The idea of a law that is Scientific, Mathematical, Algorithmic, Risk and Technology (SMART) driven is becoming a reality that needs the attention of students interested in law and public and private governance. Algorithms, metrics and artificial intelligence (AI) are reshaping the regulatory landscape, allegedly, for the sake of better regulation. Uses range from measuring risk and performance to profiling offenders, monitoring suspicious behaviours, auditing organizations, fostering e-government, and enforcing automatically rules, compliance programs, policies and contracts. This course provides a comprehensive overview of the rise of SMART law devices in the context of global governance with a particular focus on their processes of production, strategic uses, effects, accountability and contestations. Drawing on inside from sociale sciences, informatics, machine learning and legal theory, the course fills the gaps of fragmented perspectives focusing on LegalTech, Ethics, Privacy, Computational Law & Legal Informatics.
The course starts with a historical and theoretical introduction to the idea of SMART law, its connection with statistics, management and informatics, its main practical advantages and flaws, and its link with jurisprudence and global law. Then, it delves into the study of metrics, algorithms, blockchains and AI as well as into their deployement in different legal fields. Students are invited to engage with them through individual case studies in the fields of corporate social responsibility, compliance, financial and banking law, administrative law, tax law, labor law and human rights. Finally, the course explores contestations to SMART law devices and new initatives fostering ethical AI, including explainability, auditing, citizen coding and technical certification. At the end of the course, students are expected to (1) understand how SMART law devices operate in legal practice, (2) identify key technical requierements for the design of SMART law devices, and (3) criticize SMART law devices as instruments of regulation and a source of evidence in law.
Gregory LEWKOWICZ,David RESTREPO AMARILES
Séminaire
English
Objectives :
The overall objective of the course is to address the gap between, on the one hand, legal scholarship approaches and, on the other hand, technical literature in informatics, statistics and economics about SMART Law.
Specific objectives :
- Raise awareness of the role of SMART law devices;
- Get students acquainted with the operation of SMART law devices in specific legal fields;
- Equip students with the tools to use and contest SMART law devices from a theoretical and practical perspective;
- Engage students in the process of thinking and designing SMART law devices in their future legal practice.
Spring 2022-2023
The final exam will consist of a research paper on a case study of a SMART law device which will be subject to approval by the instructor.
The required paper for the Smart Law course is 5,000 words.
The paper is based on empirical work, including interviews, which students must complete during the course.
D. Restrepo Amariles, Supping with the Devil? Indicators and the Rise of Managerial Rationality in Law, 13 Int. J. L. & Context 465 (2017).
D. Restrepo Amariles, Algorithmic Decision Systems: Using Automation and Machine Learning in the Public Administration, in Cambridge Handbook of Law and Algorithms (Woodrow Barfield ed., CUP forthcoming).
G. Lewkowicz, La notation des avocats: instrument de marketing ou cheval de Troie de la dérégulation de la profession ? Juriste International, n°1, 2019, pp.31-33 (English Translation in Syllabus)
D. Restrepo Amariles & G. Lewkowicz, De la donnée à la décision: comment réguler par des données et des algorithmes, in E. Godet, R. Mosseri et M. Bouzeghoub (ed.), Les Big Data à Decouvert, Paris, CNRS édition, 2017, pp. 80-82. (English Translation on