All around the world, people are talking about the United Nations Global Digital Compact ("GDC").
But our tools for communicating about the zero draft are out of date. Consultation processes generate extraordinary numbers of documents, all of which require in-text references that are poorly connected to the draft (eg, “Objective 5, para 49(a)(ii)”) .
People still deal with legal documents as if they were written on paper and Syncopate's tools are going to change that.
We have digitised the Global Digital Compact
Today we're sharing a working prototype. It consists of the "zero draft" of the Global Digital Compact, which has been converted to a structured dataset. Each block has a unique identifier generated programmatically from the numbering used in the text.
The dataset version of the GDC has been incorporated into lightweight browser-based software which displays user-generated annotations and tags from a parallel digital dataset. Each unique identifier also generates a block-by-block URL for pinpoint referencing.
The GDC text, unique identifiers, tags and annotations can all be manipulated as datasets, allowing search, filtering, sorting, export, and any other function performed with digital data.
We are designing for interoperability and security and working toward open source. Anyone with access to the list of unique identifiers and the GDC-as-dataset can create their own annotations.
Our annotation prototype operates entirely in your browser and will function on air-gapped machines.
Create your own annotations
You can create your own annotations by accessing the Google Sheet linked below, and following the guidance in sheet 1. Once you have created your annotations, you can send us a spreadsheet or CSV for upload to the Digitised GDC. Once they have been authenticated with you, we can publish them for you and provide you a unique link for onwards sharing.
Contact us for further services or product releases
If you work with legal documents, we want to work with you. Contact us if you would like early access to our private annotation tools, to incorporate our products into your own public consultations, or to commission a digitised version of another legal document.