Contrary-to-Duty Rights: From Hohfeld to Agreement Revision

Abstract

We present a rights-first model of contrary-to-duty (CTD) reasoning with two remedial regimes and a revision track. In the CTD-Claim regime, when a pri- mary duty is not fulfilled and no exception applies, a remedial claim detaches auto- matically, without any recognition act. In the CTD-Power regime, a remedial claim arises only if the rights-holder exercises a recognition power; until then there is no recognised violation and no remedial duty. Revision-of-Duty (RoD) is an alternative discretionary power that adapts the primary duty without recognising a violation, keeping the purpose aligned and avoiding sanctions. Under CTD-Power, revision competes directly with recognition on the same case. We develop a model for agree- ments, give concise dynamic-logic-style specifications of guards and acts, imple- ment an institutional rights system that executes these specifications over live Ho- hfeldian bundles (with per-case exclusivity, exception handling and provenance), and show how agentic AI can use reasons to choose among the admissible acts within the rights-first framework.