ThinkPiece - Using WYSH Computer Programs to Model the Alien Tort Claims Act

By Eric Allen Engle

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Eric Allen Engle, ThinkPiece - Using WYSH Computer Programs to Model the Alien Tort Claims Act, 6 Yale Journal of Law & Technology 161 (2004).

This paper argues that an artificial intelligence algorithm can model some of the principles of civil procedure. The binary conditionals used in civil procedure - e.g., personal jurisdiction exists/does not exist - correspond closely to the Boolean logic used by computers. Modeling procedural rules on a computer is thus possible and possibly useful. To illustrate this thesis, this paper applies the WYSH computer programming language to the Alien Tort Claims Act and Torture Victim Protection Act.