States of Affairs, Events, and Rules:
an Abstract Model of the Law

Bart Verheij and Jaap Hage

Abstract

In this paper, an abstract model of the law is presented that has three primitives: states of affairs, events, and rules. The starting point of the abstract model is that the law is a dynamic system of states of affairs which are connected by means of rules and events. The abstract model can be regarded as an ontology of the law, that can be applied to legal knowledge representation.

After an elaboration of the three primitives, the uses of the abstract model are illustrated by the analysis of central topics of law. Then we discuss heuristic guidelines for legal knowledge representation that are suggested by the abstract model. The paper concludes with a comparison with related work.

Reference:
Verheij, Bart, and Hage, Jaap (1997). States of Affairs, Events, and Rules: an Abstract Model of the Law. Legal Knowledge Based Systems. JURIX: The Tenth Conference (eds. A. Oskamp, R.V. De Mulder, C. van Noortwijk, C.A.F.M. Grütters, K. Ashley and T. Gordon), pp. 3-20. The Foundation for Legal Knowledge Systems, Nijmegen.

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