Challenge

The process of legal checking and claim extraction for International Humanitarian Law (IHL) has historically been labor-intensive and prone to delays, largely due to the manual effort involved. Legal professionals often face the challenge of navigating a vast and complex legal framework to verify claims related to rapidly unfolding events in volatile political regions. This process includes:

• Manually locating relevant legal texts: legal experts must sift through various sources and databases to find applicable laws.

• Interpreting complex legal language: laws related to IHL are open to interpretation, and legal checkers must dedicate considerable time to understanding and applying the correct legal standards.

• Compiling information from disparate sources: relevant legal information is often scattered across multiple platforms and websites, requiring an extensive search process.

• Managing large volumes of unauthenticated information: the sheer volume of data complicates the verification process, forcing legal experts to prioritise which claims to assess, increasing the potential for error and oversight.

These tasks not only delay the verification of important legal claims but also lead to inconsistencies due to varying interpretations, which can further erode trust in the accuracy of legal assessments in fast-moving situations. 

Approach

To address these challenges, Dalil and Les Surligneurs developed a transformative AI tool that dramatically improves the speed and accuracy of the legal verification process for IHL. The tool utilises cutting-edge AI technology to streamline manual, labor-intensive aspects of legal checking, particularly in the following ways:

• Automated data ingestion and retrieval: The tool integrates legal data in a comprehensive IHL knowledge base, allowing for the rapid identification and retrieval of relevant legal texts. This significantly reduces the time spent manually searching through multiple sources.

• AI-driven interpretation of legal frameworks: A fine-tuned large language model (LLM) interprets complex legal language and rules, offering initial assessments of legal claims based on IHL. This step helps legal professionals by providing accurate, machine-assisted interpretations, which can then be reviewed by experts.

• Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) technology: The system uses RAG to enhance the precision of information retrieval and claim extraction, ensuring that both majority and minority legal opinions are surfaced for consideration.

• Language-agnostic capabilities: The AI tool is equipped to handle multilingual inputs, making it adaptable to the varied linguistic needs of international legal professionals.

• Expert review process: Although AI significantly accelerates the verification process, humans must still process the outputs to ensure authenticity and adherence to legal standards. This synthesis of human expertise and AI ensures both speed and accuracy.

• Support from a dedicated chatbot: The AI tool includes a chatbot interface that aids in the analysis of claims, enabling legal professionals to quickly access and verify information related to IHL claims.

• Future expansion: Plans to integrate a telephone or application service connected to the AI system’s API will further expand access and usability.

Outcomes

This innovative AI solution has revolutionised the legal checking and claim extraction process for International Humanitarian Law. By automating the retrieval and interpretation of legal information, the tool has drastically reduced the time and effort required for legal verification, allowing legal experts to focus on ensuring accuracy rather than sifting through vast amounts of data. The result is faster, more consistent legal assessments, which help counter disinformation and reinforce trust in the integrity of legal claims in high-stakes situations.