Translating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in a
formal logical language
ABSTRACT
The translation of a legal text into a formal language is the most
scalable and practical method to develop a useful technology for as-
sisting legal professionals in decision making, and has the potential
to apply in a number of circumstances where it would be more than
difficult to apply other approaches, among which the direct usage
of formal tools by legal experts. Legal texts have a lot of specific
aspects, that include relevance of modal verbs (especially chained),
usage of referential expressions including reference to parts of a
specific normative background, specific usage of adjectives and a
natural tendency to ambiguity overwhelming by included (or re-
ferred) definition of polysemic terms. To isolate parts of the above
mentioned complexity, we consider the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights as a starting text, and develop a methodology that
translates it into the formal language of Defeasible Deontic Logic.
The UDHR has three advantages with respect to other legal texts:
it has no refereed normative background, it does not involve com-
plex chains, for all the norms are indeed expressions for general
rights and freedoms, or obligations and permissions but none of
the elements provokes punishments, and the text ambiguity is not
to be solved directly for the employed terms are general. We show
how to develop the method, identify the limits of the translation
approaches based upon extensions of the Montague Semantics, and
devise a pipeline for text processing that can actually perform a
translation.
KEYWORDS
Montague Semantics, Legal Texts, Defeasible Deontic Logic, Text
processing pipelines, Human Rights
ACM Reference Format:
. 2023. Translating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in a formal
logical language. In Proceedings of ACM SAC Conference (SAC’23). ACM,
New York, NY, USA, Article 4, 8 pages. https://doi.org/xx.xxx/xxx_x
1 INTRODUCTION
In order to provide a general model of law automation it is indis-
pensable to develop a translation methodology that starts from
legal texts and provides a version of the text in a formal language
that has the intrinsic power of automation. In the recent years, it
appeared clear that defeasible deontic logic (DDL) is a good tool for
these automation goals.
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https://doi.org/xx.xxx/xxx_x
Indeed DDL is expressive enough to capture three basic aspects
of legal knowledge representation:
• It accommodates obligations, permissions, and prohibitions;
• It can be used to introduce exceptions, to manage potential
conflicts existing in the law by means of the principle of
skepticism along with explicit priorities represented by the
superiority relation;
• It allows to provide room for the notion of reparation, namely
the concept of contrary-to-duty obligations.
Given the suitability of DDL, a good methodology to guarantee
that reasoning on a legal text results correct could be performed in
two different ways: (a) by demanding the legal experts to use DDL
or a more suitable version of it, for instance a graphic language
or, again, Legal RuleML (a markup language for legal knowledge
that is formally equivalent to DDL) or (b) by building a translation
pipeline that starts from the legal text and outputs a DDL theory
that represents the meaning of the legal text in logical terms.
Building this pipeline requires some specific analysis of the legal
text issues, and has to be performed on a long line. We therefore
subdivided the investigation in two initial steps, consisting in the
analysis of needs for the text translation and then validate the
methodology on a human-in-the-loop experimental trial.
In order to avoid overlapping of different aspects, we considered
a good starting point that is discussed below.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is formed by a lim-
ited number of premises (7), a limited number of articles (30) and
one single proclamation. The purpose of this investigation is sixfold:
(1) Identify the terms to be defined in order to establish the
actual meaning of premises, proclamation and articles;
(2) Build the corresponding terminology and associate the con-
straints to provide the ontological layer;
(3) Provide the language model for the specific structure of
normative system that the UDHR constitutes;
(4) Embed the above obtained language model within the Legal
RuleML framework by means of the needed extensions;
(5) During the process above, measure in a systematic way the
effort needed for the deployment;
(6) Check a set of interesting cases against the formalised ver-
sion of the declaration as formalised.
Phases (1), (2), (3) are the scope of the first part of the above
sketched investigation line, whilst phases (4), (5), and (6) are going
to be the scope of the experimental trial that has started during the
preparation of this work.
In general, we need to observe that the UDHR is a specific type of
normative system. In fact, it contains different types of restrictions,
that we shall analyse in detail in the paper, that vary from explicit
permission form for on of the subjects of the declaration, the human
being, and a duty for the member states on the same situation, that
in turn can be a prohibition for the member states. There are also
SAC’23, March 27 –April 2, 2023, Tallinn, Estonia
cases in which a right is established, and a duty is formalised for
the United Nations themselves.
On a higher level, the UDHR contains both general principles
that inspired the formulation of the rights, duties and prohibitions
contained in the declaration itself (that are mainly included in the
premises). Moreover, some of the articles themselves contain nor-
mative principles. The very same proclamation is an authority issue
that explicitely appeals to a notion contained in other similar dec-
larations, including the Declaration of indipendence of the United
States of America, and the Déclaration des Droits de l’Homme et du
Citoyen issued in 1789 by the French revoluttionaires. The reconi-
tion of enforcement by the signing States is based upon the notion
of international treatise as identified by the Hague and the Geneva
conventions [8]
In the premises, moreover, we easily identify some meta-definitions,
that are essentially principles for the definitions to be considered in
the rest of the declaration.
We start the process by identifying the terms contained in the
declaration, providing the common interpretation by the doctrine
of international law, and then formalise that notion.
1.1 Deontic Aspects
Deontic Logic surely is a formal system which best fits in cap-
turing and representing duties expressed by a normative context.
When it comes about specific absolute necessities, it straightfor-
wardly follows to translate them in DL into obligations (hence the
operator O); this also holds in the same way for the opposite: an
absolute absence of possibility is naturally interpreted as a prohi-
bition (defined by the operator I which stands for impermissible).
Let consider one of the commandments:
“𝑇ℎ𝑜𝑢 𝑠ℎ𝑎𝑙𝑡 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑘𝑖𝑙𝑙 .” ≡𝐷𝐿 I 𝑘𝑖𝑙𝑙 ()
In DL, every modal operator can be derived from a unique primitive
one, where the obligation is the most commonly used. That is, a
prohibition for a predicate 𝑝 can be expressed as the obligation for
the opposite of 𝑝, namely I 𝑝 ≡ O ∼𝑝, and for this reason, in order
not to introduce too many operators, we choose to write prohibi-
tions as obligations negating the predicate. Nevertheless, this is not
sufficient: modalities can lie in the middle of these extreme, absolute
and clear impositions, especially in modern juridical contexts based
on the concepts of rights and pledges. In these cases, we must be
able to manage permissions (defined by the operator P): when
something is permitted, it means the opposite cannot be manda-
tory 𝑚𝑎𝑡ℎ𝑐𝑎𝑙𝑃 𝑝 ≡ ∼O ∼𝑝 and we call this an explicit permission,
which is different from an implicit permission, namely the permis-
sion intrinsically present in an obligation (everything mandatory
is obviously permitted). Regarding the translation of the UDHR,
we choose to keep the operator P in addition to the primitive O in
order to maintain a better readability and understanding.
1.2 Defeasible Aspects
A reasoner that elaborates automatic reasoning needs a non mono-
tonic system of rules allowing to discuss and possibly defeat previ-
ous conclusions. In order to prepare our translation for this purpose,
the result of this process is expressed in Defeasible Deontic Logic.
Defeasible Logic inherits all the classical Propositional Logic instru-
ments to derive theorems via implications, and extend them with
defeasible derivations that, unlike the strict ones, can be defeated
by contrary evidences, just as it uses to happen in natural non-
monotonic human reasoning (see [2]). We kept a classical strict
implications approach every time in the text a straightforward
and explicit evidence about something being something else is ex-
pressed; in other words, every time we encountered a plain use of
the verb to be, we considered a set of translation rules that turns
this sentence into a strict implication.
“𝐶𝑎𝑡 𝑖𝑠 𝑎 𝑚𝑎𝑚𝑚𝑎𝑙 .′′ ≡𝐷𝐷𝐿 𝑐𝑎𝑡 () → 𝑚𝑎𝑚𝑚𝑎𝑙 ()
This choice, like many others which will follow, presents some ex-
ceptions, which we will soon describe. Anyway, the most common
scenario in a juridical text as the UDHR is a statement introducing
an obligation, or an explicit permission. Although these concepts
basically belong to the foundation itself of the human being, they
differ from an objective truth (like the one for the cat to be a mam-
mal) for they can be either violated (and an action for the restoration
can be planned) or ignored, due to specific exceptions, and for this
reason they’ve been translated as defeasible implications:
“𝑌𝑜𝑢 𝑠ℎ𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑝𝑎𝑠𝑠!” ≡𝐷𝐷𝐿 𝐵𝑎𝑙𝑟𝑜𝑔() ⇒ O ∼𝑝𝑎𝑠𝑠 ()
Finally, we introduce a special notation for deontic-defeasible rules:
when a set of premises implies the obligation for something, we are
going to use the notation ⇒ O and similarly, when a permission is
derived, we’re gonna use the notation ⇒ P .
The rest of the paper is organised as follows: Section 2 introduces
the premises and it is employed also for discussing the terms of the
translation in Section 2.1 and the language structure is discussed
in Section 2.2. Section 3 shows how the translation is performed
on a part of the articles of the UDHR. We actually performed the
whole translation, but in the paper we exemplify the translation
for a subset of the articles chosen based on the specificity of the
emerging issues. Section 4 provides the synthesis of the methodol-
ogy for translation and shows the structure of the pipeline. Section
5 reviews some related work, and finally Section 6 discusses further
work and takes some conclusions.
2 THE PREMISES
2.1 The terms
We here identify the relevant terms of each of the premises and
provide for each identified term a general understanding for it.
To do so, we go into single premises of the declaration and for
each premise provide the corresponding terms.
Premise 1. Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the
equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is
the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world
The first premise of the UDHR identifies several key concepts to be
used in the rest of the declaration itself:
• The key concepts that constitutes the main motivations for
the issue of the declaration: the aspiration of mankind, that
is implicitly identifies by the three words freedom, justice,
and peace;
Translating UDHR in formal logic
• In this premise it is provided one of the basic notions of the
declaration: the human being. In this specific terminology,
employed for explicit rhetoric purpose the complex locution
all members of the human family;
• The notion of human rights is here introduced as the gen-
eral purpose of the declaration, by the complex and again
rhetoric formula inherent dignity and equal and inalien-
able rights. The specific usage of adjectives does not refer
to an abstract notion of dignity or to a generic notion of
rights, but to the specific constraints to the dignity of human
beings and the specific nature of human rights. The human
dignity is inherent, and therefore it does not depend on the
choice of anybody, as well as the nature of human rights
is equal, and therefore it is asserted on the base of this the
nature of discrimination as a violation of human rights, and
it is inalienable, making suppression or suspension of hu-
man rights an act against the declaration. More in detail, we
can assert that the doctrine of this is very specific: the goal
of this premise is to constrain the terms to be used in the
rest of the declaration (see Eleanor Roosevelt’s interview in
[10]). This interpretation is confirmed in the further analyses
[4, 5, 11, 20, 22].
• The assertional formula is devised to establish a logical struc-
ture and a norm origin to the very notion of human rights:
the used term is foundation. The human rights exist in or-
der to favour the achievement of the aspirations of freedom,
peace and justice.
Once we have understood the first premise, we need to provide a
context for the rights to be defended by the declaration, and this is
provided in the second premise.
Premise 2. Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights
have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience
of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall
enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want
has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people
Again we have new terms in this premise that specify some aspects
of human rights. The premise is twofold. On the first part of the
premise there is a description of what has actually happened in
the human history when the human rights have been discharged,
and this can be valued as a re-affirmation of the essential nature of
human rights for the achievements of the first premise.
• The human rights have been discharged in the human his-
tory. The used terms are very strong: disregard and con-
tempt. And when this attitudes have been acted, the terrible
consequences have been barbarous acts.
• On the second step of the first part, we have the moral effects
of the barbarism generated by the disregard and contempt
of human rights: outrage of the human conscience that
is another declination of the human being, but on a specific
nature, asserted by the doctrine to belong to the Kantian
ideal of illuminism as applied to human rights (in the basic
notion of conscience as the origin of human morality, see
[3]).
• The second part of the premise establishes the declination of
the families of human rights: freedom of speech, freedom
of belief, freedom from fear and freedom from want.
SAC’23, March 27 –April 2, 2023, Tallinn, Estonia
• On this premise we find the explicit form of the aspiration,
that we used in the explanation of the term identification pro-
cess performed in the discussion of the first premise above.
The human being aspire to the advent of a world in which
the four groups of rights have been affirmed.
Premise 3 introduces a combination of aspects, that at an intrinsic
level, establishes one of a multiplicity of possible negative conse-
quences of the disrespect of human rights. As a consequence, it
expresses a need, that is also the expression of one explicit intention
of the declaration.
Premise 3. Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled
to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and
oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law
The premise is again formed by two parts. The first part establishes,
in an implicit way, a justification of violence, as a reaction to a
behavior, that in turn, implicitly, is established to be a consequence
of the disregard and contempt of human rights introduced in the
Premise 2, and also, at a even more implicit level, it is an introduction
to the very nature of the declaration in its aspect of warranty of
democracy.
• The concept of rebellion is introduced, and a moral judg-
ment on the right to recourse to rebellion is provided. When
tyranny and oppression are in place, than rebellion is
morally right, though as a last resort. The employed expres-
sion if man is not to be compelled is intended to introduce,
at this level, a specific nature of moral judgment, in which
the recourse to rebellion is allowed, but human beings are
entitle to that recourse against their nature that is hardly
tested by tyranny. In this specific case, the premise is meant
to introduce a right that is mitigated: the exercise of the
right is allowed, not as a realisation of the human nature,
that would be contrary to it, but on the aspiration to a society
where the oppression of the other rights is not in place.
• Since rebellion is judged as morally right as a reaction to
tyranny and oppression, but is morally justified as a last
resort, being undesirable per se, the issue of the declaration
is deemed necessary to prevent it. Moreover, the nature of the
declaration, as a means to prevent rebellion against tyranny
is established, as rule of law.
Premise 4 provides a further positive consequence of the introduc-
tion of human rights, that is described with one fresh concepts of
the premises.
Premise 4. Whereas it is essential to promote the development of
friendly relations between nations,
The dynamic notion introduced here is deemed necessary.
• The concept of friendly relation among nations is intro-
duced.
• The human rights are set to promote the relations as quali-
fied above. This simple concept of the premise does in fact
establish a principle of dynamism. The declaration effects
will perform in a period of time after the declaration itself.
Premise 5 introduces several novel aspects, never discussed before,
and, apart from providing a fresh set of new concepts, it is also
generating a notion of source of right that cannot be diregarded.
SAC’23, March 27 –April 2, 2023, Tallinn, Estonia
Premise 5. Whereas the peoples of the United Nations have in the
Charter reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights, in the
dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of
men and women and have determined to promote social progress and
better standards of life in larger freedom,
In this Premise, the declaration establishes a novel source of Right:
the Charter of the United Nations, where the choice to pursue
human rights is said to lie. Moreover, the Charter is said to re-affirm
the human rights, being thus implicitely attributed to the will of the
members of the United Nations, for some of them have been part of
the Society of Nations, and possibly have set the very same concepts
in their constitutions. Prudentially, since membership to the UN
or possess of a formalised Constitution was not a fact at that time,
the Premise identifies a fuzzy concept of people, to create a fuzzy
notion of Source of Right and allow the declaration to found on the
basis of the membership to the UN, more than to the signature of
the declaration. In fact, this is a formulation that on the one hand
allows to consider the lack of signature as an act of the States, but
not of the peoples, permitting to interpret the Declaration in its
specific application field as universal.
• The Charter of the UN is set as a source for the faith of
the peoples in human rights power, that are declined in
an explicit sequence including dignity of human person,
worth of human person, equality of rights for men and
women.
• The faith is expressed as belief of the peoples that the hu-
man rights can promote the desires consequences of social
progress, better standards of life and finally larger free-
dom. All the three concepts expressed here are dynamic,
as in the Premise 4, and tend to identify a power of the
Declaration as a means for improving the society.
Premise 5 changes again focus, and on the specificity of the appli-
cation of the Declaration, establishes a consept that is crucial to
extend the fuzzy concepts expressed in Premise 4 into a specific
commitment for the member States, in order to respect to very
nature of the Charter.
Premise 6. Whereas Member States have pledged themselves to
achieve, in co-operation with the United Nations, the promotion of
universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental
freedoms
The Premise establishes in detail what are the commitments referred
to.
• The Premise introduces the notion of pledge, and again
gives a rethoric emphasis on the human rights by the decli-
nation universal respect of them and the analogous concept
of fundamental freedoms.
• The subject of the pledge are two: the member states and
the United Nations.
Last premise establishes the semantic nature of the Declaration.
Premise 7. Whereas a common understanding of these rights and
freedoms is of the greatest importance for the full realization of this
pledge,
In fact, this premise gives out the last main concept of the Declara-
tion: it is a way to understand the pledge on human rights started
with the Charter. It essentially uses the sole notion of common
understanding that is a consequence of the Declaration and a
cause of the realization of the Human Rights.
2.2 The language
The complexity of the Declaration, as for many issues of the same
nature that we discuss further, is that the intrinsic nature of this as
a source of Right lies on the voluntary, and therefore, implicitely,
transitory engagement on a treaty. This exposes the member states
who access the Declaration to the risk of seeking realization on the
principles on a period of time in which the government favours
them, and drop them down when the government is against the
very same principles. Thus, the UN provided a set of protection
means that can be used to prevent these effects, building an inter-
national interposition force, the International Tribunal for Human
Rights, and by further protocols between UN and some other In-
ternational Organisations, including the European Union and the
African Union.
For the above mentioned reasons, it is essential to avoid a lan-
guage that establishes only rules of law, and nothing that articulates
the notions on a moral base. In particular, there is an expression
of desirability and last resort that are issued in Premise 3, where
desires and intentions are expressed. On the very same level, we
have agent moral beliefs, expressed in Premise 4. On more than one
premise we have notions of Rights, namely explicit permissions,
and in many we have temporal aspects of the law related to the
ability of making change of the law itself possible.
Specifically, with respect to the legal principles expressed in the
Declaration, as well as in the definition of power of enforcement
for international treaties, we need to identify the forms of confor-
mance, and compliance that are needed in the specific domain. We
expect that the signing member States are subject to the Decla-
ration principles from the signature thenceforth, and thus their
laws are conform. On the other hand, the issue of a new norm
within a member state has to be compliant to the principles in the
declaration.
In a very abstract way we can formalise the issues with the
following language tools:
• A defeasible logic framework hosts the definitions of terms
(by using only strict rules);
• Modal operators for desires, beliefs and intentions to represent
these aspects in the notion of principles;
• A notion of time in which we can at least introduce the
concept of future.
To give account to the above expressed language desiderata, we
introduce the operators gradually, during the formalisation of the
premises themselves. Premise 1 can be quite naturally translated
into the formalised expressions below. Rules 3 4 and 5 introduce
the purposes of the Declaration: the aspirations of human beings.
We shall only present here the formalization of premise 1, for the
sake of space.
Premise Formalisation 1.
FR.1. human_being(x) ⇒ O human_rights(x)
FR.2. human_being(x) ⇒ O human_dignity(x)
Translating UDHR in formal logic
FR.3. human_rights(x), human_dignity(x) ⇒ P Freedom
FR.4. human_rights(x), human_dignity(x) ⇒ P Justice
FR.5. human_rights(x), human_dignity(x) ⇒ P Peace
FR.6. ∼ human_rights(x) ⇒∼ Freedom
FR.7. ∼ human_rights(x) ⇒∼ Justice
FR.8. ∼ human_rights(x) ⇒∼ Peace
FR.9. ∼ human_dignity(x) ⇒∼ Freedom
FR.10. ∼ human_dignity(x) ⇒∼ Justice
FR.11. ∼ human_dignity(x) ⇒∼ Peace
FR.12. human_being(x) → agent(x)
FR.13. human_dignity(x) → inherent(x)
FR.14. human_rights(x) → inalienable(x)
3 THE ARTICLES
In this section we present and discuss some examples of transla-
tions of articles of UDHR into DDL. The issues of the translation
are collected, and employed to form a pipeline for text processing.
Article 1: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and
rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act
towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
Table 1: Translation of Article 1.
𝑟 1𝑎 : ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛_𝑏𝑒𝑖𝑛𝑔(𝑥) → 𝑓 𝑟𝑒𝑒 (𝑥)
𝑟 1𝑏 : ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛_𝑏𝑒𝑖𝑛𝑔(𝑥), ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛_𝑏𝑒𝑖𝑛𝑔(𝑦)
→ 𝑒𝑞𝑢𝑎𝑙_𝑑𝑖𝑔𝑛𝑖𝑡𝑦_𝑟𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡𝑠 (𝑥, 𝑦)
𝑟 1𝑐 : ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛_𝑏𝑒𝑖𝑛𝑔(𝑥) → 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑜𝑛(𝑥)
𝑟 1𝑑 : ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛_𝑏𝑒𝑖𝑛𝑔(𝑥) → 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑠𝑐𝑖𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒 (𝑥)
𝑟 1𝑒 : ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛_𝑏𝑒𝑖𝑛𝑔(𝑥), ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛_𝑏𝑒𝑖𝑛𝑔(𝑦)
⇒ O 𝑎𝑐𝑡_𝑏𝑟𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑙𝑦 (𝑥, 𝑦)
This article immediately shows a typical example of how differ-
ent kind of implications are chosen: “are born” is converted into a
simple “are” and interpreted as natural and straightforward as a
law of nature. In this case we expect a reasoner to consider that two
human beings are equal in rights and dignity with the same cer-
tainty it considers a cat is a mammal: it’s not debatable and cannot
be defeated. Hence the use of strict rules. Last sentence describes
how human beings should act towards each other: the use of the
modal should is interpreted as an obligation.
Article 2: Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in
this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour,
sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social
origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall
be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international
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status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether
it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limi-
tation of sovereignty.
Table 2: Translation of Article 2.
𝑟 2𝑎 : ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛_𝑏𝑒𝑖𝑛𝑔(𝑥) → 𝑟𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡𝑠 (𝑥)
𝑟 2𝑏 : ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛_𝑏𝑒𝑖𝑛𝑔(𝑥) → 𝑓 𝑟𝑒𝑒𝑑𝑜𝑚𝑠 (𝑥)
𝑟 2𝑐 : ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛_𝑏𝑒𝑖𝑛𝑔(𝑥) ⇒ O ∼𝑑𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛(𝑥)
This article contains a form, “is entitled to”, followed by the words
rights and freedoms which is interpreted as a natural attribute of
the human beings, just like the simple verb “to be” does, obtaining
a similar result as seen in article 1. “Shall”, as it was for “should”, is
interpreted as an obligation, but this time, no premises are needed:
the sentence is absolutely universal. If any specific further fact
which implies a distinction will be fed, it’ll violate this obligation.
This article actually provides an instrument for the reader, to cor-
rectly understand the following declarations of rights. Any follow-
ing article should be interpreted by the reader with this in mind: it
applies to everyone, with no distinctions. A different, more complex,
approach to better capture this semantics, includes the introduction
of meta-rules as they have been recently formalized in [19], and
it’s currently a work in progress which will be introduced in future
improvements of this work.
Article 3: Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.
Table 3: Translation of Article 3.
𝑟 3𝑎 : ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛_𝑏𝑒𝑖𝑛𝑔(𝑥) ⇒ P 𝑙𝑖 𝑓 𝑒 (𝑥)
𝑟 3𝑏 : ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛_𝑏𝑒𝑖𝑛𝑔(𝑥) ⇒ P 𝑙𝑖𝑏𝑒𝑟𝑡𝑦 (𝑥)
𝑟 3𝑐 : ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛_𝑏𝑒𝑖𝑛𝑔(𝑥) ⇒ P 𝑠𝑒𝑐𝑢𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑦_𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑜𝑛(𝑥)
In this article, the declaration starts introducing explicit rights
for the human beings. The predicate “has the right to” is straight-
forwardly interpreted as a permission, for a right is technically the
denial for the opposite to be mandatory.
Article 4: No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the
slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.
Table 4: Translation of Article 4.
𝑟 4𝑎 : ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛_𝑏𝑒𝑖𝑛𝑔(𝑥) ⇒ O ∼𝑠𝑙𝑎𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑦(𝑥)
𝑟 4𝑏 : ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛_𝑏𝑒𝑖𝑛𝑔(𝑥) ⇒ O ∼𝑠𝑒𝑟𝑣𝑖𝑡𝑢𝑑𝑒 (𝑥)
𝑟 4𝑐 : ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛_𝑏𝑒𝑖𝑛𝑔(𝑥) ⇒ O ∼𝑠𝑙𝑎𝑣𝑒_𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑑𝑒 (𝑥)
SAC’23, March 27 –April 2, 2023, Tallinn, Estonia
Here again we have the modal “shall”, a passive form “be held
in” and a negative subject “no one”: we can provide a translation
process which moves the negative attribute from the subject to the
predicate, leaving the premises apply to every human_being and
obtaining a prohibition similar to the one we already met in article
2, which is a more suitable standard form for future computations.
We reach the same prohibition form interpreting and translating
the modal “shall be prohibited” in the second part of this article.
The universal obligation to reject slavery is obtained twice, so the
second instance is ignored.
Article 5: No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or
degrading treatment or punishment.
Table 5: Translation of Article 5.
𝑟 5𝑎 : ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛_𝑏𝑒𝑖𝑛𝑔(𝑥) ⇒ O ∼𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒 (𝑥)
𝑟 5𝑏1 : ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛_𝑏𝑒𝑖𝑛𝑔(𝑥) ⇒ O ∼𝑐𝑟𝑢𝑒𝑙_𝑡𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑡𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡 (𝑥)
𝑟 5𝑏2 : ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛_𝑏𝑒𝑖𝑛𝑔(𝑥) ⇒ O ∼𝑖𝑛ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛_𝑡𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑡𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡 (𝑥)
𝑟 5𝑏3 : ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛_𝑏𝑒𝑖𝑛𝑔(𝑥) ⇒ O ∼𝑑𝑒𝑔𝑟𝑎𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔_𝑡𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑡𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡 (𝑥)
𝑟 5𝑐1 : ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛_𝑏𝑒𝑖𝑛𝑔(𝑥) ⇒ O ∼𝑐𝑟𝑢𝑒𝑙_𝑝𝑢𝑛𝑖𝑠ℎ𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡 (𝑥)
𝑟 5𝑐2 : ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛_𝑏𝑒𝑖𝑛𝑔(𝑥) ⇒ O ∼𝑖𝑛ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛_𝑝𝑢𝑛𝑖𝑠ℎ𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡 (𝑥)
𝑟 5𝑐3 : ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛_𝑏𝑒𝑖𝑛𝑔(𝑥) ⇒ O ∼𝑑𝑒𝑔𝑟𝑎𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔_𝑝𝑢𝑛𝑖𝑠ℎ𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡 (𝑥)
Again the negative subject “no one” combined with the passive
form “shall be subjected to” calls for a universal prohibition, hence
an obligation for the opposite. In this case the translation process
is able to, with a proper look-up in a dictionary, distinguish among
adjectives (cruel, inhuman and degrading) and nouns (treatment
and punishment) and therefore it can produce all the specific rules
derived from all the possible combinations, in order to extract all
the smallest atomic informations. This is relevant because a cruel
treatment is clearly and totally forbidden by itself, not only if it is
cruel, inhuman and degrading all at once!
Article 10: Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public
hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determina-
tion of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against
him.
Table 6: Translation of Article 10.
𝑟 10𝑎1 : ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛_𝑏𝑒𝑖𝑛𝑔(𝑥) ⇒ P
𝑓 𝑎𝑖𝑟 _𝑝𝑢𝑏𝑙𝑖𝑐_ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔_𝑑𝑒𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛(𝑟𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡𝑠, 𝑥)
𝑟 10𝑎2 : ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛_𝑏𝑒𝑖𝑛𝑔(𝑥) ⇒ P
𝑓 𝑎𝑖𝑟 _𝑝𝑢𝑏𝑙𝑖𝑐_ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔_𝑑𝑒𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛(𝑜𝑏𝑙𝑖𝑔𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠, 𝑥)
𝑟 10𝑎3 : ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛_𝑏𝑒𝑖𝑛𝑔(𝑥) ⇒ P
𝑓 𝑎𝑖𝑟 _𝑝𝑢𝑏𝑙𝑖𝑐_ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔_𝑑𝑒𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛(𝑐𝑟𝑖𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑎𝑙_𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑟𝑔𝑒, 𝑥)
This article presents a relevant issue we are currently facing and
investigating about: should the translator have split the attributes
“fair” and “public”? In article 5 it was obvious that a cruel punish-
ment alone was enough for something to be prohibited, but now
we have the opposite case: should a hearing be acceptable it it’s
only either fair or public? Of course not: it must be both. Splitting a
sentence into multiple rules is someway an act of disjunction, which
in article 5 naturally followed the presence of the repeated word
“or”. We previously choose to split rules also in presence of the word
“and” (see article 2) but that was because this connective joined two
nouns; here instead we have two adjectives and therefore we opted
to leave them as two attributes simultaneously valid for the same
predicate. This is an issue that sure needs further investigations
and refining.
Another major issue we have to face here is that the predicate “is
entitled to” is not interpreted from the translator as a strict deriva-
tion as it was in article 2. Why this? Informally, we can state that,
to a human being, to be entitled in freedoms and rights is very sim-
ilar to assert it belongs to the human race, or to the mammals. It’s
naturally straightforward and immutable. In this article instead “is
entitled to” is followed by the attribute specifying “a hearing” which
is not a belonging, nor a being for a human being. Unfortunately
this cannot be solved syntactically, which is not good news for the
automatic production of a formal language, but it can be solved by
knowing in advance the semantics of the desired words, preparing
special dictionaries for the purpose and eventually provide some
warning messages when the translator will encounter possible am-
biguities.
Article 11: 1. Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right
to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a
public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his
defence.
2. No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any
act or omission which did not constitute a penal offence, under na-
tional or international law, at the time when it was committed. Nor
shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable
at the time the penal offence was committed.
Table 7: Translation of Article 11.
𝑟 11#1𝑎 : ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛_𝑏𝑒𝑖𝑛𝑔(𝑥), 𝑝𝑒𝑛𝑎𝑙_𝑜 𝑓 𝑓 𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒 (𝑥),
∼𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑛_𝑔𝑢𝑖𝑙𝑡𝑦 (𝑥) ⇒ P 𝑖𝑛𝑛𝑜𝑐𝑒𝑛𝑡 (𝑥)
𝑟 11#2𝑎 : ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛_𝑏𝑒𝑖𝑛𝑔(𝑥), 𝑝𝑒𝑛𝑎𝑙_𝑜 𝑓 𝑓 𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒_𝑜 𝑓 _𝑎𝑐𝑡 (𝑥, 𝑦),
𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒_𝑜 𝑓 _𝑎𝑐𝑡 (𝑧), ∼𝑎𝑐𝑡_𝑝𝑒𝑛𝑎𝑙_𝑜 𝑓 𝑓 𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒_𝑎𝑡_𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒 (𝑦, 𝑧)
⇒ O ∼𝑔𝑢𝑖𝑙𝑡𝑦 (𝑥)
𝑟 11#2𝑏 : 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒_𝑜 𝑓 _𝑎𝑐𝑡 (𝑧), 𝑝𝑒𝑛𝑎𝑙𝑡𝑦 (𝑥),
𝑝𝑒𝑛𝑎𝑙𝑡𝑦_𝑎𝑝𝑝𝑙𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑏𝑙𝑒_𝑎𝑡_𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒 (𝑦, 𝑧), ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑣𝑖𝑒𝑟 _𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑛(𝑥, 𝑦)
⇒ O ∼𝑖𝑚𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑒_𝑝𝑒𝑛𝑎𝑙𝑡𝑦 (𝑥)
The second point of this article introduces elements of time
which can not easily be interpreted by a translator without specific
instruments we don’t yet provide, but we plan to do in a further
Translating UDHR in formal logic
point of development (e.g. a method to read dates of a norm and an
event and derive if the event precedes the norm). At this point of
our work, the reasoner must be fed with a human 𝑥, doing an act
𝑦 for which it’s charged of penal offence, a time when the act was
committed 𝑧, and a predicate which states if an act 𝑦 was or wasn’t
a penal offence at the time 𝑧.
Similar considerations apply to the last obligation described by this
article, but now not only time elements are introduced, but also a
measurement for the intensity of a punishment; this is, for now, far
beyond the possibilities of an automatic translator and it’ll be left
to the juridical future user to decide and insert this information to
seek and obtain his/hers conclusions.
Article 14:1. Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other
countries asylum from persecution.
2. This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely
arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes
and principles of the United Nations.
Table 8: Translation of Article 14.
𝑟 14#1𝑎1 : ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛_𝑏𝑒𝑖𝑛𝑔(𝑥), 𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑒𝑐𝑢𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛(𝑥, 𝑦)
⇒ P 𝑠𝑒𝑒𝑘_𝑎𝑠𝑦𝑙𝑢𝑚(𝑥, 𝑦)
𝑟 14#1𝑎2 : ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛_𝑏𝑒𝑖𝑛𝑔(𝑥), 𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑒𝑐𝑢𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛(𝑥, 𝑦)
⇒ P 𝑒𝑛 𝑗𝑜𝑦_𝑎𝑠𝑦𝑙𝑢𝑚(𝑥, 𝑦)
𝑟 14#2𝑎1 : ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛_𝑏𝑒𝑖𝑛𝑔(𝑥), ∼𝑝𝑜𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙_𝑐𝑟𝑖𝑚𝑒 (𝑥, 𝑦)
⇒ O ∼𝑠𝑒𝑒𝑘_𝑎𝑠𝑦𝑙𝑢𝑚(𝑥, 𝑦)
𝑟 14#2𝑎2 : ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛_𝑏𝑒𝑖𝑛𝑔(𝑥), ∼𝑝𝑜𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙_𝑐𝑟𝑖𝑚𝑒 (𝑥, 𝑦)
⇒ O ∼𝑒𝑛 𝑗𝑜𝑦_𝑎𝑠𝑦𝑙𝑢𝑚(𝑥, 𝑦)
𝑟 14#2𝑏1 : ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛_𝑏𝑒𝑖𝑛𝑔(𝑥),
𝑎𝑐𝑡_𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑟𝑦_𝑈 𝑁 (𝑥, 𝑦) ⇒ O ∼𝑠𝑒𝑒𝑘_𝑎𝑠𝑦𝑙𝑢𝑚(𝑥, 𝑦)
𝑟 14#2𝑏2 : ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛_𝑏𝑒𝑖𝑛𝑔(𝑥),
𝑎𝑐𝑡_𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑟𝑦_𝑈 𝑁 (𝑥, 𝑦) ⇒ O ∼𝑒𝑛 𝑗𝑜𝑦_𝑎𝑠𝑦𝑙𝑢𝑚(𝑥, 𝑦)
𝑟 14#2𝑎1 > 𝑟 14#1𝑎1 𝑟 14#2𝑏1 > 𝑟 14#1𝑎1
𝑟 14#2𝑎2 > 𝑟 14#1𝑎2 𝑟 14#2𝑏2 > 𝑟 14#1𝑎2
This is the first article needing to introduce the instrument of
the exceptions. Every human being 𝑥 which is persecuted for some
reason 𝑦 has the right to both seek and enjoy asylum, except in case
of non political crimes and acts which are contrary to the United
Nations. So, some premises derive the right to seek and enjoy asy-
lum, some don’t, and they can be true all together. Defeasible Logic
natively allows to resolve these conflicts which follow because the
presence of the derivation of complementary heads: if two opposite
conclusions derive, a decision can be made according to the prece-
dences provided in the superiority relations (in this case, exceptions
win).
Article 16: 1. Men and women of full age, without any limitation
due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to
found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during
marriage and at its dissolution.
SAC’23, March 27 –April 2, 2023, Tallinn, Estonia
2. Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of
the intending spouses. 3. The family is the natural and fundamental
group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the
State.
Table 9: Translation of Article 16.
𝑟 16#1𝑎1 : ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛_𝑏𝑒𝑖𝑛𝑔(𝑥), 𝑓 𝑢𝑙𝑙_𝑎𝑔𝑒 (𝑥) ⇒ P 𝑚𝑎𝑟𝑟𝑦 (𝑥)
𝑟 16#1𝑎2 : ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛_𝑏𝑒𝑖𝑛𝑔(𝑥), 𝑓 𝑢𝑙𝑙_𝑎𝑔𝑒 (𝑥)
⇒ P 𝑓 𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑑_𝑓 𝑎𝑚𝑖𝑙𝑦 (𝑥)
𝑟 16#2 : 𝑚𝑎𝑟𝑟𝑦 (𝑥) ⇒ O 𝑓 𝑟𝑒𝑒_𝑓 𝑢𝑙𝑙_𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑠𝑒𝑛𝑡 (𝑥)
𝑟 16#3𝑎 : 𝑓 𝑎𝑚𝑖𝑙𝑦 (𝑥) → 𝑔𝑟𝑜𝑢𝑝_𝑢𝑛𝑖𝑡 (𝑥)
𝑟 16#3𝑏 : 𝑓 𝑎𝑚𝑖𝑙𝑦 (𝑥) ⇒ P 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑡𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛(𝑥)
4 METHODOLOGY AND PIPELINE
The translation system that has been devised by this methodology
is an extended version of the Montague Semantics. We consider
the conceptual framework of Muskens [18], that takes the basic
notions of Montague Semantics as a means to devise a general
methodology to transalte texts into first-order logical theories. The
approach is related to the issues of natural logic as stated in the work
by McCallester and Givan [16] where some important problems
related to the complexity of the target logic are advanced.
A conceptualisation of the potentials of translation technology
is the topic of Libal et al.investigations [14, 15], that
The concerns of McCallester and Givan lie on the complexity of
a family of issues known to worsen significantly the performances
of natural logics, including in particular the representation of quan-
tifiers as derived from articles, the methods to solve ambiguities
and the problem of co-reference resolution for long texts. The pro-
posed solution combines some known methods derived from logic
programming and guarantees effectiveness of the approach.
Detecting the structure of arguments is the most relevant issue
in the definition of a methodology for transforming legal texts
into legal logical theories. An important investigation has been
the foundation of methods of argument mining that made emerge
an approach that works on legal corpora in an effective way, the
study by Moens et al. [17]. We illustrated the need for an effective
method in this sense while processing the diverse modals’ detection
in Article 10, 14, and 16.
The text analysis pipeline that has been derived from this inves-
tigation is therefore sketched in Figure 1. The technology is under
test, and has shown so far some limits in the detection of correct
adjective attribution, and it does not perform completely on the list
of modals. We are in the process of testing its functionality with
humans-in-the-loop.
5 RELATED WORK
There are several investigations that refer to the idea of formalising
the law, whilst there is not an extended literature of the two topics
that need to be understood in order to represent the law in a formal
SAC’23, March 27 –April 2, 2023, Tallinn, Estonia
Figure 1: The pipeline of legal text analysis derived by the
translation of the UDHR.
system: (1) what issues are posed by the translation process, and
(2) how can we devise a correct pipeline for this process.
An interesting analysis of the issues posed by these approaches
has been recently provided by Frankenreiter and Livermore [9],
where authors review systematically the nature of problems related
to automating legal reasoning and the effects of introduction of
these techniques.
On the first point, a remarkable investigation that goes into the
details of legal interpretation and envisions an assistant technol-
ogy for legal interpretation, particularly in the Unites States legal
system, is the study by Allen et al. [1]. On the other hand, we have
considered as a starting point in this study the investigation by
Wyner et al. [23], where the idea itself of a methodological investi-
gation as we designed here is provided.
We have also considered, in a comparative way, the proposed
approach of the study by Lachmayer and Cyras [13], where a con-
cept of visual representation as a means to capture an alternative
standpoint to solving the issue of assistive legal knowledge man-
agement. A comparison between knowledge-based and machine
learning approaches in legal text treatment has been provided by
DeMaat et al. [6].
As discussed in Section 4 we have developed the text process-
ing pipeline for legal texts with the explicit purpose of treating a
diversity of sources. Clearly, when we state the result has to be a
DDL theory, we presume that the nature of text is normative and
therefore exclude legal interpretations, opinions, doctrine and to
many extents also court decisions, although with some exceptions.
We however should be, in further applications, also able to treat
contracts, treatises, and potentially executive orders of all levels.
These types of legal texts shall contain amounts, duration, geo-
graphical entities. In other terms, numerous named entities. The
process of treating them for legal texts is known and has been dealt,
indirectly, by Hachey and Grover [12] and as a specific topic by
Dozier et al. [7].
Moreover, we shall be able to treat references, a topic that is of
great importance in legal text processing and has been dealt with,
among others, by Tran et al. [21].
6 CONCLUSIONS AND FURTHER
DEVELOPMENTS
In this paper we have shown how to build a system that processes
a legal text into the formal language DDL, by means of a pipeline
that implements a modified Montague semantics. The analysis per-
formed here shows that some specific aspects have to be taken
into consideration to build this translation, and that thanks to the
application of this methodology the resulting DDL theory, for the
isolated parts of normative background translation is effective. Do-
ing so, we obtained the DDL version of the UDHR.
We are in the process of validating the methodology by means of
an implementation that is further tested against a set of legal experts,
and then extend the methodology to cases including normative
backgrounds with references, and contrary-to-duty obligations.
REFERENCES
[1] L.E. Allen and A.W. Tury. 2007. NewMINT interpretation assistance system:
United States Constitution First Amendment’s initial 1344 interpretations. Pro-
ceedings of the International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Law (2007),
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