Expert systems and databases: a prototype in environmental law

• Autore: Elio Fameli/Roberta Nannucci/Rosa Maria Di Giorgi
• Pagine: 227-247

Page 227

@1. Objectives and Features of the Project

The need, on the one hand, to seek to understand what tools and methods are available for building expert systems that can specifically address legai problems, and the conviction, on the other, that such techniques can efficaciously handle complex, multifaceted legai applications, have led to using specially selected shells ¹ in experimentation with automated advisory systems. It is in this context that the Istituto per la documentazione giuridica of the Italian National Research Council in Florence has undertaken the creation of an expert System in the field of the legai protection of the environment².Page 228

The System, called ELP (Environmental Legai Protection) Advisor will be limited to specific and specially-chosen sectors and will comprise, besides national and/or regional legislation and regulations (laws, decrees, Ministerial circulars), the necessary references to legai authority, to case law and to international law (EEC directives and regulations, agreements, conventions, treaties) ³.

The project also provides that the System furnishes Information and supports decision-making and addresses not only the problems of the private sector (individuai citizens, environmental associations) but also the diverse needs of civil servants in charge of or in some way involved in the application of the complex body of law relating to the domain.

Choice of this particular application domain was based, on the one hand, on consideration of the importance vested in environmental problems in recent years and, on the other, of the decisive role taken on by information technology as an instrument for the disseminatioii of information and for the management of naturai resources.

It has been argued ⁴that environmental law is undoubtedly one of the most fertile terrains of the many where artificial intelligence may be brought to bear, due to the interdisciplinary nature of the field, to the many variables that come into play, and to the interactions produced both within the domain itself and with factors external to it.

Moreover, organizing environmental legislation in a complete and comprehensive fashion appears to be, more than simply useful, truly necessary, since legislation in the field generally covers only sectorial aspects giving rise to a muddled and fragmentary corpus which, in light of the importance environmental questions have by now assumed, lacks an adequate generai framework ⁵.

The use of new technologies in favor of the environment has alreadyPage 229 reached significant proportions, Numerous data banks, of a prevalently technical-scientific nature and concerning the most disparate fields (air and water pollution, territorial conservation and management, safeguarding health against the effects of toxic substances), have been created, not only in the United States but also in Europe. The possibility of fusing ´documentationª and ´decision-makingª to create a unique, complex tool with logicai structures capable of making use of data stored in external data bases, and to interact suitably with them, is therefore of fundamental importance for building an expert System on the environment. Environmental protection measures will therefore become more effective as the ease with which complete information may be accessed increases; not only on the legai level (from collection of the sources of law to legai authority and case law) but also on a more strictly technical level, enabling initiatives to have a solid scientific basis ⁶.

Appropriate and intelligent use of informatics would not only allow the legai professional to rapidly obtain information on what law to apply in his specific instance, but would also permit him to familiarize himself more easily with the different approaches taken in legai authority to his subject and with the different solutions adopted in cases analogous to his. Ali this would contribute to raising the quality of public intervention and to giving the discipline a more organized framework.

Due to the many variables (social, cultural, politicai, economie and physical) influencing regulation in this field, as things now stand, the frame of reference is extremely changeable. And recent serious environmental emergencies have demonstrated how the problem involves ali of modern society. Ecologica! disasters in one part of the world have produced effects in vast and far-off areas whereby the environmental law of other countries even though these may have different legai orders and politicai and social systems, can no longer be ignored.

And yet again, faced with a Public Administration that is unable to effectively act in solving practical problems, the demand by private citizens to access information for environmental and consumer protection has become increasingly urgent and pressing ⁷.Page 230

@2. Environmental Data Banks ¶' '

In recent years the problem of environmental protection, at both an international and national level, has taken on considerable importance in ali industrialized countries, creating the demand for organized data to be accessible referring to the different sectors in the field and to the complex action called for by specific planning programs.

Recent developments in informatics and in telematics have made it possible to build complex information systems and to distribute them over international networks. The numerous initiatives undertaken since the 1970's have led to the development of systems for accessing specialized literature as well as information systems concentrating on the legai sources pertinent to the main environmental problem areas ⁸.

International distribution networks, linked to national centers, make up the major infrastructure for consulting existing data bases, which today are dose to one hundred in number ⁹.

Apart from legai information, technical-scientific information is important for environmental protection, and useful in planning research and policy, as is information regarding land use, which, through knowledge of the actual situation, can favor environmental control and support policy relating to environmental impact analysis.

The major producers of environmental information systems (especially technical-scientific systems) are located in the United States. These are not only government agencies; they are, instead, mainly profit-making private organizations. In Europe, both private and public initiatives have only recently been undertaken.

There are numerous international data banks produced in the United States. The most important are: Enviroline, Energy line, Pollution and Oceanie, Aqualine, Acid Rain Abstracts and EIS (Environment Impact Statements).

On the European level, the Commission of the European Economie Community has promoted the development of two data bases with the collaboration. of Member States' national centres: ENREP (Environmental Research Projects) and ENDOC (Directory of Environmental Information and Documentation Centres),Page 231

In the more strictly legai sphere, the European Economie Community, apart from documenting ali Community acts, sponsored, in 1982, the regular collection of the legislation, case law and legai authority on environmental issues produced in ali Member States.

CELEX (Communitatis Europae LEX, or Interinstitutional System for the Automated Documentation of Community Law), although not specialized in ecology, is nevertheless a precious consultation tool for ecological problems, as it contains ali Community legai acts, in their widest sense, since 1952 (including the main treaties and those amending or adding to them, conventions, directives and regulations issued by the Council and by the Commission, Community agreements with non-Member countries and regulations adopted within the framework of these agreements, Court of Justice case law, preparatory work - in particular, the opinions of the European Parliament and the Economie and Social Committee - the legislative, regulatory, administrative and judicial reception of Community law by the Member States, parliamentary questions and, finally, legai authority).

AH the EC institutions (Parliament, Council, Commission and Court of Justice), the Economie and Social Committee and the Court of Auditors see to updating their own data bases. The Parliament analyses opinions and questions, the Court of Justice handles case law and the Council examines the international agreements to which the Community is party.

The System stores over 100,000 documents, put on-line within twenty days of publication. Access is in any of the Community languages, although a macro-thesaurus and a multilingual classification scheme, for use in searching the data bank, have also been devised ¹⁰.

ENLEX is a specialized, multilingual data bank, part of a wide-ranging project called ENLEX '80. The realization of this project, which is financed by the Commission, is entrusted to the ´Ecology and Territoryª Working Group of the Electronic Documentation Center of the Italian Court of Cassation. At present, the on-line file stores nearly 9,000 documents.

In Italy, in the more strictly legai sector, the ´Ecology and Territoryª Working Group of the Electronic Documentation Center of the Court of Cassation has created the Ecologia data bank (called ECO). The documentation, dating back to 1968, covers the decrees of the Ministry for Cultural and Environmental Assets on environmental controls (Decbca data base), decrees relative to naturai reserves (parks) and the wet lands (Natura data base), locai regulations (Regloc data base) and the restrictions imposedPage 232 on cultural assets by the Cultural Heritage Service (Cultur data base). The data batik presently stores about 69,000 documentary units.

In the United States, the legai sector is represented by ENVIRN (Environmental Library), a data bank on the environment. The COURTS (Combined Supreme Court, Courts of Appeals, District Courts and Claims Court) data bank stores the...