1. Catherine Tabone 04 June 2014 European Legislation Identifier (ELI)

2. European Legislation Identifier (ELI) ELI is a European Council Recommendation initiated by members of the working party on e-law. ELI is an optional standard that the official online legislation publishers of EU countries are encouraged to implement. Its aim is to make it easier for legal information, relating to legislation, to be exchanged between the different legal systems of EU member states. The formal Council conclusions notice inviting the introduction of ELI can be accessed on the eur-lex website: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:C:2012:325:0003:0011:EN:PDF

3. Elements Of ELI ELI is made up of two parts: 1. URI scheme to identify legislation 2. Metadata to describe each item of legislation

4. ELI URI Scheme There is considerable variation between the different legal systems used in different European countries and consequently in the values required to uniquely identify an item of legislation. In response to this the ELI URI scheme consists of a set of building blocks. Legislation publishers can use as many (or as few) of these as they need, in any order, to create a URI template that works for their particular national legislation requirements. The only mandatory feature is for it to begin with /eli/. /eli/{jurisdiction}/{agent}/{sub-agent}/{year}/{month}/{day}/{type}/ {natural identifier}/{level 1…}/{point in time}/{version}/{language}

5. 5 ELI URI Scheme Template Components

6. 6 ELI URI Planned Implementation Examples UK Implementation: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/eli/ukpga/2010/1 /eli/{type}/{year}/{natural identifier} France Implementation: http://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/eli/original/loi/EFIX1234869L/2012/12/29/global /eli/{point in time}/{type}/{natural identifier}/{year}/http://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/eli/original/loi/EFIX1234869L/2012/12/29/global {month}/{day}/{version}

7. 7 ELI Metadata The ELI recommendation proposes a set of common metadata to be added to legislation. The intention is that this should be embedded in legislation website content using RDFa. Legislation publishers can choose to express some or all of these values depending on the data they have available and which are relevant for their jurisdiction.

8. 8 ELI Metadata & Citations The metadata properties include values to relate the legislation being viewed with other legislation using various different relationships including: Legislation x transposes legislation y Legislation x is changed by legislation y Legislation x consolidates legislation y Legislation x cites legislation y e.g. http://www.legislation.gov.uk/eli/ukpga/2010/1 eli:cites http://www.legislation.gov.uk/eli/ukpga/1984/39http://www.legislation.gov.uk/eli/ukpga/2010/1 http://www.legislation.gov.uk/eli/ukpga/1984/39

9. 9 ELI Lessons Learnt Every Country’s legislation is different Test all proposals with a variety of real data Provide guidance