Publications Office of the European Union and others push forward with expanded judicial and multilingual capabilities in the latest release
For two decades, governments and courts have struggled to make legal texts truly interoperable across borders and languages. That effort took a major step forward this week, as OASIS Open, the international open source and standards consortium, confirmed that Akoma Ntoso Version 2.0. Part 2: Specifications, defining AKN 3.1, has been ratified as an OASIS Standard—the organization’s highest level of approval. The specification was developed by the OASIS LegalDocumentML Technical Committee (LegalDocML TC), whose members span industry, government, and academia, with requirements drawn directly from real-world implementation and feedback.
Akoma Ntoso—translated as “linked hearts” from the Akan language of West Africa—provides an XML vocabulary designed for parliamentary, legislative, and judicial documents. By creating a standardized structure for legislation, debate records, minutes, and judgments, the framework underpins open government initiatives and public access to legal information around the globe.
The project reaches a notable milestone this year: two decades since its founding in South Africa, with support from UNDESA (United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs) and the guidance of Prof. Fabio Vitali and Prof. Monica Palmirani of the University of Bologna, who co-chair the OASIS LegalDocML TC. The new OASIS Standard is the product of continuous refinement driven by two decades of global adoption, shaped by contributions from parliaments, courts, and legal publishers worldwide.
AKN 3.1 builds on the AKN V3.0 framework, introducing new elements, attributes, and structural models that expand coverage and enhance HTML interoperability—all while preserving the vocabulary’s core architecture. Among the key additions are:
– New structural containers for schedules, annexes, appendices, and cross-headings.
– New witness, court, and judgmentSummary elements, along with a more structured table of contents for judicial documents.
– Enhanced multilingual support, including non-Gregorian calendar dates and a dedicated element for foreign-language passages.
– More detailed, expansive metadata across definitions, recitals, and citations.
“AKN 3.1 is a significant step forward for Akoma Ntoso. The new judicial elements and richer legal definition structure reflect years of real-world feedback from courts and legislative publishers who needed the standard to capture more of the structure already present in their documents,” said Prof. Monica Palmirani, co-chair of the OASIS LegalDocML TC. “This release makes Akoma Ntoso a more complete foundation for machine-readable law. For this reason, we have enriched the metadata of the modification attributes, enabling the modelling of complex changes in the text and guaranteeing a robust legal temporal representation.”
“The Publications Office of the European Union welcomes the approval of Akoma Ntoso v2.0 Part 2 (AKN3.1) as an OASIS Standard,” said Marc Vanderperren, Head of Unit, Data and Format Standardisation Services, Publications Office of the European Union. “This is an essential milestone which allows the European Institutions to further develop Akoma Ntoso for European Union (AKN4EU) as the machine-readable structured format for the exchange of legal documents in the EU decision-making process.”
The OASIS Standard and related files are now available for download. The TC is actively seeking participation from parliaments, courts, legal publishers, contract management organizations, ICT vendors, and other interested organizations. Participation is open to all through OASIS membership; contact join@oasis-open.org to learn more.
About OASIS Open
One of the most respected, nonprofit open source and open standards bodies in the world, OASIS advances the fair, transparent development of open source software and standards through the power of global collaboration and community. OASIS is the home for worldwide standards in identity, IoT, cybersecurity, blockchain, privacy, cryptography, cloud computing, urban mobility, emergency management, and other content technologies. Many OASIS standards go on to be ratified by de jure bodies and referenced in international policies and government procurement. More information can be found at www.oasis-open.org.
Media Inquiries: communications@oasis-open.org
Mary Beth Minto
OASIS Open
Why it matters: The ratification of AKN 3.1 gives courts, parliaments, and legal publishers a more robust, standardized way to represent legal documents digitally—improving cross-border data exchange and supporting the EU’s ongoing push for a machine-readable legal framework. With richer multilingual and judicial features, this standard lays the groundwork for more transparent, interconnected legal systems in the years ahead.
