Rights as alternative game forms

The paper analyzes the problem of modeling rights using extensive game forms with perfect information. Three dimensions of rights – protocol, autonomy and power – are identified and it is shown, that under a certain condition, the effectivity function captures completely all rights relevant aspects of a game form. The condition under which this is possible is interpretable both as a particular formulation of individual liberty and as a rejection of consequentialism. I wish to express my debt to Professor A.K. Sen and P.K. Pattanaik for several helpful discussions on rights as game forms. I also wish to thank professors N. Balke, M. Dasgupta, M. Davis, J. Hadar, A. Sengupta, and W.M. Thomson for their comments.