A workshop on Argumentation in Artificial Intelligence and Law will be held as part of the ICAIL'05 Workshop Programme.

Argumentation has been recognised as a key area of importance in Artificial Intelligence and Law for over a decade. The study of argumentation in general AI is receiving increasing attention as AI comes to recognise that a persuasive or convincing argument is not the same as a formal mathematical proof. In many areas of human reasoning - including law - a formal demonstration of the truth of a proposition is often not possible. In such domains rationality must be based on some more or less persuasive argument. Argumentation has also long been of interest to informal logicians, but increasingly attempts are being made to make the notions involved sufficiently precise to be amenable to embodiment in computer systems, especially multi-agent systems. In particular the notion of dialogue can be modelled using argumentation, which is an important aspect of agent to agent communication. These features are reflected in the specific nature of legal reasoning and argumentation.

While the aim of this workshop is to allow researchers with primary interests in legal reasoning, dialogue, and argumentation to exchange ideas about current developments, it is also intended to appeal to specialist with interests in topics such as multiagent negotiation, dialogue models, and argumentation.

Topics of particular interest include (but are not limited to)

• Models of argumentation in law
• Argument schemes in law
• Analysis of legal argument
• Models of dialogue in law
• Agent-based support for legal reasoning
• Non-monotonic and defeasible argument
• Persuasive argument and practical reasoning
• Multiagent negotiation and dialogue models.

Both full papers of length not exceeding 12 pages and short position papers (length not exceeding 6 pages) may be submitted. Authors should use one of the ICAIL approved style templates and submit electronically either to one of the organisers or through the ICAIL'05 Workshop Paper Submission site.

Submitted papers must be in either postscript or PDF.

• Submission of papers - Monday April 11th 2005 (Deadline passed)
• Notification of acceptance - Wednesday April 27th 2005 (Deadline passed)
• Final version for inclusion in Workshop Proceedings due - Saturday 14th May 2005

A special issue of the journal Artificial Intelligence and Law has been arranged in which full versions of selected papers presented at this workshop will be published.

• Leila Amgoud, IRIT France.
• Kevin D. Ashley, University of Pittsburgh, USA
• Tom Gordon, Fraunhofer FOKUS, Berlin, Germany
• Henry Prakken, Utrecht University and University of Groningen, The Netherlands
• Chris Reed, University of Dundee, UK
• Edwina Rissland, University of Massachussets, USA
• Giovanni Sartor, Università di Bologna, Italy
• Ken Satoh, National Institute of Informatics, Tokyo, Japan
• Francesca Toni, Imperial College, UK
• Bart Verheij, University of Groningen, The Netherlands
• Doug Walton, University of Winnipeg, Canada

This workshop is taking place with support from the Argumentation Service Platform with Integrated Components (ASPIC) Project of the European Commission. and the web site is www.argumentation.org