Semantic web regulatory models : why ethics matter

The notion of validity fulfils a crucial role in legal theory. In the emerging Web 3.0, Semantic Web languages, legal ontologies, and Normative Multi-agent Systems (nMAS) are designed to cover new regulatory needs. Conceptual models for complex regulatory systems shape the characteristic features of rules, norms and principles in different ways. This article outlines one of such multilayered governance models, designed for the CAPER platform, and offers a definition of Semantic Web Regulatory Models (SWRM). It distinguishes between normative-SWRM and institutional-SWRM. It also compares existing principles in Privacy by Design, Linked Open Data (LOD), Legal Information Institutes (LII), and Online Dispute Resolution (ODR). The article concludes by proposing the notion of Relational Law to summarize the ethical dimension of SWRM. Ethics are the only regulatory way to constitute a global space, out of the jurisdictional public domain set by national, international or transnational law, and opposed to the private one