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Subject: RE: [legalxml-econtracts] The Future We Want?
Hi Peter: I have little problem with what you say, to the extent that I think I understand it. In addition to enabling legally-neutral contract instantiation, which is how I interpret (roughtly) what you are saying, I think some of us are looking at standardized terms that will facilitate automation via rules based and/or neural net programming in the following areas: 1. contract negotiation 2. contract administration 3. dispute resolution. I think these are not yet covered by your core requirements. >My core requirement would be that when we mark up the terms of a contract, >we should ensure that if the parties wish to use a plain text (Unicode) XML >file as evidence of their contract, they should be able to do so. >Essentially this is a requirement that the XML record should be self >contained as to the terms of the contract and that it does not introduce >ambiguity as to those terms. So, for example, all clause numbers and cross >references should be explicitly present and the hierarchical and grammatical >structure should be evident. I would go on to propose that the core, >structural markup must not signify any legal meaning, lest this interfere >with the grammatical statement of the contract terms. If in practice the >parties apply semantic legal markup to suit their particular processing >needs for an XML document that is treated as the evidentiary record, that >markup should be excluded from the interpretation of the contract, just as >is often the case with legislation where clause headings etc are treated as >not being part of the legislation for interpretation purposes. Whether the >standard can ensure this outcome is doubtful. Of course, if the parties want >the markup to be legally significant, that is up to them. I think they would >be heading into uncharted waters. > >When the TC was formed I and some others objected to the use of the term "e >contracts" but were out voted on that point. >I am interested in using XML as a means of preparing the terms of all of the >4 types of contract as a facilitative process for the parties but whether >XML was used along the way is no more important to the contract than if it >was done in RTF or any other markup. The most concise statement of my >objectives for the TC would be "To develop a standard for the use of XML to >facilitate contract preparation". When stated in this way, I don't see the >use of XML for contracts as being any different to its use for many other >documents prepared by lawyers and others in their day to day work. > > >Now that may not be everyone else's expectation so this is why we need to >have this discussion. What are we trying to achieve? >
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