Full OntoRights Documentation
OntoRights builds on Unified Foundational Ontology (UFO), and some of its core ontologies, most prominently UFO-L (L as in Legal). Thereby, it reuses well-founded and widely used patterns.
To fully understand the intricacies of OntoRights, the reader is recommended to consult the original master thesis (pdf or Google Doc), the documentation of UFO and OntoUML, and Griffo’s doctoral thesis about UFO-L (2018), and the E-OPL Enterprise Core Ontology by Falbo et al. (2014).
The diagrams are intended to be self-explanatory to a large extent, but will also be explained. Some classes of OntoRights appear in more than one module. In that case, Visual Paradigm marks the master view with an M and auxiliary views with an a.
Note that in OntoUML, the Relator class can be used as an association class to represent the objectification of relational properties, modelled with its own associations stereotyped as «mediation».
In UML there may optionally be a triangular arrowhead next to the name of the association to define its direction. This has not been done in OntoRights since the OntoUML stereotypes also show direction.
1. Human Rights Problem
A Human Rights Problem is a wide term that can be understood as any situation that is relevant to analyse in human rights terms. In human rights lingo, duty-bearers have obligations towards rights holders. These obligations are normally legal, but also the notion of Moral Duty-bearer exists, i.e. a Legal Agent that is not bound by international human rights law to act in a certain way, but could be expected to, on moral grounds. One example could be a private company. A Human Rights Problem can be assumed to at one point be a Benign Human Rights Problem, but may turn into a Human Rights Violation, which has at least one Legal Perpetrator and Legal Victim. Note that in particular the Legal Perpetrator is not necessarily the same actor that was the material perpetrator of an abusive event (see Module 4).
2. Human Right Violation
This module can be considered the core module of OntoRights. It includes many classes that are further developed in other modules.A Legal Perpetrator has failed its Human Rights Responsibility. This can be of different types, i.e. how did the perpetrator do wrong from a legal point of view. AHuman Rights Violation is grounded in a material Abusive Event that violates at least one Human Rights Standard, e.g. the right to life or the principle of proportionality in use of force. Some violations, e.g. torture and enforced disappearance, have their own definitions and are referred to as a Legally Defined Human Rights Violation. If an Abusive Event constitutes a Human Rights Violation or not must be decided through aLegal Analysis considering relevant Human Rights Standards. The Legal Analysis is done as part of a Monitoring Process. A Human Rights Violation can be considered to have different levels of certainty, either Possible, Alleged, or Confirmed. A Human Rights Violation can also be considered to concern the mandate of a particular Human Rights Mechanism.
3. Events
This module provides a general structure on which several of the other modules rely. It is almost entirely composed of elements from UFO-B and UFO-C. However, it is somewhat simplified compared to UFO: some concepts, irrelevant for OntoRights, have been removed. An Event can be part of another Event. An Event can cause other Events. Here, UFO-B actually has different types of causes relations. One (not included here) is called directly causes and subsets causes. However, for the sake of usability, in OntoRights these different types are instead managed with the Causation class. An Event can also change a Situation. A Situation can be both a Fact (i.e. exist in reality) or be a Counterfactual Situation, such as a Goal. “A situation is a particular configuration of a part of reality which can be understood as a whole. Situations can be factual or counterfactual (e.g., the situation in which ‘Al Gore is the president of the USA’). Factual situations are termed Facts [3]. Facts are situations which are said to obtain at particular time points.” (Guizzardi et al., 2013, 3.4 World Changes and Situations)An Event when an Agent acts with Intention is an Action. However, any Substantial (e.g. a chair) can have Participation in an Event (e.g. a chair that breaks). Note that the multiplicity only allows one single thing to be associated with one event. Therefore, if a chair breaks and the person sitting on it falls, this would be represented as two instances of Atomic Event, part of a Complex Event. Finally, a Force At Work is any factor that increase or decrease the probability of a given Counterfactual Situation to eventually occur. Mapping Force At Work can be useful for understanding risks and when planning to achieve goals.
4. Actions and Consequences
Human rights work is a never ending chain of events where abusive actions provoke interventions. This module extends the Events module to be able to express who did what to whom at a material level (as opposed to the legal implications of an event, see Module 2). An Intentional Event can be either an abusive UFO-B: Action (e.g. hit someone) or an intervention (e.g. show public support of a victim)). It causes a Resulting Event. For example, a police officer that fires a teargas grenade into a crowd is one event, with many Resulting Events, as different people inhale the smoke. If a surveillance camera captures what happens, that would be a Recording, which creates a Media File. Any lasting effect of a Resulting Event on an Agent is a Consequence For Agent. A Risk is an undesirable Counterfactual Consequence For Agent. Note the multiplicity, that a Resulting Event has maximum one Real Consequence For Agent, which refers to exactly one Agent. Hence, a direct relation between Real Consequence For Agent and Agent would be redundant.Note that there are no explicit roles. However, an Agent that participates in an Intentional Event which causes a Resulting Event with a negative Real Consequence For Agent would be equal to a material perpetrator, and the Agent that suffers a negative Real Consequence For Agent would be equal to a material victim.
5. Consequence for Agent
This module continues where Module 4 ends, and can express the many different types of lasting effects that an Agent can enjoy or suffer from a Resulting Event.In OntoUML, «mode» is the stereotype used for intrinsic properties without structured values. The centre of the module is Consequence For Resulting Event Agent,that characterises either a Collective Social Agent, such as a Group, or a Natural Person. (Read more about the different agent categories in Module 7.) Consequence For Resulting Event Agent specialises into a number of subclasses. One is Memory, which represents the information stored in a mind or minds (known as collective memory in human rights terms). Goal Transfer From Sender and its subclass Goal Transfer From Sender To Influence Third Agent can be used to model for example advocacy campaigns.Note that the Legal Consequence, Territorial Consequence, etc, are not disjoint, i.e. a consequence can be of more than one of these aspects.
6. Natural Person
In OntoUML, the <<quality>> stereotype is used for intrinsic properties that unlike <<mode» does have structured values. The <<phase>> stereotype is used to express subclasses that reflect changes in intrinsic properties.A Natural Person can be described in great many ways. In human rights work, important characteristics include: those who can help identify a person, such as Weight; the legal distinction between Child and Adult; forbidden discrimination grounds, such as Ethnicity; and ultimatly the distinction between Living and Deseaced. A Person Relationship can be of many different types, also simultaneously.
7. Agent Categories
Like Module 3, the purpose of this module is to provide a general structure for other more specialised modules. In its centre are classes from UFO-C and UFO-LAn Agent has the disjoint subclasses UFO-C: Social Agent and Human Agent. A Human Agent is very close to its subclass Natural Person but not the same (Mário de Oliveira Rodrigues et al., 2020, Figure 5). Social Agent is specialised by UFO-L into Legal Agent that can carry rights and obligations, i.e includes both juridical (Agentive Legal Institution) and physical legal persons (Singular Legal Agent). Note that according to UFO-L (Griffo, 2018, Figure 28), Agentive Legal Institution has two superclasses, which makes any database implementation more challenging.
8. Social Agents
This module can be understood as an extension of Module 7, and breaks down the UFO-C: Social Agent category.An UFO-C: Institutional Agent is a Social Agent that “are integral wholes formed by multiple agents playing different roles” (Almeida & Guizzardi, 2013, p. 260). A common type of institutional agent is E-OPL: Organisation (further explored in Module 9). A Formal Organisation is recognized by, for example, having an assigned identity number. Human Rights Mechanism is a formal organisation with a special mandate to promote human rights in a certain area. It can be either an international organisation or a State Authority.The difference between Identity Group and Circumstantial Group is that while the former is an inherent part of an individual’s identity and stable over time, the latter is related to particular contexts. Religious Group and Ethnic Group are example subclasses of Identity Group. Note that membership of for example a Religious Group could also be modelled as a <<mode» of a Natural Person, see Module 6.
9. Organisations
This module further defines organisations and largely builds on the Enterprise Core Ontology (E-OPL) designed by Falbo et al. (2014). UFO-C: Institutional Agent is the superclass of E-OPL: Organisation, as well as E-OPL: Organisational Unit, and E-OPL Team. An Organisational Unit can be part of a E-OPL: Complex Organisational Unit. While an E-OPL: Complex Organisation has units, an E-OPL: Simple Organisation does not. An E-OPL: Multiorganisation is composed of other organisations, which can be either E-OPL: Standalone Organisation or other E-OPL: Multiorganisation. Both organisations and units can be related to Sites (read more about Site and Place below). Both organisations and units also have Organisation Members that can be either Head Member or Common Member. An Organisation Member can have Affiliation (for example an employment) to an E-OPL: Organisation and also an Assignment to an E-OPL: Organisational Unit.For more information about E-OPL Team, please refer to Falbo et al. (2014).
10. Places
Both UFO-B: Event and UFO-B: Situation exist within a Place (if nothing else, on Planet Earth). A Place (often an administrative area such as the City of Stockholm) can be part of a Complex Place. A Place also has a Geolocation. A Site is a subclass of Place with clear physical limitations that has been constructed by humans for one or more specific purposes, for example a building. A site can function as for instance a Detention Centre.
11. Detention Centres
A Detention Site can hold Detained both Detained Group and Detained Person. In a way, Detained Group is redundant since all group members are persons, but when large groups are detained they can also be understood as such.A De Facto Detainment is initialised and stopped through an Intentional Event. A De Jure Detainment should be both initialised and stopped by an Official Legal Record. As can be deduced by the superclasses (not all visible here, see Module 3, 4 and 7) the conditions of a Detention Centre can trigger a Resulting Event with Consequence For Agent, in this case a Detained Person.
12. Networks
An Agent can be connected to another Agent through a Network Connection. Has Influence On can be used for mapping the allies and opponents of an Agent. The other subclasses express different forms of flows or ownership. Note that they are mostly not disjoint.
13. Human Rights Protection System
A UFO-L: Legal Norm in most cases the content of (i.e. has as source) UFO-L: Legal Normative Description. Human Rights Standard is a subclass of UFO-L: Legal Norm. While UFO-L: Conduct Legal Norm qualifies actions, UFO-L: Power Legal Norm controls legal positions (read more in Griffo (2018 p. 11). Both UFO-L: Legal Normative Description and UFO-L: Legal Norm can be components of UFO-L: Legally Defined Event, which Griffo (2018, 5.9.1 Legal Relators) explains as follows:”In UFO-L, previously defined events are represented as specializations of Event by the category Legally Defined Event. These events are defined by one or more Legal Normative Description and express by one or more than one Legal Norm. (…) By allowing the representation of both predefined events in legal norms and undefined events, UFO-L adopts the theory of the open legal system, as opposed to the closed legal system theory” Legally Defined Human Rights Violation is a subclass of UFO-L: Legally Defined Event.A Human Rights Instrument is a subclass of UFO-L: Legal Normative Description that in turn often consists of Human Rights Instrument Articles.A UFO-L: Legal Agent, including its mandate, needs to be defined in at least one UFO-L: Legal Normative Description to exist. Human Rights Mechanism is a subclass of UFO-L: Legal Agent, which is a subclass of UFO-C: Social Agent, which is controlled by UFO-L: Legal Normative Descriptions.
14. Monitoring Process
A Monitoring Action is a subclass of Participation and is part of a Monitoring Process of an Abusive Event. Monitoring Actions are performed by Natural Persons in different roles, usually while also representing a UFO-C: Social Agent. The purpose of a Monitoring Action is to produce information about Facts that are generated by Abusive Events, as can be deduced from the superclasses shown in Module 3.Note that other roles than Monitoring Staff (e.g.Witness, Material Abuser, etc) can also perform Monitoring Acts. For example, an Witness can take the initiative to send a message to a Monitoring Staff person. This would be represented as one atomic Disclose Information event that causes an atomic Receive Information event which together form a complex Information Exchange event.
15. Information Management
This module can be seen as a continuation of Module 14, since information management mainly represents what happens during the monitoring process.A Monitoring Event (including its associated Informed Consent, Confidentiality, and Communication Channel, see Module 14) is represented in a Monitoring Record, which contains the individual Information Pieces. This decomposition is necessary since they may have different Confidentiality levels.The subclasses Information Exchange Record and Observation Record reflect the subclasses of Monitoring Event.A Monitoring Record may contain Original Media Objects that were created or received in a Monitoring Event. Original Media Object is a subclass of Media Object that will never be edited. In other words, it is original in the sense that it remains unchanged in the system. The purpose of this structure is that a human rights group should always know how it first received a piece of information.Media Objects can be Digital or Physical. A Physical Media Object (for example a piece of evidence) that is received would probably be e.g. scanned or photographed to facilitate access to it. The Digital Media Object is then a representation of the Physical Media Object.
16. Legal Process
The purpose of this module is to represent official legal processes, such as criminal law cases. UFO-L: Legal Object is a legal “thing” that is not an Agent. It can refer to any UFO-A: Substantial. For example, a verdict in a criminal case will probably have references to Natural Persons, Places, and Legal Norms.An Official Legal Process consists of atomic Legal Records, created by Events. An Official Legal Process can also have different types of Legal Process Relations to other processes. For example, a police investigation can lead to a court case.