The First International Workshop on Requirements Engineering and Law (RELAW 2008) will be held in Barcelona (Spain), September 9, 2008, in conjunction with the 16th IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference. The workshop theme is:

What steps must organizations take to demonstrate that their software systems and data practices comply with government laws and regulations?

Over the past several decades, we have experienced tremendous growth in new infrastructure, business practices, products and services that use information to achieve stakeholder goals. Recent compliance challenges include electronic voting, patient medical records, corporate governance and national identification cards. To address similar challenges, this growth has drawn the attention of regulators, lawyers, engineers and academics in a shared pursuit to understand the historical and social impact of existing laws and regulations on emerging technology. The costs to brand, infrastructure and the public of violating the law are often prohibitive and the challenges to ensure that software systems comply with the law are viewed differently by those involved.
The First International Workshop on Requirements Engineering and Law is a multi-disciplinary, one-day workshop that will bring together practitioners and researchers from government, industry and academia to investigate challenges to ensuring that software systems comply with the law. The workshop will probe important issues, including the processes for identifying relevant laws and jurisdictions, aligning laws with system requirements, managing requirements and changes in the law and demonstrating how systems comply with relevant laws through evidence-based mechanisms such as documentation, testing and certification.
For further information see the workshop website.