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Automated generation of smart contract code from legal contract specifications with Symboleo2SC

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Abstract

Smart contracts (SCs) are software systems that monitor and partially control the execution of legal contracts to ensure compliance with the contracts’ terms and conditions, which essentially are sets of obligations and powers, triggered by events. Such systems often exploit Internet-of-Things technologies to support their monitoring functions and blockchain technology to ensure the integrity of their data. Enterprise-level blockchain platforms (such as Hyperledger Fabric) and public ones (such as Ethereum) are popular choices for SC development. However, usually, legal experts are not able to directly encode contract requirements into SCs. Symboleo is a formal specification language for legal contracts that was introduced to address this issue. Symboleo uses an ontology that defines legal concepts such as parties, obligations, powers, and assets, with semantics expressed with state machines. This paper proposes a tool that automatically translates Symboleo specifications into smart contract code for Hyperledger Fabric. Towards this end, we have extended the current Symboleo IDE, implemented the ontology and semantics by using the modelling language Umple, and created a reusable library. The resulting Symboleo2SC tool generates Hyperledger Fabric code exploiting this library. This code is a complete translation and does not require further development. Symboleo2SC was evaluated with five sample contracts. These were converted to SCs for contract monitoring and control purposes. Symboleo2SC helps simplify the SC development process, saves development effort, and helps reduce risks of coding errors.

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Notes

  1. https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/pfizer-inc-covid-19-vaccine-contract.pdf.

  2. https://www.hyperledger.org.

  3. https://github.com/Smart-Contract-Modelling-uOttawa/Symboleo-JS-Core/blob/aidin-thesis-version/core/Obligation.js.

  4. https://github.com/Smart-Contract-Modelling-uOttawa/Symboleo-JS-Core/blob/aidin-thesis-version/core/Power.js.

  5. https://github.com/Smart-Contract-Modelling-uOttawa/Symboleo-IDE/blob/v0.3/ca.uottawa.csmlab.symboleo/src/ca/uottawa/csmlab/symboleo/generator/SymboleoGenerator.xtend.

  6. https://hyperledger.github.io/fabric-chaincode-node/release-2.2/api/.

  7. https://github.com/hyperledger/fabric-samples/tree/main/test-network.

  8. Autonomy Through Cyberjustice Technologies (ACT) project 2021–2026, https://www.ajcact.org/en/.

  9. First Workshop on Frontiers of Digital Enforceable Contracts (FDEC) online, JURIX 2020, https://www.ajcact.org/en/2020/12/03/fdec-2020-appel-a-presentations/.

  10. D. Amyot: From Legal Contracts to Smart Contracts using Symboleo. Law, Society & AI Seminar HEC Paris, France, 2022, https://lawsocietyandai.wp.imt.fr/event/from-legal-contracts-to-smart-contracts-using-symboleo/.

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Acknowledgements

This work was partially funded by an NSERC Strategic Partnership Grant titled Middleware Framework and Programming Infrastructure for IoT Services, by SSHRC’s Partnership Grant Autonomy Through Cyberjustice Technologies, and by the ORF-RE project CyPreSS: Software Techniques for the Engineering of Cyber-Physical Systems. S. Alfuhaid is supported by the KSA King AbdulAziz University. M. Roveri is partially supported by the PNRR project FAIR—Future AI Research (PE00000013), under the NRRP MUR program funded by the NextGenerationEU, by the project MUR PRIN 2020—RIPER—Resilient AI-Based Self-Programming and Strategic Reasoning—CUP E63C22000400001, and by the European Union under Horizon Europe Programme—Grant Agreement 101070537—CrossCon. We are also thankful to the anonymous reviewers for their constructive and useful comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of EECS, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada

    Aidin Rasti, Amal Ahmed Anda, Sofana Alfuhaid, Alireza Parvizimosaed, Daniel Amyot, Luigi Logrippo & John Mylopoulos

  2. Université du Québec en Outaouais, Gatineau, QC, Canada

    Luigi Logrippo

  3. Department of Information Engineering and Computer Science, University of Trento, Trento, Italy

    Marco Roveri

  4. King AbdulAziz University, Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

    Sofana Alfuhaid

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  1. Aidin Rasti
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  2. Amal Ahmed Anda
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Correspondence to Daniel Amyot.

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Communicated by N. Bencomo, M. Wimmer, H. Sahraoui, and E. Syriani.

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Rasti, A., Anda, A.A., Alfuhaid, S. et al. Automated generation of smart contract code from legal contract specifications with Symboleo2SC. Softw Syst Model (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10270-024-01187-9

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