Last month I published the COHUBICOL project’s final Research Study on Computational Law, written by Pauline McBride and myself. We focus on both data-driven and code-driven legal technologies (specifically Rules as Code in the latter case), synthesising the primary research we did for the Typology of Legal Technologies with the theory of the Rule of Law, affordance and Science and Technology Studies (STS).
This study has three chapters. The first (written by Pauline McBride) summarises the theoretical foundations of COHUBICOL. The second (also by Pauline McBride) examines the potential impact on legal protection of data-driven legal technologies.
The third (written by me) focuses on the potential impacts (both good and bad) of Rules as Code on legal protection and the Rule of Law. I set out a spectrum of impacts, where the ‘effect on legal effect’ is amplified as the balance shifts away from natural language representations of law towards computational representations. The broad conclusion of the chapter is that some RaC systems have the potential to enhance legal protection, while others risk undermining it.
The conclusions are in line with our other work in this field: legal technologies have the potential to improve legal protection and to strengthen the Rule of Law, but depending on the contexts they are employed, they might in fact do the opposite. Avoiding the pitfalls while embracing the benefits requires sensitivity both to how the systems work, and to the theoretical underpinnings of modern law.
