Call for Papers
First International Workshop on Blockchain, Smart Contracts and Law
London, UK, June 12, 2017
http://www.cs.bath.ac.uk/smartlaw2017/


The 1st International Workshop on Blockchain, Smart Contracts and Law (Smart Law@ICAIL 2017) will be held in conjunction with the 16th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Law 2017 (https://nms.kcl.ac.uk/icail2017) in London, UK (June 12-16, 2017).


- 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 (more invited speakers to be announced) -
Prof. Roger Brownsword, Law, King’s College London.
Prof. Peter NcBurney, Computer Science, King’s College London.


- Paper format and submission -
Papers should not exceed 10 pages in the approved style. Please use the paper2 style (two column style without page number) 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.
Regis Riveret, Data61, CSIRO, Brisbane.
Giovanni Sartor, Law School, European University Institute, Florence.


- Program committee -
Mark Staples, Data61, CSIRO, Sydney.
Florian Idelberger, Law School, European University Institute, Florence.
Peter Mcburney, Computer Science, King's College London.
Xiwei Xu, Data61, CSIRO, Sydney.
Adrian McCullagh, ODMOB Lawyers, Brisbane.
Andrew Charlesworth, University of Bristol.
Wamberto Vasconcelos, Computing Science, University of Aberdeen.
Mark Toohey, University of Melbourne.
Daniele Magazzeni, Computer Science, King's College London.
Pompeu Casanovas, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.
Masha McConaghy, BigchainDB, Berlin.