Informatics and the Foundations of Legal Reasoning represents a close collaboration between a wide range of disciplines and countries. Fourteen papers, together with a long analytical introduction by the editors, were selected from the contributions of legal theorists, computer scientists, philosophers and logicians who were members of an International Working Group supported by the European Commission. The Group was mandated to work towards determining how far the law is amenable to formal modeling, and in what ways computers might assist legal thinking and practice. The book is the result of discussions held by the Group over two and half years. It will help students and researchers from different backgrounds to focus on a common set of topics of increasing general interest. It embodies the results of work in progress and suggests many issues for further discussion.
A stimulating text for undergraduate and graduate courses in law, philosophy and computer science departments, as well as for those interested in the place of computers in legal practice, especially at the international level.

Introduction; Z. Bankowski, I. White, U. Hahn. Policy Arguments and Legal Reasoning; J. Bell. Defeasibility in Law and Logic; N. MacCormick. Defeasibility in Legal Reasoning; G. Sartor. On Some Problems of the Theory of Legal Argumentation; E. Hilgendorf. Analogical Reasoning and Legal Institutions; Z. Bankowski. The Redundancy of Reasoning; S.C. Smith. Ontology and Dimension in Legal Reasoning; G. Samuel. Common Law Concepts: the Problem of Indefinability; G. Pipe. Formalization, Invention, Justification; G. Barden. On the Role of Deontic Logic in the Characterization of Normative Systems; A.J.I. Jones, M. Sergot. AI, Legal Theory and EC Law: a Mapping of the Main Problems; J. Bengoetxea. Building an Intestate Succession Adviser: Compartmentalisation and Creativity in Decision Support Systems; L. Edwards. Legislation as Logic Programs; R.A. Kowalski. Using Information Technology as a Determiner of Legal Facts; S. Dewitz. Index.