First International Workshop on Blockchain, Smart Contracts and Law

The 1st International Workshop on Blockchain, Smart Contracts and Law (SmartLaw2017, http://www.cs.bath.ac.uk/smartlaw2017) will be held in conjunction with the 16th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Law 2017, June 12-16 (ICAIL2017, https://nms.kcl.ac.uk/icail2017).

Overview
Blockchain is an emerging technology for decentralised and transactional data sharing across a large network of untrusted participants. It enables new forms of distributed software architectures, where agreement on shared states can be established without trusting a central integration point.

Smart contracts are promoted as means to leverage efficiency, security and impartiality in the execution of an agreement, thereby reducing the costs in implementing contracts, facilitating their use and execution and increasing trust between contracting parties. Smart contracts can be implemented in open blockchain systems that are used both to store the smart contracts and to execute contractual instructions.

Many technical and legal challenges arise with the rapid development of these new technologies. For example, building applications on blockchain is challenging, as there are many variants and configuration choices, while one can question the legal bindingness of smart contracts.

The aim of the workshop is to promote research at the intersection of blockchain systems, smart contracts and law. Hence the workshop welcomes submissions at this intersection. Contributions on other innovative applications of blockchain technologies, e.g. in the public sector, are also welcome.

Invited speakers

• Prof. Roger Brownsword, Professor of Law at King’s College London.

More invited speakers to be announced.

Paper format and submission
Papers should not exceed 10 pages in the approved style. Please use the paper2 style (two columns style) in the CEUR-WS style templates (http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-XXX/samplestyles/). All papers should be converted to PDF prior to submission. You can submit your paper to the SmartLaw 2017 EasyChair submission webpage (https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=smartlaw2017)

Important dates
April 2, 2017: Deadline for paper submissions.
May 1, 2017: Paper notifications sent.
May 15, 2017: Camera-ready copy due.
June 12, 2017: Date of workshop.

Workshop co-chairs

• Julian Padget, Computer Science, University of Bath (masjap AT bath.ac.uk)
• Regis Riveret, Data61, CSIRO, Brisbane (regis.riveret AT data61.csiro.au)
• Giovanni Sartor, Law School, European University Institute, Florence (giovanni.sartor AT eui.eu)

Program committee

Questions should be addressed to co-chairs, Julian Padget, (masjap AT bath.ac.uk), Regis Riveret, (regis.riveret AT data61.csiro.au), or Giovanni Sartor (giovanni.sartor AT eui.eu).