Normative

Ostrom's principle 8 (nested enterprises) as a LivingIP rule: credit, monitoring, sanction and dispute rules exist at three nested levels, each with its own rule-set and a route to change the level below: the claim gate (is this one claim grounded and attributed), the domain agent (does this claim fit its neighbourhood's evidence standard and links), and the core gate (does it change the shared story). A rule at one level may not be enforced by skipping a level; a core-gate rejection names which lower-level check it failed. Ostrom: "Establishing rules at one level without rules at the other levels will produce an incomplete system that may not endure over the long run." What is lost in translation: her levels are fixed by geography (tertiary canal, secondary canal, main works), ours by scope of claim, so a claim can move between levels as it gains dependents, which an irrigator's field cannot.

Keeping power in check