YEARS OF EUROPEAN ONLINE ANNÉES DE EN LIGNE ...

COHERENCE OF TERMINOLOGY
AND SEARCH FUNCTIONS ( 1 )
firstly, I would like to thank the Publications Ofice very warmly for its kind
invitation to attend this very interesting conference and for giving me the
chance to present my project, called ‘Syllabus’.
more than a project, I will be trying to present a tool, a piece of software
which we have produced and which is related to applied ontologies and European
law in the ield of consumer law.
I am a comparativist and comparative law has proved to be a very good
ally in several projects of harmonisation of European private law. I think the
main reason is that comparativists do try to build bridges between different
legal systems.
this is the background of the project I am going to present to you. I was
working on a functional comparison in the ield of trust law between English
law and Continental law. As you know perfectly well, trust law as such does
not exist. my research group got in contact with colleagues from the University
of turin who were working on artiicial intelligence and developing applied
ontologies in the ield of law. we decided to combine the two research
groups — our competence in comparative law and their expertise in artiicial
intelligence — and we have come up with a product
as a result of four years of work.
the full name of the product — and indeed the
website, which is already available on the Internet —
is the ‘Legal taxonomy syllabus’ (http://normas.
di.unito.it/syllabus).
this Syllabus is the result of four years of research
which was sponsored by the European Commission
as part of an ‘Improving human potential’
network. It mainly concerned funding general grants
for three years for post-doctoral students from seven
GIANMARIA AJANI
Professor of the Law Faculty
of the University of Turin,
Italy
( 1 ) transcription of the oral presentation.
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