Description of BS ISO/IEC 15944-5:2008 2008

1.1 Statement of scope

The modelling of a business transaction through scenarios and scenario components is done by specifying the applicable constraints through explicitly stated rules. The Open-edi Reference Model identified two basic classes of constraints, namely “internal constraints” and “external constraints” (see further Annex G). ISO/IEC 15944-4 focuses on internal constraints with a specific focus on doing so from an economic ontology perspective.

External constraints apply to most business transactions.

Jurisdictional domains are the primary source of external constraints on a business transaction.

The primary purpose of this part of ISO/IEC 15944 is to address specific aspects of business semantic descriptive techniques in order to be able to support legal requirements in modelling business transactions, i.e. in the form of jurisdictional domains as sources of external constraints.

As such, this part of ISO/IEC 15944 addresses fundamental, i.e. more primitive, requirements of the legal environment, as represented through jurisdictional domains, on business transactions and also integrates the requirements of the information technology and telecommunications environments.

This part of ISO/IEC 15944 contains a methodology and tool for specifying common classes of external constraints through the construct of “jurisdictional domains”. It does so, following the approach already taken by ISO/IEC 15944-1 and ISO/IEC 15944-2 through the use of explicitly stated rules, templates and Formal Description Techniques (FDTs).

At the same time, a set of external constraints of a jurisdictional domain lends itself to being modelled through scenarios and scenario components. For example, ISO/IEC 15944-1:2002, Annex I, ‘Scenario descriptions using the Open-edi scenario template: “Telecommunications Operations Map” example’ is a scenario of an external constraint of a jurisdictional domain, i.e. the USA, that provides a business process framework that provides the enterprise process required for a telecommunications service provider.

Other examples of external constraints which lend themselves to being modelled as scenarios and scenario components include the customer clearance process of the World Customs Organization (WCO), one or more of the INCOTERMs, etc.

In addition to the existing strategic directions of “portability” and “interoperability”, the added strategic direction of ISO/IEC JTC 1 of “cultural adaptability” is also supported in this part of ISO/IEC 15944. Here, the fact that external constraints of jurisdictional domains are a primary factor in the choice of language and application of public policy are also addressed in this part of ISO/IEC 15944.

1.2 Exclusions

1.2.1 Mutual recognition of jurisdictional domain by other jurisdictional domains

Resolving the issue of recognition of a jurisdictional domain, of whatever nature, by other jurisdictional domains is outside the scope of this part of ISO/IEC 15944.

1.2.2 Formation of jurisdictional domains

A jurisdictional domain can and does create other jurisdictional domains within it¹⁴.

Processes pertaining to the formation of a jurisdictional domain are outside the scope of this part of ISO/IEC 15944.

1.2.3 “Overlap” of and/or conflict among jurisdictional domains as sources of external constraints

A business transaction by its very nature involves an exchange of commitments among autonomous parties. Commitment is the making or accepting of a right, an obligation, liability or responsibility by a Person, whereas while a business transaction pertains to the transfer of a good, service and/or right among the Persons involved.

It is not an uncommon occurrence that, depending on the goal and nature of the business transaction, multiple external constraints apply originating from various jurisdictional domains. It is also a not uncommon occurrence that there is overlap among such sets of external constraints and/or conflict among them.

Resolving issues of this nature is outside the scope of this part of ISO/IEC 15944. However, the modelling of business transactions as scenarios and scenario components as re-useable business objects may well serve as a useful methodology for identifying specific overlaps and conflicts (thereby serving as a tool for their harmonization).

The application of business semantic descriptive techniques to laws, regulations, etc. of jurisdictional domains and their modelling of such sets of external constraints as scenarios and scenario components is an essential step to their application in a systematic manner to (electronic) business transactions (and especially e-government, e-commerce, e-education, etc.).

As such, the Open-edi business agreement descriptive techniques methodologies can serve as a tool in harmonization and simplification of external constraints arising from jurisdictional domains.

>1.2.4 Artificial languages, programming languages, mark-up languages, etc.

This part of ISO/IEC 15944 includes clauses which focus on external constraints on business transactions which pertain to the use of a “natural language” and/or a “special language” for the human interface equivalents of the business semantics of the set of commitments comprising a business transaction modelled through scenarios and scenario components. A primary source of such external constraints is jurisdictional domains.

With respect to the use of language(s) to provide human interface equivalent values, the following are excluded from the scope of this part of ISO/IEC 15944:

• “artificial languages”;

• “programming languages”;¹⁵

• “hypertext languages”;

• “indexing languages”;¹⁶

• “mark-up languages”.¹⁷

1.3 Aspects not currently addressed

This part of ISO/IEC 15944 does not currently support the following requirements:

• the differences in equality of use of official languages within a jurisdictional domain¹⁸;

• the identification and mapping of legally recognized languages for a specific purpose or within a particular jurisdictional domain;

• the identification and registration of schemas involving the control and management of legally recognized personas and associated unique identifiers for the unambiguous identification of the role qualification of a Person in a specified context;

• the more detailed requirements of common public policy requirements of jurisdictional domains including consumer protection, privacy protection, individual accessibility and human rights;

• the more detailed requirements of records retention and other related information management requirements pertaining to commitment exchange among autonomous parties and subject to external constraints;

• the temporal schemas which are particular to a specific UN member state, a culture, a religion, etc. (even though they may have legal status and form part of the legal requirements of one or more jurisdictional domains);

• the identification and referencing of sources of external constraints which are not of the nature of a jurisdictional domain.

It is anticipated that some or all of these requirements will be addressed in future editions of this part of ISO/IEC 15944 or in companion standards or technical reports.

1.4 IT systems environment neutrality

This part of ISO/IEC 15944 neither assumes nor endorses any specific system environment, database management system, database design paradigm, system development methodology, data definition language, command language, system interface, user interface, syntax, computing platform or any technology required for implementation, i.e. it is information technology neutral. At the same time, this part of ISO/IEC 15944 maximizes an IT-enabled approach to its implementation and maximizes semantic interoperability.

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