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Checking references for intended status: Informational ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ** Obsolete normative reference: RFC 3406 (Obsoleted by RFC 8141) ** Obsolete normative reference: RFC 2141 (Obsoleted by RFC 8141) ** Obsolete normative reference: RFC 5226 (Obsoleted by RFC 8126) Summary: 3 errors (**), 0 flaws (~~), 1 warning (==), 1 comment (--). 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: March 8, 2012 C. Lupo (CNIPA) 5 September 5 2011 7 A Uniform Resource Name (URN) Namespace 8 for Sources of Law (LEX) 9 draft-spinosa-urn-lex-04.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. 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Please review these documents 43 carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect 44 to this document. 46 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 Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 62 1.8 Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 63 2 Specification Template . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 64 2.1 Namespace ID . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 65 2.2 Registration Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 66 2.3 Syntax Used in this Document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 67 2.4 Identifier structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 68 3 General Syntax of the "lex" Identifier . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 69 3.1 Allowed and Not Allowed Characters . . . . . . . . . . . 12 70 3.2 Reserved Characters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 71 3.3 Case sensitivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 72 3.4 National Characters and Diacritic Signs . . . . . . . . . 13 73 3.5 Replacement of Spaces, Connectives and Punctuation Marks 13 74 3.6 Abbreviation Expansion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 75 3.7 Acronyms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 76 3.8 Date Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 77 3.9 Ordinal Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 78 4 Creation of the Source of Law "lex" Identifier . . . . . . . . 14 79 4.1 Basic Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 80 4.2 Model of Sources of Law Representation . . . . . . . . . 14 81 4.3 The Structure of the Local Name . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 82 4.4 Structure of the Document Identifier at Work Level . . . 16 83 4.5 Aliases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 84 4.6 Structure of the Document Identifier at Expression Level 18 85 4.7 Structure of the Document Identifier at Manifestation 86 Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 87 4.8 Sources of Law References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 88 5 The Procedure of Uniform Names Assignment . . . . . . . . . . 21 89 5.1 Specifying the element of the URN "lex" . 21 90 5.2 Jurisdictional Registrar for Names Assignment . . . . . . 22 91 5.3 Identifier Uniqueness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 92 5.4 Identifier persistence considerations . . . . . . . . . . 23 93 6 Principles of the Resolution Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 94 6.1 The General Architecture of the System . . . . . . . . . 23 95 6.2 Catalogues for Resolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 96 6.3 Suggested resolver behaviour . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 97 7 Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 98 7.1 Conformance with URN Syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 99 7.2 Validation mechanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 100 7.3 Scope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 101 7.4 Namespace Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 102 7.5 Community Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 103 7.6 IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 104 7.7 Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 105 8 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 106 8.1 Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 107 8.2 Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 108 9 Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 109 10 Author's Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 110 Attachment A -- Summary of the syntax of the uniform names of 111 the "lex" namespace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 112 Attachment B -- Specific Syntax of the Identifier at Work Level . 34 113 B1 The element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 114 B1.1 Indication of the Authority . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 115 B1.2 Multiple Issuers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 116 B1.3 Indication of the Issuer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 117 B1.4 Indication of the Body . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 118 B1.5 Indication of the Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 119 B1.6 Conventions for the Authority . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 120 B2 The element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 121 B2.1 Criteria for the Indication of the Type of Measure . . . 35 122 B2.2 Further Specification to the Type of Measure . . . . . . 36 123 B2.3 Aliases for Sources of Law with Different Normative 124 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 125 B2.4 Relations between Measure and Authority in the Aliases . 36 126 B3 The
element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 127 B3.1 Indication of the Details . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 128 B3.2 Multiple Dates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 129 B3.3 Unnumbered Measures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 130 B3.4 Multiple Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 131 B4 The element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 132 B4.1 Formal Annexes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 133 B4.2 Annexes of Annexes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 134 Attachment C -- Specific Syntax of the Element of the 135 Expression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 136 C1 The element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 137 C1.1 Different Versions of a Legislative Document . . . . . . 40 138 C1.2 Identification of the Version . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 140 1 Introduction 142 1.1 The Purpose of Namespace "lex" 144 The purpose of the "lex" namespace is to assign an unequivocal 145 identifier, in standard format, to documents that are sources of law. 146 To the extent of this namespace, "sources of law" include any legal 147 document within the domain of legislation, case law and 148 administrative acts or regulations; moreover potential "sources of 149 law" (acts under the process of law formation, as bills) are included 150 as well. Therefore "legal doctrine" is explicitly not covered. 152 The identifier is conceived so that its construction depends only on 153 the characteristics of the document itself and is, therefore, 154 independent from the document's on-line availability, its physical 155 location, and access mode. 157 This identifier will be used as a way to represent the references 158 (and more generally, any type of relation) among the various sources 159 of law. In an on-line environment with resources distributed among 160 different Web publishers, uniform resource names allow simplified 161 global interconnection of legal documents by means of automated 162 hypertext linking. 164 1.2 Entities Supporting this Standard 166 The following entities support this proposal: 168 - ITTIG/CNR (Institute of Legal Information Theory and Techniques of 169 the Italian National Research Council) - Italy; 170 - CNIPA (National Centre for ICT in Public Administration) - Italy; 171 - PRODASEN - IT Department of the Federal Senate - Brazil; 172 - LII (Legal Information Institute), Cornell Law School - USA 174 1.3 The Context 176 In the last few years a number of initiatives have arisen in the 177 field of legal document management. 179 Since 2001 the Italian Government, through the CNIPA (National 180 Authority for Information Technology in the Public Administration), 181 the Ministry of Justice and ITTIG-CNR (the Institute of Legal 182 Information Theory and Techniques of the Italian National Research 183 Council) promoted the NormeInRete project. It was aimed at 184 introducing standards for sources of law description and 185 identification using XML and URN techniques. 187 Other national initiatives in Europe introduced standards for the 188 description of legal sources [FRAN]: for example the Metalex project, 189 promoted by the University of Amsterdam and adopted by the Dutch Tax 190 and Customs Administration, the Belgian Public Centers for Welfare 191 and others; LexDania project in Denmark supported by the Danish 192 Ministry of Justice; CHLexML in Switzerland developed by COPIUR, the 193 Coordination Office for the Electronic Publication of Legal Data 194 Federal Office of Justice; eLaw in Austria mainly coordinated by the 195 Austrian Parliament. 197 Such initiatives, based in synergies between government, national 198 research institutes, and universities, have defined national XML 199 standards for legal document management, as well as schemes for legal 200 document identification. 202 Outside Europe, similar initiatives have faced similar problems. For 203 example, the Brazilian Senate carried out a feasibility study to 204 provide unique and transparent identifiers to sources of law on the 205 basis of the IFLA-FRBR model. 206 Similarly, the Akoma Ntoso (Architecture for Knowledge-Oriented 207 Management of African Normative Texts using Open Standards and 208 Ontologies) project provides a set of guidelines for e-Parliament 209 services in a Pan-African context by proposing an XML document schema 210 providing sophisticated description possibilities for several 211 Parliamentary document types (including bills, acts and parliamentary 212 records, etc.). 213 Finally, the Tasmanian Government provided advanced legislative 214 information services through the EnAct project. It gave searchable 215 consolidated Tasmanian legislation by automating much of the 216 legislative drafting and consolidation process, as well as using SGML 217 document representation. Numerous less-visible efforts in the United 218 States and elsewhere have struggled with similar issues. 220 Several of these identifiers are based on a URN schema. The first 221 national standard was defined in Italy within the NormeInRete 222 project; to this the Danish LexDania and the Brazilian Lexml standard 223 followed. Hungary, Slovenia and Switzerland expressed their interest 224 in URN identifier for legislation as well. All these standards have a 225 common internal structure, regarding both the hierarchy and the 226 elements content. 228 In today's information society the processes of political, social and 229 economic integration of European Union member states as well as the 230 increasing integration of the world-wide legal and economic processes 231 are causing a growing interest in exchanging legal information 232 knowledge at national and trans-national levels. 233 The growing desire for improved quality and accessibility of legal 234 information amplifies the need for interoperability among legal 235 information systems across national boundaries. A common open 236 standard used to identify sources of law at international level is an 237 essential prerequisite for interoperability. 239 Interest groups within several countries have already expressed their 240 intention to adopt a shared solution based on a URN technique. 241 The need for a unequivocal identifier of sources of law in different 242 EU Member States, based on open standards and able to provide 243 advanced modalities of document hyper-linking, has been expressed in 244 several conferences by representatives of the Office for Official 245 Publications of the European Communities (OPOCE), with the aim of 246 promoting interoperability among national and European institution 247 information systems. Similar concerns have been raised by 248 international groups concerned with free access to legal information, 249 and the Permanent Bureau of the Hague Conference on Private 250 International Law is considering a resolution that would encourage 251 member states to "adopt neutral methods of citation of their legal 252 materials, including methods that are medium-neutral, provider- 253 neutral and internationally consistent". In a similar direction the 254 CEN Metalex initiative is moving, at European level, towards the 255 definition of a standard interchange format for sources of law, 256 including recommendations for defining naming conventions to them. 258 The "urn:lex" naming convention has interpreted all these 259 recommendations, proposing an original solution for sources of law 260 identification. 262 1.4 General Characteristics of the System 264 Registrants wish now to promote interoperability among legal 265 information systems by the definition of a namespace convention and 266 structure that will create and manage identifiers for legal 267 documents. The identifiers will be: 268 - globally unique 269 - transparent 270 - persistent 271 - location-independent, and 272 - language-neutral. 273 These qualities will facilitate legal document management as well as 274 provide a mechanism of stable cross-collections and cross-country 275 references. 276 Language-neutrality is an especially important feature that will 277 promote adoption of the standard by organizations that must adhere to 278 official-language requirements. The proposed standard will provide 279 useful guidance to both public and private groups that create, 280 promulgate, and publish legal documents. Registrants wish to minimize 281 the potential for creating conflicting proprietary schemes, while 282 preserving sufficient flexibility to allow for diverse document types 283 and to respect the need for local control of collections by an 284 equally diverse assortment of administrative entities. 286 As usual, the problem is to provide the right amount guidance at the 287 core of the standard while providing sufficient flexibility to cover 288 a wide variety of needs. The proposed "lex" standard does this by 289 splitting the identifier into parts. The first part uses a 290 predetermined standard ("country/jurisdiction name standard") to 291 specify the country (or more generally the jurisdiction) of origin 292 for the legal document being identified; the remainder ("local name") 293 is intended for local use in identifying documents issued in that 294 country or jurisdiction. This second part depends only on sources of 295 law identification system operating in that nation and it is mainly 296 composed by a formalized information related to the enacting 297 authority, the type of measure, the details and possibly the annex. 299 The identification system based on uniform names MUST include: 300 - a schema for assigning names capable of representing unambiguously 301 any addressed source of law, namely legislation, case law and 302 administrative acts, issued by any authority (intergovernmental, 303 supranational, national, regional and local) at any time (past, 304 present and future); 305 - a resolution mechanism - in a distributed environment - that ties a 306 uniform name to the on-line location of the corresponding 307 resources. 308 This document only considers the first of these requirements. It also 309 contains a few references to the architecture of the resolution 310 service and to the corresponding software. 312 1.5 Linking a "lex" Name to a Document 314 The "lex" name is linked to the document through meta-information 315 which may be specified: 316 - internally to the document itself through a specific element within 317 an XML schema or by an HTML META tag; 318 - externally by means of an RDF triple, a specific attribute in a 319 database, etc. 320 One of these modalities is necessary for enabling automated 321 construction and updating of catalogues (distributed and centralized) 322 and the implementation of resolvers that associate the uniform name 323 of a document with its physical location(s). The standard assumes no 324 particular relationship between the originator of the document, its 325 publisher, and the implementer of catalogues or resolution services. 326 They may be the same entity, or not. 328 1.6 Use of "lex" Names in References 330 "lex" names will be used on a large scale in references as a HREF 331 attribute value of the hypertext link to the referred document. 333 This link can be created in two ways: 334 - by manually inserting, in the referring document, the link with the 335 uniform name: this is a burdensome procedure especially for 336 documents that are already on-line; 337 - by automatically constructing (either permanently or temporarily) 338 the link with the uniform name, through reference parsers of a 339 text: this is a more time-saving procedure even if subject to a 340 certain percentage of errors, since references are not always 341 accurate or complete. This solution could nevertheless be 342 acceptable for already published documents. 343 In any case, whatever the method adopted is, new documents produced 344 in XML format compliant with the relative DTD/XMLSchema, SHOULD 345 express references through the uniform name of the document referred 346 to. 348 1.7 Definitions 350 According to this document, the following terms are used in the 351 following meaning: 352 - Source of Law: 353 is a general concept, and is used to refer to legislation, case 354 law, regulations and administrative acts. In its broadest sense, 355 the source of law is anything that can be conceived of as the 356 originator of 'erga omnes' legal rules. In this document "source of 357 law" refers also to acts during their formation cycle as bills that 358 might or might not become sources of law; 359 - Registrar: 360 is an organization which shares and defines in any country or 361 jurisdiction the assignment of the main components of the resource 362 identifier through which its uniqueness is guaranteed. This task 363 includes the definition of possible jurisdiction unit and the 364 primary elements (issuing authority and type of legal measure) of 365 uniform name, according to the characteristics of its own state or 366 institution organization. 368 1.8 Terminology 370 The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", 371 "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this 372 document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119]. 374 2 Specification Template 376 2.1 Namespace ID 378 "lex" requested according to [RFC3406]. 380 2.2 Registration Information 381 Version Number: 1.0 382 Date: 2011-04-01 384 Declared registrant of the namespace: 386 Institute of Legal Information Theory and Techniques (ITTIG) 387 Italian National Research Council (CNR) 388 Via de' Barucci, 20 389 50127 Florence 390 Italy 392 e-mail: lex@ittig.cnr.it 394 2.3 Syntax Used in this Document 396 This document uses the syntax common to many Internet RFCs, which is 397 based on the BNF (Backus-Naur Form) meta-language. In particular: 398 - elements are included between angle brackets ("<" and ">"); 399 - an element is separated from its specification by the string "::="; 400 - alternative elements are separated from each other by a vertical 401 slash ("|"); 402 - character strings are enclosed in quotes (" and "); 403 - optional parts are enclosed by square brackets ("[" and "]"); 404 - a group of elements is enclosed by round brackets ("(" and ")"); 405 - a symbol or an expression following an element or a group of 406 elements indicates a factor of repetition, and, as in the regular 407 expressions, takes the following formats: 408 - ? : 0 or 1 time; 409 - + : 1 or more times; 410 - * : 0 or more times; 411 - {n} : times; 412 - {n,m}: from to times. 414 2.4 Identifier structure 416 The identifier has a hierarchical structure as follows: 418 "urn:lex:" 420 where NSS is the Namespace Specific String composed as follows: 422 ::=":" 424 where: 426 is the part providing the identification of the 427 jurisdiction, generally corresponding to the country, where the 428 source of law is issued. It is also possible to represent 429 international organizations (either states or public administrations 430 or private entities); 432 is the uniform name of the source of law in the country 433 or jurisdiction where it is issued; its internal structure is common 434 to the already adopted schemas. It is able to represent all the 435 aspects of an intellectual production, as it is a legal document, 436 from its initial idea, through its evolution during the time, to its 437 realisation by different means (paper, digital, etc.). 439 The element is composed of two specific fields: 441 ::=[";"]* 443 where: 445 is usually the identification code of the country 446 where the source of law is issued; this code follows the standard 447 [ISO3166] Alpha-2 (it=Italy, fr=France, dk=Denmark, etc.). In case of 448 multi-national (e.g., European Union) or international (e.g., United 449 Nations, Free Software Foundation) organizations the Top Level Domain 450 Name (e.g., "eu") or the Domain Name (e.g., "un.org", "wto.int") is 451 used instead of ISO 3166 code. In case such multi-national or 452 international organization does not have a registered domain, in 453 order to avoid ambiguities or collisions with actual domains, a 454 domain name (according to the english acronym of the organization 455 name) under the virtual domain "lex" is used. For example, the 456 jurisdiction code of the European Economic Community is "eec.lex"; 458 are the possible administrative hierarchical sub- 459 structures defined by each country or organisation according to its 460 own legal system. This additional information can be used where two 461 or more levels of legislative or judicial production exist (e.g., 462 federal, state and municipality level) and the same bodies may be 463 present in each jurisdiction. Then acts of the same type issued by 464 similar authorities in different areas differ for the jurisdiction- 465 unit specification. An example can be the following: 466 "br:governo:decreto" (decree of federal government), 467 "br;sao.paulo:governo:decreto" (decree of SU+00E3o Paulo state) and 468 "br;sao.paulo;campinas:governo: decreto" (decree of Campinas 469 municipality). 471 Examples of law sources identifiers are: 473 urn:lex:it:stato:legge:2003-09-21;456 (Italian act) 474 urn:lex:fr:etat:loi:2004-12-06;321 (French act) 475 urn:lex:es:estado:ley:2002-07-12;123 (Spanish act) 476 urn:lex:ch;glarus:regiere:erlass:2007-10-15;963 (Glarus Swiss Canton 477 decree) 478 urn:lex:eu:commission:directive:2010-03-09;2010-19-EU (EU Commission 479 Directive) 480 urn:lex:us:federal.supreme.court:decision:1963-03-18;372.us.335 (US 481 FSC decision) 482 urn:lex:be:conseil.etat:decision:2008-07-09;185.273 (Decision of the 483 Belgian Council of State) 485 3 General Syntax of the "lex" Identifier 487 3.1 Allowed and Not Allowed Characters 489 These characters are defined in accordance with the [RFC2141] "URN 490 Syntax". For various reasons, later explained, in the "lex" 491 only a sub-set of characters is allowed. All other characters are 492 either eliminated or converted. 494 For the full syntax of the uniform names in the "lex" space, please 495 see Attachment A. 497 3.2 Reserved Characters 499 These characters MUST always and uniquely be used for the assigned 500 purpose. 501 The first category includes those characters bearing a specific 502 meaning in the general creation of the URI (Uniform Resource 503 Identifier)[RFC3986]: 505 "%" "/" "?" "#" 507 The following characters instead are reserved in the specific "lex" 508 namespace: 510 - "@" separator of the expression, that contains information on 511 version and language; 512 - "$" separator of the manifestation, that contains information on 513 format, editor, etc.; 514 - ":" separator of the main elements of the name at any entity; 515 - ";" separator of level. It identifies the introduction of an 516 element at a hierarchically lower level, or the introduction of a 517 specification; 518 - "+" separator of the repetitions of an entire main element (e.g., 519 multiple authorities); 520 - "," separator of the repetitions of individual components in the 521 main elements, each bearing the same level of specificity (e.g., 522 multiple numbers); 523 - "~" separator of the partition identifier in references (e.g., 524 paragraph of an article); 526 - "*" and "!" are reserved for future expansions. 528 3.3 Case sensitivity 530 The specific name of the URN, as with URLs, is case-sensitive. 531 Since the case does not change the logical identification of the 532 source of law, the names belonging to the "lex" namespace are 533 considered functionally equivalent independently from the case. To 534 take advantage of memory caching, the specific name is always created 535 in lower case. 536 (e.g., "Ministry" will be recorded as "ministry") 538 3.4 National Characters and Diacritic Signs 540 In order to keep editing and communication more simple and to avoid 541 character percent-encoding, it is strongly recommended that national 542 characters and diacritic signs are turned into base characters (e.g., 543 the Italian term "sanitU+00E0" converted into "sanita", the French 544 term "ministU+00E8re" converted into "ministere"). Otherwise, the 545 characters have to be percent-encoded according to the UTF-8 546 character encoding [STD63] (e.g., "sanitU+00E0" encoded into 547 "sanit%C3%A1"). 548 Anyway each country or jurisdiction decides the uniform names 549 encoding modality of all the sources of law issued within its 550 territory. 552 3.5 Replacement of Spaces, Connectives and Punctuation Marks 554 All the language connectives (e.g., articles, prepositions, etc.), 555 the punctuation marks and all the special characters (as apostrophes, 556 dashes, etc.) are eliminated. The words left are connected each other 557 by a dot (".") which substitutes the "space". 558 (e.g., "Ministry of Finances, Budget and of Economic Planning" 559 becomes "ministry.finances.budget.economic.planning") 561 3.6 Abbreviation Expansion 563 All abbreviations indicating institutions (e.g., Min.), structures 564 (e.g., Dept.), or legal measures (e.g., reg.), MUST be expanded. 565 (e.g., "Min." must be reported as "ministry") 567 3.7 Acronyms 569 The use of acronyms might be confusing and encourage ambiguity in 570 uniform names (the same acronym may indicate two different 571 institutions or structures), therefore their expansion is strongly 572 recommended. 573 (e.g., "FAO" is to be expanded as "food.agriculture.organization") 575 3.8 Date Format 577 Dates are expressed by numbers in the ISO-8601 format: 579 yyyy-mm-dd 581 (e.g., "September 2, 99" will be written as "1999-09-02") 583 3.9 Ordinal Numbers 585 Any ordinal number included in a component of a document name (e.g., 586 in the description of an institution body) MUST be indicated in 587 Arabic numerals, regardless to the original expression: whether in 588 Roman numerals, or with an adjective, or in Arabic numeral with apex, 589 etc. (IV, third, 1U+00B0, 2^, etc.). 590 (e.g., "Department IV" becomes "department.4") 592 4 Creation of the Source of Law "lex" Identifier 594 4.1 Basic Principles 596 The uniform name must identify one and only one document (more 597 precisely a "bibliographic entity") and is created in such a way that 598 it is: 599 - self-explanatory ; 600 - identifiable through simple and clear rules; 601 - compatible with the practice commonly used for references; 602 - able to be created by references in the text, automatically (by 603 parser) or manually; 604 - representative of both the formal and the substantive aspects of 605 the document. 607 4.2 Model of Sources of Law Representation 609 According to FRBR (Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records) 610 model developed by IFLA (International Federation of Library 611 Associations and Institutions), in a source of law, as in any 612 intellectual production, 4 fundamental entities (or aspects) can be 613 specified. 615 The first 2 entities reflect its contents: 616 - work: identifies a distinct intellectual creation; in our case, it 617 identifies a source of law both in its being (as it has been issued 618 or proposed) and in its becoming (as it is modified over time); 619 - expression: identifies a specific intellectual realisation of a 620 work; in our case it identifies every different (original or up-to- 621 date) version of the source of law over time and/or language in 622 which the text is expressed; 624 while the other 2 entities relate to its form: 625 - manifestation: identifies a concrete realisation of an expression; 626 in our case it identifies realizations in different media 627 (printing, digital, etc.), encoding formats (XML, PDF, etc.), or 628 other publishing characteristics; 629 - item: identifies a specific copy of a manifestation; in our case it 630 identifies individual physical copies as they are found in 631 particular physical locations. 633 In this document the FRBR model has been interpreted for the specific 634 characteristics of the legal domain. In particular, a part from the 635 language which does produce a specific expression, the discriminative 636 criterion between expression and manifestation is based on the 637 difference of the juridical effects that a variation can provide with 638 respect to the involved actors (citizens, parties, institutions). In 639 this scenario the main characteristic of the expression of an act is 640 represented by its validity over the time, during which it provides 641 the same juridical effects. These effects change for amendments or 642 annulments of other legislative or jurisprudential acts. Therefore 643 notes, summarizations, comments, anonymizations and other editorial 644 activities over the same text do not produce different expressions, 645 but different manifestations. 647 4.3 The Structure of the Local Name 649 The of "lex" namespace MUST contain all the necessary 650 pieces of information enabling the unequivocal identification of a 651 legal document. 652 In the legal domain, at the "work" level, they are essentially four: 653 the enacting authority, the type of measure, the details and the 654 annex, if any. 655 It is often necessary to differentiate various expressions, that is: 656 - the original version and all the amended versions of the same 657 document; 658 - the versions of the text expressed in the different official 659 languages of the state or organization. 660 Finally the uniform name allows a distinction among diverse 661 manifestations, which may be produced in multiple locations using 662 different means and formats. 663 In every case, the basic identifier of the source of law (work) 664 remains the same, but information is added regarding the specific 665 version under consideration (expression); similarly a suffix is added 666 to the expression for representing the characteristics of the 667 publication (manifestation). 668 The information which forms a source of law uniform name at each 669 level (work, expression, manifestation) is expressed in the official 670 language of the related jurisdiction; in case of more official 671 languages (as in Switzerland) or more involved jurisdictions (as in 672 international treaties), more language-dependent names (aliases) are 673 created. 675 Therefore, the more general structure of the national name appears as 676 follows: 678 ::=["@"]?["$"]? 680 However, consistent with legislative practice, the uniform name of 681 the main original provision (work) becomes the identifier of an 682 entire class of documents which includes: the original main document, 683 the annexes, and all their versions, languages and formats 684 subsequently generated. 686 4.4 Structure of the Document Identifier at Work Level 688 The structure of the document identifier is made of the four 689 fundamental elements mentioned above, clearly distinguished one from 690 the other in accordance with an order identifying increasingly narrow 691 domains and competences: 693 ::=":"":"
[":"]* 695 where: 697 is the issuing or proposing authority of the measure 698 (e.g., State, Ministry, Municipality, Court, etc.); 700 is the type of the measure, both public nature (e.g., 701 constitution, act, treaty, regulation, decree, decision, etc.) as 702 well as private one (e.g., license, agreement, etc); 704
are the terms associated to the measure, typically the date 705 (usually the signature date) and the number included in the heading 706 of the act; 708 is the identifier of the annex, if any (e.g., Annex 1). 710 In case of annexes, both the main document and its annexes have their 711 own uniform name so that they can individually be referenced; the 712 identifier of the annex adds a suffix to that of the main document. 713 In similar way the identifier of an annex of an annex adds an ending 714 to that of the annex which it is attached to. 716 The main elements of the national name are generally divided into 717 several elementary components, and, for each, specific rules of 718 representation are established (criteria, modalities, syntax and 719 order). 721 For the details regarding each element, please see the Attachment B. 723 Examples of identifiers are: 725 urn:lex:it:stato:legge:2006-05-14;22 726 urn:lex:uk:ministry.justice:decree:1999-10-07;45 727 urn:lex:ch;glarus:regiere:erlass:2007-10-15;963 728 urn:lex:es:tribunal.supremo:decision:2001-09-28;68 729 urn:lex:fr:assemblee.nationale:proposition.loi:13.legislature;1762 730 urn:lex:br:estado:constituicao:1988-10-05;lex-1 731 urn:lex:fsf.org:free.software.foundation:general.public.license:2007- 732 06-29;lex-1 733 urn:lex:nl:hoge.raad:besluit:2008-04-01;bc8581 735 It is worth to note that the type of measure is important to identify 736 case law, as well as legislation, especially within the legal systems 737 where cases, by tradition, are identified only through the year of 738 release and a number. Since the aim of the "urn:lex" schema is to 739 identify specific materials, the type of measure or the full date are 740 able to provide discrimination between materials belonging to a 741 specific case. 743 Here below is an example where the type of measure or the full date 744 are essential for identify specific materials of a case: 745 - 4/59 Judgment of the EEC Court of Justice 04/04/1960, Mannesmann AG 746 and others / ECSC High Authority 747 urn:lex:eec.lex:court.justice:judgment:1960-04-04;4-59 748 - 4/59 Order of the EEC Court of Justice 18/05/1960, Mannesmann AG 749 and others / ECSC High Authority 750 urn:lex:eec.lex:court.justice:order:1960-05-18;4-59 752 4.5 Aliases 754 International treaties involve more jurisdictions (the signing ones) 755 so they are represented through more identifiers, each of them 756 related to an involved jurisdiction. For example, a bilateral France 757 and Germany treaty is identified through two URNs (aliases) belonging 758 to either "fr" or "de" jurisdiction 759 (e.g., "urn:lex:fr:etat:traite:..." and 760 "urn:lex:de:staat:vertrag:...") 761 since it pertains to both the French and the German jurisdiction. 763 In the states or organisations that have more than one official 764 language, a document has more identifiers, each of them expressed in 765 a different official language, basically a set of equivalent aliases. 766 This system permits manual or automated construction of the uniform 767 name of the referred source of law in the same language used in the 768 document itself. 770 (e.g., "urn:lex:eu:council:directive:2004-12-07;31", 771 "urn:lex:eu:consiglio:direttiva:2004-12-07;31", etc.) 773 Moreover, a document can be assigned more than one uniform name in 774 order to facilitate its linking to other documents. This option can 775 be used for documents that, although unique, are commonly referenced 776 from different perspectives. For example, the form of a document's 777 promulgation and its specific content (e.g., a Regulation promulgated 778 through a Decree of the President of the Republic). 780 4.6 Structure of the Document Identifier at Expression Level 782 There may be several expressions of a legal text, connected to 783 specific versions or languages. 784 Each version is characterized by the period of time during which that 785 text is to be considered as the valid text (in force or effective). 786 The lifetime of a version ends with the issuing of the subsequent 787 version. 788 New versions of a text may be brought into existence by: 789 - changes in the text (amendments) due to the issuing of other legal 790 acts and to the subsequent production of updated or consolidated 791 texts; 792 - correction of publication errors (rectification or errata corrige); 793 - entry into or departure from a particular time span, depending on 794 the specific date in which different partitions of a text come into 795 force. 796 Each of such versions may be expressed in more than one language, 797 with each language-version having its own specific identifier. 798 The identifier of a source of law expression adds such information to 799 the work identifier, using the following main structure: 801 ::="@"[":"]? 803 where: 805 is the identifier of the version of the (original or 806 amended) source of law. In general it is expressed by the 807 promulgation date of the amending act; anyway other specific 808 information can be used for particular documents. If necessary, the 809 original version is specified by the string "original" (for the 810 details regarding this element, please see the Attachment C); 812 is the identification code of the language in which the 813 document is expressed, according to [ISO639-1] (it=Italian, 814 fr=French, de=German, etc.); in case the code of a language is not 815 included in this standard, the [ISO639-2] (3 letters) is used. This 816 information is not necessary when the text is expressed in the unique 817 official language of the country or jurisdiction. 819 Examples of document identifiers for expressions are: 821 urn:lex:ch:etat:loi:2006-05-14;22@originel:fr (original version in 822 French) 823 urn:lex:ch:staat:gesetz:2006-05-14;22@original:de (original version 824 in German) 825 urn:lex:ch:etat:loi:2006-05-14;22@2008-03-12:fr (amended version in 826 French) 827 urn:lex:ch:staat:gesetz:2006-05-14;22@2008-03-12:de (amended version 828 in German) 829 urn:lex:be:conseil.etat:decision:2008-07-09;185.273@originel:fr 830 (original version in French of a Belgian decision) 832 4.7 Structure of the Document Identifier at Manifestation Level 834 To identify a specific manifestation, the uniform name of the 835 expression is followed by a suitable suffix describing the: 836 - digital format (e.g., XML, HTML, PDF, etc.) expressed according to 837 the MIME Content-Type standard [RFC2045], where the "/" character 838 is to be substituted by the "-" sign; 839 - editorial staff who produced it, expressed according to its 840 Internet domain name; 841 - possible components of the expressions contained in the 842 manifestation. Such components are expressed by language-dependent 843 labels representing the whole document (in English "all") or the 844 main part of the document (in English "body") or the caption label 845 of the component itself (e.g. Table 1, Figure 2, etc.); 846 - other features of the document (e.g., anonymized decision text). 848 The suffix will thus read: 850 ::=[";""]* 851 ":"[";"]* 852 [":"[";"]*]? 853 [":"[";"]*]? 855 To indicate possible features or peculiarities, each main element of 856 the manifestation MAY be followed by further specifications, for 857 example as regards the version, for the archive 858 name and the electronic publisher, etc. 860 (examples: 861 the original version the Italian act 3 April 2000, n. 56 might have 862 the following manifestations with their relative uniform names: 863 - PDF format (vers. 1.7) of the whole act edited by the Italian 864 Parliament: 865 "urn:lex:it:stato:legge:2000-04-03;56$application- 866 pdf;1.7:parlamento.it" 868 - XML format (version 2.2 DTD NIR) of the text of the act and PDF 869 format (version 1.7) of the "Figura 1" (figure 1) contained in the 870 body, edited by the Italian Senate: 871 "urn:lex:it:stato:legge:2000-04-03;56$text-xml;dtd-nir- 872 2.2:senato.it:testo" 873 "urn:lex:it:stato:legge:2000-04-03;56$application- 874 pdf;1.7:senato.it:figura.1" 876 the Spanish URN of the html format of the whole Judgement of the 877 European Court of Justice n. 33/08 of 11/06/2009, in Spanish version, 878 published in the Jurifast data base in anonymized form: 879 "urn:lex:eu:tibunal.justicia:sentencia:2009-06-11;33- 880 08@original:es$text-html:juradmin.eu;jurifast:todo:anonimo") 882 Furthermore, it is useful to be able to assign a uniform name to a 883 manifestation (or to a part of it) in case non-textual objects are 884 involved. These may be multimedia objects that are non-textual in 885 their own right (e.g. geographic maps, photographs, etc.), or texts 886 recorded in non-textual formats, such as image scans of documents. 888 In these ways, a "lex" name permits: 889 - exploitation of all the advantages of an unequivocal identifier 890 that is independent of physical location; 891 - a means to provide choice among different existing manifestations 892 (e.g. XML or PDF formats, resolution degree of an image etc.) of 893 the same expression. 895 4.8 Sources of Law References 897 References to sources of law often refer to specific partitions of 898 the act (article, paragraph, etc.) and not to the entire document. 899 An act partition is a logical subdivision of the text, that, in a 900 structured format (as XML) fitting the document logical structure, is 901 represented by an element with its own ID; this ID aims to identify 902 the element and to locate it. In a mark-up that does not fit the 903 logical structure of the text (as HTML), generally only the starting 904 point of the partition, and not the element, is identified through a 905 label (a tag). 906 Therefore, for allowing browsers to point to a specific partition, it 907 is necessary that such partition is endowed with an unequivocal label 908 or ID within the including document and its value is the same 909 independently from the document format. 911 For enabling the construction of the partition identifier between 912 different collections of documents, specific construction rules for 913 IDs or labels SHOULD be defined and shared, within each country or 914 jurisdiction, for any document type (e.g., for legislation, the 915 paragraph 2 of the article 3 might have as label or ID the value 916 "art3;par2", similarly for case-law, paragraph 22 of the judgment in 917 Case 46/76 Bauhuis v Netherlands, might have as label or ID the value 918 "par22"). 919 Furthermore, it is useful to foresee the compatibility with 920 applications able to manage this information (e.g., returning the 921 proper element); these procedures are particularly useful in the case 922 of rather long acts, such as codes, constitutions, regulations, etc. 923 For this purpose it is necessary that the partition identifier is 924 transmitted to the servers (resolution and application) and therefore 925 it cannot be separated by the typical "#" character of URI fragment, 926 which is not transmitted to the server. 928 According to these requirements, the syntax of a reference is: 930 ::= ["~" ]? 932 (e.g., to refer to the paragraph 3 of the article 15 of the French 933 Act of 15 may 2004, n. 106, the reference is written 934 "urn:lex:fr:etat:loi:2004-05-15;106~art15;par3"). 936 Using a different separator ("~") from the document name, the 937 partition ID is not withheld by the browser but it is transmitted to 938 the resolution process. This enables the resolver to retrieve (for 939 example, out of a database), if it is possible, only the referred 940 partition, otherwise to return the whole act. 941 Anyway, to make it effective pointing to the indicated partition 942 through a browser, the resolver SHOULD transform the partition ID of 943 each returned URL in a URI fragment; this is obtained appending to 944 URL the "#" character followed by the partition ID (in the example 945 above, the returned URL will be #art15;par3). 947 Anyway it is possible to use the general syntax (with "#"); in this 948 case only the URN document component of the reference is transmitted 949 to the resolver, therefore the whole document will be always 950 retrieved. 952 5 The Procedure of Uniform Names Assignment 954 5.1 Specifying the element of the URN "lex" 956 Under the "lex" namespace, each country or international organization 957 is assigned with a jurisdiction code, which characterizes the URNs of 958 the source of law of that country or jurisdiction. This code is 959 assigned according to the ISO 3166 Alpha-2 (as well as TLDN or DN for 960 the organizations) representation and it is the value of the 961 element, which preserves cross-country uniqueness 962 of the identifiers. 964 5.2 Jurisdictional Registrar for Names Assignment 966 Any country or jurisdiction, who intends to adopt this schema, 967 identifies a Jurisdictional Registrar, an organization which shares 968 and defines the structure of the optional part () 969 of the name, according to the organization of the state or 970 institution. For example, in a federal state a 971 corresponding to the name of each member state (e.g. "br;sao.paolo", 972 "br;minas.gerais", etc.) may be defined. 974 The process of assigning the will be managed by each 975 specific country or jurisdiction under the related 976 element. 977 In any country the Jurisdictional Registrar shares and defines the 978 assignment of the primary elements (issuing authority and type of 979 legal measure) of the local names considering the characteristics of 980 its own state or institution organization. 981 Such a Registrar SHOULD establish, according to the guidelines 982 indicated in the current document, a uniform procedure within the 983 country or organization to define elements, to take 984 decisions upon normalizations and finally to solve and avoid possible 985 name collisions as well as to maintain authoritative registries of 986 various kinds (e.g., for authorities, types of measures, etc.). In 987 particular, accurate point-in-time representations of the structure 988 and naming of government entities are important to semantically-aware 989 applications in this domain. 990 Moreover, the Registrar shares and defines the rules to construct 991 partition IDs for each document type. 992 Finally, the Registrar will develop and publish the rules and the 993 guidelines for the construction as well as the 994 predefined values and codes. 996 5.3 Identifier Uniqueness 998 Identifiers in the "lex" namespace are defined through a 999 element assigned to the sources of law of a specific 1000 country or organization, and a assigned by the issuing 1001 authority. The main elements (authority and type of measure) of the 1002 are defined by the Jurisdictional Registrar, so that it 1003 is ensured that the constructed URNs are unique. The Jurisdictional 1004 Registrar SHOULD provide clear documentation of rules by which names 1005 are to be constructed, and SHOULD update and make accessible its 1006 registries. 1008 Any issuing authority is responsible to define formal parameters to 1009 guarantee local name uniqueness by attributing, if necessary, a 1010 conventional internal number, which, combined with the other components (authority, measure and date), builds an unequivocal 1012 identifier. Uniqueness is achieved by checking against the catalogue 1013 of previously assigned names. 1015 5.4 Identifier persistence considerations 1017 The persistence of identifiers depends on the durability of the 1018 institutions that assign and administer them. The goal of the "lex" 1019 namespace schema is to maintain uniqueness and persistence of all 1020 resources identified by the assigned URNs. 1022 In particular, CNIPA and ITTIG-CNR, as proposers, are responsible of 1023 maintaining the uniqueness of the element; given that 1024 the is assigned on the basis of the long-held ISO 3166 1025 Alpha-2 representation of the country (or the TLD name of the 1026 organization) and that the country or organization associated code is 1027 expected to continue indefinitely, the URN also persists 1028 indefinitely. 1030 The rules for the construction of the name are conceived to delegate 1031 the responsibility of their uniqueness to a set of authorities which 1032 is identified within each country or organization. 1034 Therefore, each authority is responsible for assigning URNs which 1035 have a very long life expectancy and can be expected to remain unique 1036 for the foreseeable future. Practical and political considerations, 1037 as well as diverse local forms of government organization, will 1038 result in different methods of assigning responsibility for different 1039 levels of the name. 1040 Where this cannot be accomplished by the implementation of an 1041 authoritative hierarchy, it can and SHOULD be done by creating 1042 consensus around a series of published rules for the creation and 1043 administration of names by institutions and bodies that operate by 1044 means of collaboration rather than compulsion. 1046 Issuing authorities that operate in more localized scopes, ranging 1047 from the national down to the very local, MUST equally take 1048 responsibility for the persistence of identifiers within their 1049 scope. 1051 6 Principles of the Resolution Service 1053 6.1 The General Architecture of the System 1055 The task of the resolution service is that of associating a "lex" 1056 identifier with a specific document address on the network. By 1057 contrast with systems that can be constructed around rigorous and 1058 enforceable engineering premises, such as DNS, the "lex" resolver 1059 will be expected to cope with a wide variety of "dirty" inputs, 1060 particularly those created by the automated extraction of references 1061 from incomplete or inaccurate texts. In this document, the result is 1062 a particular emphasis on a flexible and robust resolver design. 1064 The system has a distributed architecture based on two fundamental 1065 components: a chain of information in DNS (Domain Name System) and a 1066 series of resolution services from URNs to URLs, each competent 1067 within a specific domain of the namespace. 1068 Through the NAPTR records of the DNS (described in [RFC3403]), the 1069 client identifies the characteristics (protocol, port, site) of the 1070 service (e.g. according to [RFC2169]) capable of associating the 1071 relative URLs with the URN in question, thereby allowing access to 1072 the document. 1074 A resolution service can delegate the resolution and management of 1075 hierarchically-dependent portions of the name. 1076 Delegation of this responsibility will not be unreasonably withheld 1077 provided that the processes for their resolution and management are 1078 robust and are followed. 1080 For the "lex" namespace, CNIPA and ITTIG-CNR will maintain the root 1081 zone "lex.urn.arpa" and, in correspondence with the adhesion of a new 1082 country (e.g., "br") or organization, will update the DNS information 1083 with a new record to delegate the relative resolution. This may be 1084 obtained by a regular expression that matches the initial part of the 1085 URN (e.g., "urn:lex:br") and redirects towards the proper zone (e.g., 1086 "lex.senado.gov.br"). 1088 Likewise the institution responsible for the jurisdiction uniform 1089 names (e.g., "urn:lex:br") has the task of managing the relative root 1090 in the DNS system (e.g., "lex.senado.gov.br" zone) and routing the 1091 resolution towards its resolvers on the basis of parts of the uniform 1092 names. In similar way it can delegate the resolution of 1093 country/organization sub-levels (e.g., "urn:lex:br;sao.paolo") 1094 towards the relative zone (e.g., "lex.sao-paolo.gov.br"). 1096 The resolution service is made up of two elements: a knowledge base 1097 (consisting in a catalogue or a set of transformation rules) and a 1098 software to query the knowledge base itself. 1100 6.2 Catalogues for Resolution 1102 Incompleteness and inaccuracy are rather frequent in legal citations, 1103 and incomplete or inaccurate uniform names of the referred document 1104 are thus likely to be built from textual references (this is even 1105 more frequent if they are created automatically through a specific 1106 parser). For this reason, the implementation of a catalogue, based on 1107 a relational-database, is suggested, as it will lead to a more higher 1108 flexibility in the resolution process. 1109 In addition the catalogue must manage the aliases, the various 1110 versions and languages of the same source of law as well as the 1111 related manifestations. 1113 It is suggested that each enacting authority implements its own 1114 catalogue, assigning a corresponding unambiguous uniform name to each 1115 resource. 1117 6.3 Suggested resolver behaviour 1119 First of all the resolver should separate the part corresponding to 1120 the partition ID, through the "~" separator, from the document name. 1122 So, the resolution process SHOULD implement a normalization of the 1123 uniform name to be resolved. This may involve transforming some 1124 components to the canonical form (e.g., filling out the acronyms, 1125 expanding the abbreviations, unifying the institution names, 1126 standardizing the type of measures, etc.). For this function 1127 authorities and types of measure registers are useful. 1129 The resolver SHOULD then query the catalogue searching for the URN 1130 which corresponds exactly to the given one (normalized if necessary). 1131 Since the names coming from the references may be inaccurate or 1132 incomplete, an iterative, heuristic approach (based on partial 1133 matches) is indicated. It is worth remarking that incomplete 1134 references (not including all the elements to create the canonical 1135 uniform name) are normal and natural; for a human reader, the 1136 reference would be "completed" by contextual understanding of the 1137 reference in the document in which it occurs. 1139 In this phase, the resolver should use the partition ID information 1140 to retrieve, if it is possible, only the referred partition, 1141 otherwise to return of the entire document. 1143 Lacking more specific indications, the resolver SHOULD select the 1144 best (most recent) version of the requested source of law, and 1145 provide all the manifestations with their related items. 1146 A more specific indication in the uniform name to be resolved will, 1147 of course, result in a more selective retrieval, based on any 1148 suggested expression and/or manifestations components (e.g. date, 1149 language, format, etc.). 1151 Finally, the resolver SHOULD append to URLs the "#" character 1152 followed by partition ID, transforming it in a URI fragment for 1153 browser pointing. 1155 7 Considerations 1156 7.1 Conformance with URN Syntax 1158 No special considerations. 1160 7.2 Validation mechanism 1162 The national Authority (or those it delegates) of each adhering 1163 country or organization is responsible of the definition or 1164 acceptance of the uniform name's primary elements (issuing authority 1165 and type of legal measure). 1167 7.3 Scope 1169 Global interest. 1171 7.4 Namespace Considerations 1173 In collaboration with the legislative XML community, registrants 1174 carried out a preliminary study of the URI alternatives to satisfy 1175 the key requirements. 1176 The options analysed were: a private URI scheme, URL, PURL and URN. 1177 URN was considered the most appropriate URI given the requirements 1178 analysis. 1179 Advantages we would emphasize are: 1180 - greater flexibility in building the identifier; 1181 - the capacity to represent name components that are not strictly 1182 hierarchical; 1183 - the potential for clear division of the identifier into macro 1184 parts, main elements and components, using different separators; 1185 - ease of managing optional parts of a name. 1187 7.5 Community Considerations 1189 The use of the "lex" namespace facilitates the interoperability of 1190 information systems used in the Public Administration at the national 1191 and international level. Moreover it allows the distribution of the 1192 legal information towards a federated architecture. In such an 1193 architecture, documents are directly managed by the issuing 1194 authorities, with resulting benefits in information authenticity, 1195 quality and currency. A shared identification mechanism resources 1196 guarantees that a distributed system will be as efficient and 1197 effective as a comparable centralized system. 1199 Creators of Internet content that references legal materials - 1200 including publishers operating well outside the traditional arenas of 1201 legal publishing - benefit by the registration of the namespace 1202 because facilitates the linking of legal documents, whether by manual 1203 or automated means, and reduces the cost of maintaining documents 1204 that contain such references. 1206 Any citizen or organisation with Internet web browser capability will 1207 be entitled to access the namespace and its associated application, 1208 registers, and resolution services, to facilitate document access. 1210 7.6 IANA Considerations 1212 This document includes a URN NID registration for "lex" for entry in 1213 the IANA registry of URN NIDs (see [RFC5226] for more information). 1215 7.7 Security Considerations 1217 This document introduces no additional security considerations beyond 1218 those associated with the use and resolution of URNs in general. 1220 8 References 1222 8.1 Normative References 1224 [STD63] F. Yergeau, "UTF-8, a transformation format of ISO 1225 10646", STD 63, RFC 3629, November 2003. 1227 [RFC2119] S. Bradner, "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate 1228 Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997. 1230 [RFC3406] D Daigle, L., van Gulik, D., Iannella, R., and P. 1231 Faltstrom, "Uniform Resource Names (URN) Namespace 1232 Definition Mechanisms", BCP 66, RFC 3406, October 2002. 1234 [RFC2141] R. Moats, K. R. Sollins, "URN Syntax", RFC 2141, May 1235 1997. 1237 [RFC3986] Berners-Lee, T., Fielding, R., and L. Masinter, "Uniform 1238 Resource Identifiers (URI): Generic Syntax", STD 66, RFC 1239 3986, January 2005. 1241 [RFC3403] M. Mealling, Dynamic Delegation Discovery System (DDDS), 1242 Part Three: The Domain Name System (DNS) Database, RFC 1243 3403, October 2002. 1245 [RFC5226] Narten, T. and H. Alvestrand, "Guidelines for Writing an 1246 IANA Considerations Section in RFCs", BCP 26, RFC 5226, 1247 May 2008 1249 [ISO3166] ISO 3166, "Country name codes", ISO 3166-1:1997. 1251 [ISO639-1] ISO 639-1, "Codes for the representation of names of 1252 languages" - Part 1: alpha-2 code, 2003. 1254 [ISO639-2] ISO 639-2, "Codes for the representation of names of 1255 languages" - Part 2: alpha-3 code, 1999. 1257 [RFC2169] R. Daniel, "A Trivial Convention for using HTTP in URN", 1258 RFC 2169, June 1997 1260 [RFC2045] N. Freed, N. Borenstein, "Multipurpose Internet Mail 1261 Extensions (MIME) Part One: Format of Internet Message 1262 Bodies", RFC 2045, November 1996. 1264 8.2 Informative References 1266 [SPIN] P.L. Spinosa, "The Assignment of Uniform Names to Italian 1267 Legal Documents", May, 2006 1268 http://www.nir.it/sito_area3- 1269 ap_stan_assegnazione_nomi.htm 1271 [FRAN] E. Francesconi, "Technologies for European Integration. 1272 Standards-based Interoperability of Legal Information 1273 Systems", ISBN 978-88-8398-050-3, European Press Academic 1274 Publishing, 2007. 1276 9 Acknowledgments 1278 The authors of this document wish to thank all the registrants for 1279 giving suggestions and comments. 1280 They are also grateful to the Legislative XML community for the 1281 interesting discussions on this topic and to the Working Group 1282 "Identification of the legal resources through URNs" of Italian 1283 NormeInRete project for the provided guidance [SPIN]. 1284 The authors owe a debt of gratitude to Tom Bruce, director of the 1285 Legal Information Institute of the Cornell University Law School, for 1286 his contribution in revising this document and sharing fruitful 1287 discussions which greatly improved the final result. A special thank 1288 goes also to Joao Alberto de Oliveira Lima, legislative system 1289 analyst of the Brazilian Federal Senate, and to Attila Torcsvari, 1290 information management consultant, for their detailed comments on the 1291 first drafts of this document, which provided significant hints to 1292 the final version of the standard. Thanks also go to Robert Richards 1293 of the Legal Information Institute (Cornell University Law School), 1294 promoter and maintainer of the Legal Informatics Research social 1295 network, as well as to the members of this network, for their 1296 valuable comments on this proposal. 1297 Finally, many thanks go to Loriana Serrotti who significantly 1298 contributed to the drafting of this document. 1300 10 Author's Addresses 1302 PierLuigi Spinosa, Enrico Francesconi 1303 Istituto di Teoria e Tecniche dell'Informazione Giuridica (ITTIG) 1304 Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR) 1305 Via de' Barucci, 20 1306 50127 Firenze 1307 Italy 1308 Telephone: +39 055 43995 1309 e-mail: {pierluigi.spinosa, enrico.francesconi}@ittig.cnr.it 1311 Caterina Lupo 1312 Centro Nazionale per l'Informatica nella Pubblica Amministrazione 1313 (CNIPA) 1314 Viale Carlo Marx, 31/49 1315 00137 Roma 1316 Italy 1317 Telephone: +39 06 85264262 1318 e-mail: caterina.lupo@cnipa.it 1320 Attachment A -- Summary of the syntax of the uniform names of the "lex" 1321 namespace 1323 *------------------------------------------------------------------- 1324 * General Structure of a Uniform Resource Name (URN) 1325 * NID = namespace 1326 * NSS = specific name 1327 *------------------------------------------------------------------- 1328 ::= "urn:"":" 1330 *------------------------------------------------------------------- 1331 * Structure of a Uniform Resource Name (URN) of the "lex" namespace 1332 *------------------------------------------------------------------- 1333 ::= "lex" 1335 ::= "urn:lex:" 1337 *------------------------------------------------------------------- 1338 * Structure of a "lex" specific name 1339 *------------------------------------------------------------------- 1340 ::= ":" 1342 *------------------------------------------------------------------- 1343 * Structure of the element 1344 *------------------------------------------------------------------- 1345 ::= [";"]* 1347 ::= {2,4} | ([]*) 1349 ::= []* 1351 *------------------------------------------------------------------- 1352 * Structure of the element 1353 *------------------------------------------------------------------- 1354 ::= ["@"]?["$"]? 1356 *------------------------------------------------------------------- 1357 * Structure of the element 1358 *------------------------------------------------------------------- 1359 ::= ":"":"
[":"]* 1361 *------------------------------------------------------------------- 1362 * Structure of the element 1363 *------------------------------------------------------------------- 1364 ::= ["+"]* 1366 ::= ([";"]*[";"]*) | 1367 ::= []* 1369 ::= []* 1371 ::= []* 1373 ::= []* 1375 *------------------------------------------------------------------- 1376 * Structure of the element 1377 *------------------------------------------------------------------- 1378 ::= [";"]* 1380 ::= []* 1382 ::= []* 1384 *------------------------------------------------------------------- 1385 * Structure of the
element 1386 *------------------------------------------------------------------- 1387
::= (|)";" 1389 ::= [","]* 1391 ::= []* 1393 ::= ([","]*)| 1395 ::= [|]* 1397 ::= "lex-"+ 1399 *------------------------------------------------------------------- 1400 * Structure of the element 1401 *------------------------------------------------------------------- 1402 ::= [";"]* 1404 ::= []* 1406 *------------------------------------------------------------------- 1407 * Structure of the element 1408 *------------------------------------------------------------------- 1410 ::= [":"]? 1412 *------------------------------------------------------------------- 1413 * Structure of the element 1414 *------------------------------------------------------------------- 1415 ::= (|) 1416 [";"(|)]* 1418 ::= 1420 ::= 1422 ::= []* 1424 *------------------------------------------------------------------- 1425 * Structure of the element 1426 *------------------------------------------------------------------- 1428 ::= {2,3} 1430 *------------------------------------------------------------------- 1431 * Structure of the element 1432 *------------------------------------------------------------------- 1433 ::= [";""]* 1434 ":"[";""]* 1435 [":"[";"]*]? 1436 [":"[";"]*]? 1438 ::= [|"-"]* 1440 ::= [|"-"]* 1442 ::= [|"-"]* 1444 ::= [|"-"]* 1446 *------------------------------------------------------------------- 1447 * Structure of the date 1448 *------------------------------------------------------------------- 1449 ::= "-""-" 1451 ::= {4} 1452 ::= {2} 1453 ::= {2} 1455 *------------------------------------------------------------------- 1456 * Allowed characters 1457 *------------------------------------------------------------------- 1458 ::= | | | 1460 ::= | "." 1462 ::= | | 1463 ::= "a" | "b" | "c" | "d" | "e" | "f" | "g" | "h" | 1464 "i" | "j" | "k" | "l" | "m" | "n" | "o" | "p" | 1465 "q" | "r" | "s" | "t" | "u" | "v" | "w" | "x" | 1466 "y" | "z" 1468 ::= "0" | "1" | "2" | "3" | "4" | "5" | "6" | "7" | 1469 "8" | "9" 1471 ::= ("%" ( | )){1,6} 1473 ::= "a" | "b" | "c" | "d" | "e" | "f" 1475 ::= "-" | "_" | "'" | "=" | "(" | ")" 1477 ::= ":" | "@" | "$" | "+" | ";" | "," | "~" 1479 ::= "*" | "!" 1481 Attachment B -- Specific Syntax of the Identifier at Work Level 1483 B1 The element 1485 B1.1 Indication of the Authority 1487 The element of a uniform name may indicate, in the 1488 various cases: 1489 - the actual authority issuing the legal provision. More 1490 specifically, the authority adopting the provision or enacting it; 1491 - the institution where the provision is registered, known and 1492 referenced to, even if produced by others (e.g., the bills 1493 identified through the reference to the Chamber where they are 1494 presented); 1495 - the institution regulated (and referred to in citations) by the 1496 legal provision even when this is issued by another authority 1497 (e.g., the statute of a Body); 1498 - the entity that proposed the legal material not yet included in the 1499 institutional process (e.g. a proposed bill written by a a 1500 political party). 1502 B1.2 Multiple Issuers 1504 Some sources of law are enacted by a number of issuing parties (e.g., 1505 inter-ministerial decrees, agreements, etc.). In this case, the 1506 element contains all the issuing parties (properly 1507 separated), as follows: 1509 ::= ["+"]* 1511 (e.g., "ministry.justice+ministry.finances") 1513 B1.3 Indication of the Issuer 1515 Each issuing authority is essentially represented by either an 1516 institutional office (e.g., Prime Minister) or an institution (e.g., 1517 Ministry); in the last case, the authority is indicated in accordance 1518 with the institution's hierarchical structure, from the more general 1519 to more specific (Council, Department, etc.), ending with the 1520 relative office (President, Director, etc.). 1521 Therefore, the structure of the issuer is as follows: 1523 ::= ([";"]*[";"]*) | 1525 (e.g., "ministry.finances;department.revenues;manager") 1527 B1.4 Indication of the Body 1528 Depending on the kind of measure, the body within the issuing 1529 authority is unambiguously determined (e.g., the Council for Regional 1530 Acts) and normally it is not indicated in the references. 1531 Just like in practice, the indication of the enacting authority is 1532 limited to the minimum in relation to the type of measure. 1533 (e.g., "region.tuscany:act" and not "region.tuscany;council:act") 1535 B1.5 Indication of the Function 1537 Generally, the component is indicated, sometimes instead 1538 of the body itself: 1539 - in case of political, representative or elective offices 1540 (e.g., "university.oxford;rector:decree" instead of 1541 "university.oxford;rectorship:decree"); 1542 - when it refers to a top officer in the institution (e.g., general 1543 manager, general secretary, etc.) which is not always possible to 1544 associate a specific internal institutional structure to 1545 (e.g., "national.council.research;general.manager"). 1547 It is not indicated when it clearly corresponds to the person in 1548 charge of an institution (typically, a general director); in this 1549 case, only the structure and not the person in charge is indicated 1550 (e.g., "ministry.justice;department.penitentiary.administration"). 1552 The function MUST be indicated when: 1553 - it is not the same of the director or the person in charge of the 1554 structure (for example, in case of an undersecretary, a deputy 1555 director, etc.); 1556 - the type of measure may be both monocratic or collegial: the 1557 indication of the office eliminates the ambiguity. 1559 B1.6 Conventions for the Authority 1561 Acts and measures bearing the same relevance as an act, issued or 1562 enacted since the foundation of the State, have conventionally 1563 indicated "state" (expressed in each country official language) as 1564 authority; the same convention is used for constitutions, codes 1565 (civil, criminal, civil procedure, criminal procedure, etc) and 1566 international treaties. 1568 B2 The element 1570 B2.1 Criteria for the Indication of the Type of Measure 1572 In uniform names the issuing authority of a document is mandatory. 1573 This makes unnecessary to indicate any further qualification of the 1574 measure (e.g., ministerial decree, directorial ordinance, etc.), even 1575 if it is widely used. 1577 When the authority-measure combination clearly identifies a specific 1578 document, the type of measure is not defined through attributes 1579 referring to the enacting authority. 1580 (e.g., "region.tuscany:act" and not "region.tuscany:regional.act") 1582 B2.2 Further Specification to the Type of Measure 1584 In the element, it is usually sufficient to indicate the 1585 type of a measure. As usual, references to sources of law, rather 1586 than through the formal details (date and number), may be made 1587 through some of their characteristics such as the subject-matter 1588 covered (e.g., accounting regulations), nicknames referring to the 1589 promoter (e.g., Bassanini Act) or to the topic of the act (e.g., 1590 Bankruptcy Law), etc.. 1591 In these cases, the type of measure MAY be followed by further 1592 specifications useful in referencing even if the details are lacking: 1594 ::=[";"]* 1596 (e.g., "regulations;accounting" or "act;bankruptcy") 1598 B2.3 Aliases for Sources of Law with Different Normative References 1600 There are legislative measures that, although unique, are usually 1601 cited in different ways, for example through the legislative act 1602 introducing them into the legal order (President's decree, 1603 legislative decree, etc.) or through their legislative category 1604 (regulations, consolidation, etc.). 1605 In order to ensure, in all the cases, the validity of the references, 1606 an alias that takes into account the measure category is associated 1607 to the uniform name, representing the legislative form. 1608 (e.g., "state:decree.legislative:1992-07-24;358" and 1609 "state:consolidation;public.contracts:1992-07-24;358"). 1611 B2.4 Relations between Measure and Authority in the Aliases 1613 The sources of law including different normative references are 1614 usually introduced in legislation through the adoption or the issuing 1615 of an act, which they are either included or attached to. It is, 1616 therefore, necessary to create an alias linking the two aspects of 1617 the same document. Specifically, the different measures can be: 1618 - adopted/issued by an authority different from the one regulated by 1619 the provision (e.g., the statute of a Body); in this case, the 1620 correlation is established between two uniform names each featuring 1621 a completely different element 1622 (e.g., "italian.society.authors.publishers:statute" and 1623 "ministry.cultural.activities+ministry.finances.budget.economic. 1624 planning:decree"); 1626 - issued by the institution itself either because it has issuing 1627 authority or by virtue of a proxy (e.g., a provision that refers to 1628 the functioning of the Body itself); in this case, the two aliases 1629 share the first part of the authority; 1630 (e.g., "municipality.firenze:statute" and 1631 "municipality.firenze;council:deliberation"); 1632 - issued by the same Body to regulate a particular sector of its own 1633 competence; in this case the element is the same 1634 (e.g., "ministry.justice:regulation;use.information.tools. 1635 telematic.process" and "ministry.justice:decree"). 1637 B3 The
element 1639 B3.1 Indication of the Details 1641 The details of a source of law usually include the date of the 1642 enactment and the identification number (inclusion in the body of 1643 laws, register, protocol, etc.). 1644 Some measures can have multiple dates; there are also cases in which 1645 the number of the measure does not exist (unnumbered measures) or a 1646 measure has multiple numbers (e.g., unified cases). For these 1647 reasons, the set up of both elements (date and number) includes 1648 multiple values. 1650 Some institutions (e.g., the Parliaments) usually identify documents 1651 through their period of reference (e.g., the legislature number) 1652 rather than through a date, which would be much less meaningful and 1653 never used in references (e.g., Senate bill S.2544 of the XIV 1654 legislature). In these cases, the component is used in 1655 substitution of the component . 1657 Usually details of a measure are not reported according to a specific 1658 sequence; in accordance with the global structure of the uniform 1659 name, which goes from the general to the specific, the sequence date- 1660 number has the following form: 1662
::=(|)";" 1664 (e.g., "2000-12-06;126", "14.legislature;s.2544") 1666 B3.2 Multiple Dates 1668 Some sources of law, even if unique, are identified by more than one 1669 date; in this case, in the field all the given dates are to 1670 be reported and indicated as follows: 1672 ::=[","]* 1674 (e.g., the measure of the Data Protection Authority of December 30, 1675 1999- January 13, 2000, No. 1/P/2000 has the following uniform name: 1676 "personal.data.protection.authority:measure:1999-12-30,2000-01-13; 1677 1-p-2000"). 1679 B3.3 Unnumbered Measures 1681 Measures not officially numbered in the publications may have a non- 1682 unequivolcal identifier, because several measures of the same type 1683 can exist, issued on the same day by the same authority. 1684 To ensure that the uniform name is unambiguous, the field 1685 MUST, in any case, contain a discriminating element, which can be any 1686 identifier used internally, and not published, by the authority 1687 (e.g., protocol). 1688 If the authority does not have its own identifier, one identifier 1689 MUST be created for the name system. In order to easily differentiate 1690 it, such number is preceded by the string "lex-": 1692 ::="lex-"[]+ 1694 (e.g., "ministry.finances:decree:1999-12-20;lex-3") 1696 It is responsibility of the authority issuing a document to assign a 1697 discriminating specification to it; in case of multiple authorities, 1698 only one of them is responsible for the assignment of the number to 1699 the document (e.g., the proponent). 1700 The unnumbered measures published on an official publication (e.g., 1701 the Official Gazette), instead of by a progressive number are 1702 recognized by the univocal identifying label printed on the paper. 1703 Such an identifier, even if unofficial but assigned to a document in 1704 an official publication, is to be preferred because it has the clear 1705 advantage to be public and therefore easier to be found. 1707 B3.4 Multiple Numbers 1709 Some legal documents (e.g., bills), even if unique, are identified by 1710 a set of numbers (e.g., the unification of cases or bills). 1711 In this case, in the field, all the identifiers are 1712 reported, according to the following structure: 1714 ::=[","]* 1716 (e.g., "2000-06-12;c-10-97,c-11-97,c-12-97") 1717 The characters which are not allowed (e.g., "/") or reserved (e.g., 1718 ":"), including the comma, cannot exist inside the , and 1719 therefore MUST be turned into "-". 1720 This conversion may imply that the uniform name of the document is no 1721 more unique (e.g., removal 123-BIS and return 123/BIS of the bill 123 1722 both are identified as "123-bis"); in this case, it is necessary to 1723 add a specific distinctive ending (e.g., "123-bis-removal" and "123- 1724 bis-return"). 1726 B4 The element 1728 B4.1 Formal Annexes 1730 Although annexes are an integral part of the legal document, they may 1731 be referred to and undergo amendments separately from the act to 1732 which they are annexed. It is, therefore, necessary that both the 1733 main document as well as each formal individual annex is univocally 1734 identified. 1736 Formal annexes may be registered as separate parts or together with a 1737 legal provision; they may also be autonomous in nature or not. In any 1738 case, they MUST be given a uniform name, which includes the uniform 1739 name of the source of law to which they are attached, and a suffix 1740 which identifies the annex itself. 1742 The suffix of formal annexes includes the official heading of the 1743 annex and, possibly, further specifications (e.g., the title) which 1744 will facilitate the retrieval of the annex in case the identifier is 1745 missing: 1747 ::=[";"]* 1749 (e.g., "region.sicily;council:deliberation:1998-02-12;14:annex.a; 1750 borders.park") 1752 The characters which are not allowed (e.g. "/") or which are reserved 1753 (e.g. ":") must not be featured in the and therefore MUST 1754 be turned into ".". 1756 B4.2 Annexes of Annexes 1758 When there are annexes to an annex, their corresponding identifiers 1759 are created by adding to the identifier of the original annex those 1760 of the annexes that are connected with it (that is, attached to it). 1762 (e.g., Table 1 attached to Attachment A of the preceding legal act 1763 has the following uniform name: 1764 "region.sicily;council:deliberation:1998-02-12;14:annex.a; 1765 borders.park:table.1;municipality.territories"). 1767 Attachment C -- Specific Syntax of the Element of the 1768 Expression 1770 C1 The element 1772 C1.1 Different Versions of a Legislative Document 1774 The creation of an updated text of a document may have one of the 1775 following forms: 1776 - "multi-version": when specific mark-ups which identify the modified 1777 parts of a document (added, substituted or deleted parts) and their 1778 related periods of effectiveness are indicated inside one single 1779 object (e.g., an xml file). Such a document will be able, in a 1780 dynamic way, to appear in different forms according to the 1781 requested date of effectiveness; 1782 - "single-version": when, on the contrary, a new and distinct object 1783 is created for each amendment to the text at a given time. Each 1784 object is, therefore, characterized by its own period of validity. 1785 In any case all the versions SHOULD be linked one another and 1786 immediately navigable. 1788 C1.2 Identification of the Version 1790 In order to identify the different time versions of the same act, to 1791 the uniform name of the original document has to be added a specific 1792 suffix. 1793 Such a suffix identifies each version of a legal provision and 1794 includes, first and foremost, one of the following elements: 1795 - the issuing date of the last amending measure taken into account; 1796 - the date in which the communication of the rectification or of the 1797 errata corrige, is published; 1798 - a specification which must identify the reason concerning the 1799 amendment (e.g., the specific phase of the legislative process), 1800 for the cases in which the date is not usually used (e.g., bills). 1802 Anyway it is possible to add further specifications that will 1803 distinguish each of the different versions of the text to guarantee 1804 identifier unequivocalness. For example with regard to changes of the 1805 in-force or effectiveness of any partition or portion of the text 1806 itself (e.g., when the amendments introduced by an act are applied at 1807 different times) or different events occurring in the same date. 1809 ::=(|) 1810 [";"(|)]* 1812 where: 1813 - contains the issuing date of the last considered 1814 amendment or of the last communication of amendment. In case the 1815 original text introduces differentiated periods in which an act is 1816 effective and the information system produces one version for each 1817 of them, such element contains the string "original"; 1818 - any information useful to identify unambiguously 1819 and univocally the version; 1820 - contains the date in which a version is put into 1821 force, is effective or is published; 1822 - is a name assigned to the event producing a further version 1823 (e.g., amendment, decision, etc.). 1825 The issuing date of an amending act was chosen as identifier of a 1826 version because it can be obtained from the heading (formal data). 1828 (e.g., the name "state:royal.decree:1941-01-30;12@1998-02-19" 1829 identifies the updated text of the "Royal Decree of 30/1/1941, No. 1830 12" with the amendments introduced by the "Law Decree of 19/2/1998, 1831 No. 51", without any indication of its actual entry into force. The 1832 same uniform name with the additional ending ";1999-01-01" indicates 1833 the in-force or effective version starting in a different date (from 1834 1/1/99). 1836 For a full compatibility, every updating of a text or of the 1837 effectiveness of a "multi-version" document implies the creation of a 1838 new uniform name, even if the object remains only one, containing the 1839 identifier of the virtually generated version, exactly as in the case 1840 of a "single-version" document. A specific meta-data will associate 1841 every uniform name with the period of time during which such a name 1842 together with its corresponding text is to be considered valid. 1844 (e.g., the multi-version document containing the "R.D. of 01/30/1941, 1845 no. 12", updated by the amendments introduced by the "D.Lgs. of 1846 02/19/1998, no. 51", contains the name of the original 1847 "state:royal.decree:1941-01-30;12" as well as the name of the updated 1848 version "state:royal.decree:1941-01-30;12@1998-02-19"). 1850 Please note that in case of attachments or annexes, the creation of a 1851 new version (even in the case of only one component) would imply the 1852 creation of a new uniform name for all the connected objects in order 1853 to guarantee their alignment (i.e., the main document, the 1854 attachments and annexes).