Applying the Akoma Ntoso XML Schema to Japanese Legislation

This paper presents a case study for avoiding ambiguous annotation when applying Akoma Ntoso, an XML schema for parliamentary documents, to Japanese statutes, which follow strict drafting rules. The Japanese statutory schema is designed to reflect the rules, while the Akoma Ntoso schema has underlying structural ambiguity due to its flexibility. We propose a method to convert from the former to the latter schema and provide a subset of Akoma Ntoso that retains a strict annotation approach.