metadata

license: mit
task_categories:
  - text-classification
  - question-answering
  - text-generation
tags:
  - legal
size_categories:
  - 10K<n<100K

EUR-Lex SDG-Annotated Dataset

Dataset Summary

The EUR-Lex SDG-Annotated Dataset enhances the original EUR-Lex dataset by mapping European Union legislation documents to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Each document in this dataset has been annotated using a rule-based keyword matching approach, leveraging SDG-related terms and synonyms extracted from an Excel-based term matrix.

This dataset provides researchers, policymakers, and data scientists with a unique resource to analyze the alignment of EU legislation with global sustainability objectives, facilitating tasks such as legal text classification, sustainability impact analysis, and policy research.

Dataset Structure

Annotation Method: Rule-based keyword matching using SDG-related terms from EU SDG Mapper

Data Splits:

train
validation
test

Features

Each document in the dataset includes the following fields:

celex_id: Unique identifier for the legal document.
title: Title of the document.
text: Full text of the document.
SDG 1 to SDG 17: Proportional coverage of each SDG, calculated based on keyword matches. The values represent the ratio of matched keywords for a specific SDG relative to total matches across all SDGs in the document.

Annotation Process

Keyword Extraction

SDG-related keywords were extracted from the EU SDG Mapper and organized into a structured Excel file. The file contains a list of terms and synonyms aligned with each SDG.

Rule-Based Matching

Each document from the EUR-Lex dataset was processed to identify occurrences of SDG-related keywords. The matching was case-insensitive and covered a wide range of synonyms for comprehensive coverage.

Coverage Calculation

For each document, the proportion of matched keywords for each SDG was calculated relative to the total number of matched keywords. This provides a normalized representation of SDG relevance for each document.

Annotation Process

Keyword Extraction
SDG-related keywords were extracted from the EU SDG Mapper and organized into a structured Excel file. The file contains a list of terms and synonyms aligned with each SDG.
Rule-Based Matching
Each document from the EUR-Lex dataset was processed to identify occurrences of SDG-related keywords. The matching was case-insensitive and covered a wide range of synonyms for comprehensive coverage.
Coverage Calculation
For each document, the proportion of matched keywords for each SDG was calculated relative to the total number of matched keywords. This provides a normalized representation of SDG relevance for each document.

Usage Example

To load and explore the dataset using the Hugging Face datasets library:

from datasets import load_dataset

# Load the dataset
dataset = load_dataset('your-username/eurlex-sdg-annotated', split='train')

# View a sample document
print(dataset[0])

Applications

Legal Document Classification: Classify EU legislation based on their alignment with SDGs.
Policy Analysis: Assess the focus of EU policies on sustainability goals.
Research on SDG Impact: Study the integration of sustainability in legal frameworks.
Natural Language Processing: Use the dataset for training models in text classification, keyword extraction, or topic modeling.

Citation

If you use this dataset in your research, please cite it as follows:

@dataset{eurlex_sdg_annotated,
  title = {EUR-Lex SDG-Annotated Dataset},
  author = {Raza ul Haq},
  year = {2025},
  url = {https://huggingface.co/datasets/razaulhaq/eurlex-sdg-annotated}
}

Acknowledgments

Original Dataset: The base EUR-Lex dataset was created by the NLP Group at the Athens University of Economics and Business (NLP-AUEB).
SDG Keywords Source: The SDG terminology and keywords were sourced from the EU SDG Mapper.
SDG Framework: The SDG goals are derived from the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals framework.