Separating law from Geography in GIS-based eGovernment services

ALEXANDER BOER 0 TOM VAN ENGERS 0 ROB PETERS 0 RADBOUD WINKELS 0 0 Leibniz Center for Law, University of Amsterdam , Oudemanhuispoort 4, PO Box 1030Amsterdam, 1030 BA, Netherlands The Leibniz Center for Law is involved in the project Digitale Uitwisseling Ruimtelijke Plannen [DURP (http://www.vrom.nl/durp); digital exchange of spatial plans] which develops a XML-based digital exchange format for spatial regulations. Involvement in the DURP project offers new possibilities to study a legal area that hasn t yet been studied to the extent it deserves in the field of Computer Science & Law. We studied and criticised the work of the DURP project and the Dutch Ministry of internal affairs on metadata for regulatory documents, and made an inventory of issues related to legal knowledge representation that it felt were not sufficiently covered by current initiatives in the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) field. This inventory was an input to the DURP standardisation effort. In a second phase of the project we extended the METALex XML schema (cf. Boer et al. 2002; Boer et al. 2003) for 'regular legal sources that we developed in the past for geospatial regulatory information, in order to support exchange of spatial regulations, including the associated geospatial information in the form of maps. We developed a prototype application and demonstrated how the spatial planning information in GML can be combined with XML with only minimal changes, using the Web Ontology Language (OWL). This paper describes our experiences. 1. Introduction Geospatial data is a very valuable and versatile resource, and finds it s way into navigation software, real estate search engines, etc. It is not surprising to learn that there are widely established international standards in this field. A major part of the high quality geospatial data used in the GIS world is collected by governments and actually represents normative statements, positions, and titles relating to space rather than representation of existing real geographic features. The term geospatial should be understood in this context: geospatial data consists of spatial data describing geographic objects and features and of other objects and features that are directly or indirectly geospatially referenced. Geospatial data capturing titles and responsibilities are often used by third parties as if they describe the things that are there. A property title and a building permit for instance become a house in the translation of a cadastral database of claims and titles to geospatial data. For many areas of the world cadastral and urban development maps are simply the best source of information available about what the real situation on the ground might look like. Within the academic spatial planning community there is some awareness of this problem, and there have been attempts to capture this distinction between normative statements relating to space and real spatial objects. Attempts in this direction however rarely take into account that the legal field initiates its own efforts to standardize legal sources, and that these legal sources sometimes have a implicit geospatial component, even if it doesn t use maps. When designing open XML standards it is important to recognize the limits of the type of information that is being standardised; Legal communities should not concern themselves with geospatial objects, and the GIS community should exercise restraint when classifying geospatial constitutional facts that are derived from law and social processes grounded in the legal system. When designing a standard for the explicit purpose of communicating legal sources to the population, the dual nature of these geospatial constitutional facts should be taken into account. An open standard for these objects mixes conventions from the GIS field and the legal field. The Leibniz Center for Law is currently involved in the project Digitale Uitwisseling Ruimtelijke Plannen (DURP; digital exchange of spatial plans) which develops a digital exchange format for spatial regulations in the broadest sense. The project is coordinated by the Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning, and the Environment (VROM), and it involves diverse parties such as the Association of Cooperating Municipalities, the provinces, the Union of Water Control Boards (waterschappen) and a number of others that cooperate on a more or less voluntary basis. For the Leibniz Center for Law, having designed the METALex1 XML schema (cf. Boer et al. 2002; Boer et al. 2003) for regular legal sources, involvement in the DURP project offers new possibilities to study a legal area that hasn t been yet studied to the extent it deserves in Computer Science & Law. In Section 4 we will also discuss the possibility of extending the METALex XML standard in order to support exchange of spatial regulations, including the associated geospatial information, under the umbrella of CEN/ ISS in the Estrella IST project. Past projects like ADDWijzer2 (Peters and Van Engers 2004; Wilson and Peters 2004) show that potentially valuable services can be delivered to citizens if only the legal sources of the spatial regulations would be available in the right form. The Legal Atlas developed in this project is discussed in Section 2.3. The Legal Atlas has been partially reimplemented based on OWL GML 2.0, relevant Dutch standards, and METALex XML. The Leibniz Center made an inventory of typically legal issues we feel are not sufficiently covered by current initiatives in the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) field. Adequate support for facilities that are common in the legal field text search, classification with taxonomies of legal concepts, versioning should be a part of a standard for spatial legislation. In this paper we describe some features of this peculiar legal domain, and compare this domain with other legal domains. A number of regulative standardisation initiatives are being reviewed, including those aimed at harmonisation of metadata of the Dutch Ministry of internal affairs (BZK) and the spatial zoning interoperability initiatives (IMRO and DURP) of the Ministry of Spatial affairs. We discuss some shortcomings of the traditional GIS perspective on spatial planning sources, and explain why input from a legal perspective is needed. 1.1. LEGISLATION AND GEOSPATIAL OBJECTS Legislation always has a spatial component, mediated through the concept of jurisdiction. Jurisdiction refers both to a power or competence to legislate, to apply or interpret legislation, or to take administrative decisions based on legislation and the territory within which this power can be exercised. This power can be delegated, by means of legislation, to a dependent legislator which has jurisdiction in a territory that is included in the territory of the delegating legislator. Legislation of the EU, the state, the province or region, and the municipality is in a sense linked to a space to which it applies (...truncated)