1247 *------------------------------------------------------------------- 1249 ::= {2,3} 1251 *------------------------------------------------------------------- 1252 * Structure of the element 1253 *------------------------------------------------------------------- 1254 ::= [";""]* 1255 ":"[";""]* 1256 [":"[";"]*]? 1257 [":"[";"]*]? 1259 ::= [|"-"]* 1261 ::= [|"-"]* 1263 ::= [|"-"]* 1265 ::= [|"-"]* 1267 *------------------------------------------------------------------- 1268 * Structure of the date 1269 *------------------------------------------------------------------- 1270 ::= "-""-" 1272 ::= {4} 1273 ::= {2} 1274 ::= {2} 1276 *------------------------------------------------------------------- 1277 * Allowed characters 1278 *------------------------------------------------------------------- 1279 ::= | | | 1281 ::= | "." 1283 ::= | | 1284 ::= "a" | "b" | "c" | "d" | "e" | "f" | "g" | "h" | 1285 "i" | "j" | "k" | "l" | "m" | "n" | "o" | "p" | 1286 "q" | "r" | "s" | "t" | "u" | "v" | "w" | "x" | 1287 "y" | "z" 1289 ::= "0" | "1" | "2" | "3" | "4" | "5" | "6" | "7" | 1290 "8" | "9" 1292 ::= ("%" ( | )){1,6} 1294 ::= "a" | "b" | "c" | "d" | "e" | "f" 1296 ::= "-" | "_" | "'" | "=" | "(" | ")" 1298 ::= ":" | "@" | "$" | "+" | ";" | "," 1300 ::= "*" | "!" 1302 Attachment B -- Specific Syntax of the Identifier at Work Level 1304 B1 The element 1306 B1.1 Indication of the Authority 1308 The element of a uniform name may indicate, in the 1309 various cases: 1310 - the actual authority issuing the legal provision. More 1311 specifically, the authority adopting the provision or enacting it; 1312 - the institution where the provision is registered, known and 1313 referenced to, even if produced by others (e.g., the bills 1314 identified through the reference to the Chamber where they are 1315 presented); 1316 - the institution regulated (and referred to in citations) by the 1317 legal provision even when this is issued by another authority 1318 (e.g., the statute of a Body). 1320 B1.2 Multiple Issuers 1322 Some sources of law are enacted by a number of issuing parties (e.g., 1323 inter-ministerial decrees, agreements, etc.). In this case, the 1324 element contains all the issuing parties (properly 1325 separated), as follows: 1327 ::= ["+"]* 1329 (e.g., "ministry.justice+ministry.finances") 1331 B1.3 Indication of the Issuer 1333 Each issuing authority is essentially represented by either an 1334 institutional office (e.g., Prime Minister) or an institution (e.g., 1335 Ministry); in the last case, the authority is indicated in accordance 1336 with the institution's hierarchical structure, from the more general 1337 to more specific (Council, Department, etc.), ending with the 1338 relative office (President, Director, etc.). 1339 Therefore, the structure of the issuer is as follows: 1341 ::= ([";"]*[";"]*) | 1343 (e.g., "ministry.finances;department.revenues;manager") 1345 B1.4 Indication of the Body 1347 Depending on the kind of measure, the body within the issuing 1348 authority is unambiguously determined (e.g., the Council for Regional 1349 Acts) and normally it is not indicated in the references. 1350 Just like in practice, the indication of the enacting authority is 1351 limited to the minimum in relation to the type of measure. 1352 (e.g., "region.tuscany:act" and not "region.tuscany;council:act") 1354 B1.5 Indication of the Function 1356 Generally, the component is indicated, sometimes instead 1357 of the body itself: 1358 - in case of political, representative or elective offices 1359 (e.g., "university.oxford;rector:decree" instead of 1360 "university.oxford;rectorship:decree"); 1361 - when it refers to a top officer in the institution (e.g., general 1362 manager, general secretary, etc.) which is not always possible to 1363 associate a specific internal institutional structure to 1364 (e.g., "national.council.research;general.manager"). 1366 It is not indicated when it clearly corresponds to the person in 1367 charge of an institution (typically, a general director); in this 1368 case, only the structure and not the person in charge is indicated 1369 (e.g., "ministry.justice;department.penitentiary.administration"). 1371 The function must be indicated when: 1372 - it is not the same of the director or the person in charge of the 1373 structure (for example, in case of an undersecretary, a deputy 1374 director, etc.); 1375 - the type of measure may be both monocratic or collegial: the 1376 indication of the office eliminates the ambiguity. 1378 B1.6 Conventions for the Authority 1380 The acts and the measures bearing the same relevance as an act, 1381 issued or enacted since the foundation of the State, have 1382 conventionally indicated "state" as authority. 1384 B2 The element 1386 B2.1 Criteria for the Indication of the Type of Measure 1388 In uniform names the issuing authority of a document is mandatory. 1389 This makes unnecessary to indicate any further qualification of the 1390 measure (e.g., ministerial decree, directorial ordinance, etc.), even 1391 if it is widely used. 1392 When the authority-measure combination clearly identifies a specific 1393 document, the type of measure is not defined through attributes 1394 referring to the enacting authority. 1395 (e.g., "region.tuscany:act" and not "region.tuscany:regional.act") 1397 B2.2 Further Specification to the Type of Measure 1399 In the element, it is usually sufficient to indicate the 1400 type of a measure. As usual, references to sources of law, rather 1401 than through the formal details (date and number), may be made 1402 through some of their characteristics such as the subject-matter 1403 covered (e.g., accounting regulations), nicknames referring to the 1404 promoter (e.g., Bassanini Act) or to the topic of the act (e.g., 1405 Bankruptcy Law), etc.. 1406 In these cases, the type of measure may be followed by further 1407 specifications useful in referencing even if the details are lacking: 1409 ::=[";"]* 1411 (e.g., "regulations;accounting" or "act;bankruptcy") 1413 B2.3 Aliases for Sources of Law with Different Normative References 1415 There are legislative measures that, although unique, are usually 1416 cited in different ways, for example through the legislative act 1417 introducing them into the legal order (President's decree, 1418 legislative decree, etc.) or through their legislative category 1419 (regulations, consolidation, etc.). 1420 In order to ensure, in all the cases, the validity of the references, 1421 an alias that takes into account the measure category is associated 1422 to the uniform name, representing the legislative form. 1423 (e.g., "state:decree.legislative:1992-07-24;358" and 1424 "state:consolidation;public.contracts:1992-07-24;358"). 1426 B2.4 Relations between Measure and Authority in the Aliases 1428 The sources of law including different normative references are 1429 usually introduced in legislation through the adoption or the issuing 1430 of an act, which they are either included or attached to. It is, 1431 therefore, necessary to create an alias linking the two aspects of 1432 the same document. Specifically, the different measures can be: 1433 - adopted/issued by an authority different from the one regulated by 1434 the provision (e.g., the statute of a Body); in this case, the 1435 correlation is established between two uniform names each featuring 1436 a completely different element 1437 (e.g., "italian.society.authors.publishers:statute" and 1438 "ministry.cultural.activities+ministry.finances.budget.economic. 1439 planning:decree"); 1440 - issued by the institution itself either because it has issuing 1441 authority or by virtue of a proxy (e.g., a provision that refers to 1442 the functioning of the Body itself); in this case, the two aliases 1443 share the first part of the authority; 1444 (e.g., "municipality.firenze:statute" and 1445 "municipality.firenze;council:deliberation"); 1446 - issued by the same Body to regulate a particular sector of its own 1447 competence; in this case the element is the same 1448 (e.g., "ministry.justice:regulation;use.information.tools. 1449 telematic.process" and "ministry.justice:decree"). 1451 B3 The
element 1453 B3.1 Indication of the Details 1455 The details of a source of law usually include the date of the 1456 enactment and the identification number (inclusion in the body of 1457 laws, register, protocol, etc.). 1458 Some measures can have multiple dates; there are also cases in which 1459 the number of the measure does not exist (unnumbered measures) or a 1460 measure has multiple numbers (e.g., unified cases). For these 1461 reasons, the set up of both elements (date and number) includes 1462 multiple values. 1464 Some institutions (e.g., the Parliaments) usually identify documents 1465 through their period of reference (e.g., the legislature number) 1466 rather than through a date, which would be much less meaningful and 1467 never used in references (e.g., Senate bill S.2544 of the XIV 1468 legislature). In these cases, the component is used in 1469 substitution of the component . 1471 Usually details of a measure are not reported according to a specific 1472 sequence; in accordance with the global structure of the uniform 1473 name, which goes from the general to the specific, the sequence date- 1474 number has the following form: 1476
::=(|)";" 1478 (e.g., "2000-12-06;126", "14.legislation;s.2544") 1480 B3.2 Multiple Dates 1482 Some sources of law, even if unique, are identified by more than one 1483 date; in this case, in the field all the given dates are to 1484 be reported and indicated as follows: 1486 ::=[","]* 1488 (e.g., the measure of the Data Protection Authority of December 30, 1489 1999- January 13, 2000, No. 1/P/2000 has the following uniform name: 1490 "personal.data.protection.authority:measure:1999-12-30,2000-01-13; 1491 1-p-2000"). 1493 B3.3 Unnumbered Measures 1495 Measures not officially numbered in the publications may have a non- 1496 unequivolcal identifier, because several measures of the same type 1497 can exist, issued on the same day by the same authority. 1498 To ensure that the uniform name is unambiguous, the field 1499 must, in any case, contain a discriminating element, which can be any 1500 identifier used internally, and not published, by the authority 1501 (e.g., protocol). 1502 If the authority does not have its own identifier, one identifier 1503 must be created for the name system. In order to easily differentiate 1504 it, such number is preceded by the string "lex-": 1506 ::="lex-"[]+ 1508 (e.g., "ministry.finances:decree:1999-12-20;lex-3") 1510 It is responsibility of the authority issuing a document to assign a 1511 discriminating specification to it; in case of multiple authorities, 1512 only one of them is responsible for the assignment of the number to 1513 the document (e.g., the proponent). 1514 The unnumbered measures published on an official publication (e.g., 1515 the Official Gazette), instead of by a progressive number are 1516 recognized by the univocal identifying label printed on the paper. 1517 Such an identifier, even if unofficial but assigned to a document in 1518 an official publication, is to be preferred because it has the clear 1519 advantage to be public and therefore easier to be found. 1521 B3.4 Multiple Numbers 1523 Some legal documents (e.g., bills), even if unique, are identified by 1524 a set of numbers (e.g., the unification of cases or bills). 1525 In this case, in the field, all the identifiers are 1526 reported, according to the following structure: 1528 ::=[","]* 1530 (e.g., "2000-06-12;c-10-97,c-11-97,c-12-97") 1531 The characters which are not allowed (e.g., "/") or reserved (e.g., 1532 ":"), including the comma, cannot exist inside the , and 1533 therefore must be turned into "-". 1534 This conversion may imply that the uniform name of the document is no 1535 more unique (e.g., removal 123-BIS and return 123/BIS of the bill 123 1536 both are identified as "123-bis"); in this case, it is necessary to 1537 add a specific distinctive ending (e.g., "123-bis-removal" and "123- 1538 bis-return"). 1540 B4 The element 1541 B4.1 Formal Annexes 1543 Although annexes are an integral part of the legal document, they may 1544 be referred to and undergo amendments separately from the act to 1545 which they are annexed. It is, therefore, necessary that both the 1546 main document as well as each formal individual annex is univocally 1547 identified. 1549 Formal annexes may be registered as separate parts or together with a 1550 legal provision; they may also be autonomous in nature or not. In any 1551 case, they must be given a uniform name, which includes the uniform 1552 name of the source of law to which they are attached, and a suffix 1553 which identifies the annex itself. 1555 The suffix of formal annexes includes the official heading of the 1556 annex and, possibly, further specifications (e.g., the title) which 1557 will facilitate the retrieval of the annex in case the identifier is 1558 missing: 1560 ::=[";"]* 1562 (e.g., "region.sicily;council:deliberation:1998-02-12;14:annex.a; 1563 borders.park") 1565 The characters which are not allowed (e.g. "/") or which are reserved 1566 (e.g. ":") must not be featured in the and therefore must 1567 be turned into ".". 1569 B4.2 Annexes of Annexes 1571 When there are annexes to an annex, their corresponding identifiers 1572 are created by adding to the identifier of the original annex those 1573 of the annexes that are connected with it (that is, attached to it). 1575 (e.g., Table 1 attached to Attachment A of the preceding legal act 1576 has the following uniform name: 1577 "region.sicily;council:deliberation:1998-02-12;14:annex.a; 1578 borders.park:table.1;municipality.territories"). 1580 Attachment C -- Specific Syntax of the Element of the 1581 Expression 1583 C1 The element 1585 C1.1 Different Versions of a Legislative Document 1587 The creation of an updated text of a document may have one of the 1588 following forms: 1589 - "multi-version": when specific mark-ups which identify the modified 1590 parts of a document (added, substituted or deleted parts) and their 1591 related periods of effectiveness are indicated inside one single 1592 object (e.g., an xml file). Such a document will be able, in a 1593 dynamic way, to appear in different forms according to the 1594 requested date of effectiveness; 1595 - "single-version": when, on the contrary, a new and distinct object 1596 is created for each amendment to the text at a given time. Each 1597 object is, therefore, characterized by its own period of validity. 1598 In any case all the versions should be linked one another and 1599 immediately navigable. 1601 C1.2 Identification of the Version 1603 In order to identify the different time versions of the same act, to 1604 the uniform name of the original document has to be added a specific 1605 suffix. 1606 Such a suffix identifies each version of a legal provision and 1607 includes, first and foremost, one of the following elements: 1608 - the issuing date of the last amending measure taken into account; 1609 - the date in which the communication of the rectification or of the 1610 errata corrige, is published; 1611 - a specification which must identify the reason concerning the 1612 amendment (e.g., the specific phase of the legislative process), 1613 for the cases in which the date is not usually used (e.g., bills). 1615 Anyway it is possible to add further specifications that will 1616 distinguish each of the different versions of the text to guarantee 1617 identifier unequivocalness. For example with regard to changes of the 1618 in-force or effectiveness of any partition or portion of the text 1619 itself (e.g., when the amendments introduced by an act are applied at 1620 different times) or different events occurring in the same date. 1622 ::=(|) 1623 [";"(|)]* 1625 where: 1626 - contains the issuing date of the last considered 1627 amendment or of the last communication of amendment. In case the 1628 original text introduces differentiated periods in which an act is 1629 effective and the information system produces one version for each 1630 of them, such element contains the string "original"; 1631 - any information useful to identify unambiguously 1632 and univocally the version; 1633 - contains the date in which a version is put into 1634 force, is effective or is published; 1635 - is a name assigned to the event producing a further version 1636 (e.g., amendment, decision, etc.). 1638 The issuing date of an amending act was chosen as identifier of a 1639 version because it can be obtained from the heading (formal data). 1641 (e.g., the name "state:royal.decree:1941-01-30;12@1998-02-19" 1642 identifies the updated text of the "Royal Decree of 30/1/1941, No. 1643 12" with the amendments introduced by the "Law Decree of 19/2/1998, 1644 No. 51", without any indication of its actual entry into force. The 1645 same uniform name with the additional ending ";1999-01-01" indicates 1646 the in-force or effective version starting in a different date (from 1647 1/1/99). 1649 For a full compatibility, every updating of a text or of the 1650 effectiveness of a "multi-version" document implies the creation of a 1651 new uniform name, even if the object remains only one, containing the 1652 identifier of the virtually generated version, exactly as in the case 1653 of a "single-version" document. A specific meta-data will associate 1654 every uniform name with the period of time during which such a name 1655 together with its corresponding text is to be considered valid. 1657 (e.g., the multi-version document containing the "R.D. of 01/30/1941, 1658 no. 12", updated by the amendments introduced by the "D.Lgs. of 1659 02/19/1998, no. 51", contains the name of the original 1660 "state:royal.decree:1941-01-30;12" as well as the name of the updated 1661 version "state:royal.decree:1941-01-30;12@1998-02-19"). 1663 Please note that in case of attachments or annexes, the creation of a 1664 new version (even in the case of only one component) would imply the 1665 creation of a new uniform name for all the connected objects in order 1666 to guarantee their alignment (i.e., the main document, the 1667 attachments and annexes).