Content area

Abstract

The convergence of blockchain and legal technology has spurred interest in smart legal contracts, translating natural-language agreements into self-executing code. This thesis addresses the challenge of automating the translation process using a large language model. It focuses on Horizon Europe consortium agreements – complex, multiparty research contracts – and their implementation as decentralized autonomous organizations on a Hyperledger Fabric blockchain. The motivation arises from the significant time and expertise required to convert legal terms into secure smart contracts manually. The research aims to bridge the gap between legal text and operational code by leveraging advanced natural language processing and artificial intelligence techniques. It does so by developing a test-driven pipeline that takes legal clauses as input and produces validated smart contract code as output. The methodology integrates a large language model to interpret and transform contractual language into chaincode functions. At the same time, a suite of automated tests derived from the contract’s provisions ensures the fidelity and correctness of the generated code. By adopting principles from software engineering (such as behavior and test-driven development) in the legal context, the pipeline runs pre-written unit tests on the generated code to ensure its functionality and further improve it. This approach is demonstrated through a Horizon Europe case study, translating consortium agreement clauses (e.g., intellectual property rights, payment terms, liability) into self-executing Fabric chaincode. Significantly, the research contributes a framework for reducing ambiguity and enforcing legal compliance in smart contracts. It highlights both the promise and current limitations of state-of-the-art large language models in legal applications, showcasing a novel intersection of artificial intelligence and law: using large language models, complemented by robust automated testing, to reliably automate the generation of executable smart contracts based on legal agreements, paving the way for more trustworthy and efficient consortium governance in Horizon Europe and beyond. 

Details

1010268
Business indexing term
Title
Automated Translation of Legal Instruments to Smart Contracts Using Large Language Models
Number of pages
97
Publication year
2025
Degree date
2025
School code
0010
Source
MAI 86/11(E), Masters Abstracts International
ISBN
9798314878460
Committee member
Crandall, Jedidiah
University/institution
Arizona State University
Department
Computer Science
University location
United States -- Arizona
Degree
M.S.
Source type
Dissertation or Thesis
Language
English
Document type
Dissertation/Thesis
Dissertation/thesis number
31995513
ProQuest document ID
3202665185
Document URL
https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/automated-translation-legal-instruments-smart/docview/3202665185/se-2?accountid=208611
Copyright
Database copyright ProQuest LLC; ProQuest does not claim copyright in the individual underlying works.
Database
ProQuest One Academic