Center for Decentralized Law

• In an earlier piece, we described how open source methods of following, forking and merging allow a decentralized approach to self-regulation and law.
• This piece outlines an organization to host parts of this decentralized process. There is irony in a center for decentralized law, but it is needed, or at least useful, as demonstrated by similar structures in open source software and law.
  1. The Center for Decentralized Law will host some administrative functions of the decentralized community of law. The community is broad, including governments, organizations, businesses and individuals.
  2. The CDL will seek to facilitate best practices and convene stakeholders to find common solutions.
  3. The CDL will be international in focus and will coordinate with independent regional, national and sector-based offices. Despite the fact that most law is national, the scope of the CDL's concerns will be very substantial because international dealings and travel benefit from coordination of solutions (see, for example the patient consent for the GA4GH). The CDL will respect and encourage local choice and diversity of approach, but it seems likely that internationalized solutions will develop over a broad spectrum of domains.
  4. The CDL should be as small as it can be. It's core mission is to be a trustee for the process.
• An ideal system of law would:
  1. Have as many decisions as possible be made as close as possible to the persons and facts;
  2. Maximize transparency of expectations;
  3. Minimize the amount of information that is circulated beyond the parties themselves;
  4. Allow groups to self-define diversely; and
  5. Maximize interoperability.
  Some of these are in tension with others, but correct handling of information permits huge gains.
• We invite your thoughts on helping to shape CDL and make it a reality.

contact@commonaccord.org