[DRAFT] Convention Against Violence

[Losthaven]

For now, we're drawing a line here. The world assembly should not be specifically legitimizing political assassination. That would go against the World Assembly's democratic ideals.

"The World Assembly is explicitly barred from blocking non-democratic entities or compelling democracy. Its attempts to legitimize actual democratic events have only managed to compound the transition from non-democratic to democratic rule. The WA, except in it's own voting procedure, is not a bastion of democratic ideals, nor does it push democracy as a goal. It is not allowed to. As such, there are no ideals for such an allowance to go against in the first place."

This proposal does not ban any ideology and "political assassination" is not an ideology. The WA is built on a democratic principle: we vote on legislation and the majority rules.

We won't make an exception for killing political rivals; we won't suggest via WA legislation that, for example, shooting Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a legitimate act of "political violence." Please stop asking for that.

I responded to this concern thusly:...

"Legitimate cases can be made regarding abortion and cultural site preservation, as they either affect human rights or resources valuable to entities beyond national borders (not to mention the resolution specifically dealt with those sites in an international conflict context). Banning certain insurance setups is, I agree, hardly international. Just because the Assembly has passed non-international legislation in the past doesn't mean we ought encourage it now."

How is the right to be free from violence less of a human right than the right to secure an abortion? To be clear, we are not arguing that the WA should legislate on violence because we've legislated on non-international topics before. We are arguing that violence is an international issue as much as any other we've legislated on.

Put more simply, this is an international issue because the reality of interpersonal violence, like slavery and torture, is such a prominent issue in the lives of so many people, causing so much world wide suffering and pain, that this Assembly of Nations must take note and address it. Regardless of whether violence spills over international borders or occurs only within the snug confines of a single nation, it is such an important issue that this Assembly must discuss and address it.

"Except that the World Assembly has never considered there to be a right to life, just bodily sovereignty. It maintains that nations can choose to engage in war and execution, corporal punishment, and even, through deliberate negligence, refuse aid to external populations or craft. Mostly because the sort of interpersonal violence you're trying to target has too many nuances nation-by-nation for the World Assembly to address in a single, unamendable, 3,500 character law."

There have been comprehensive pieces of legislation before. CoCR is a good example of one law that covers a whole host of discrimination in one fell swoop. We think the same can be done for violence if enough nations participate: surely we can come to consensus on something this fundamental, as we have time and time before.

"To be fair, I can see the intent, but unfortunately the draft is going down a slippery slope. As mentioned before by the Urrsish delegation I believe, the use of "reasonable" force that cannot be qualitatively judged makes the entire draft one that is unworkable. How about abuse inflicted through mental means, that may have more dire consequences that the aftermath of physical violence? What about forms of sports which - although do not aim to kill - may cause death and require people to sign indemnity forms? On what grey area of this "violence" do they lie on?"

We responded to the "but we don't know what 'reasonable' means?" argument earlier in the post. Unless the World Assembly is made up of a bunch of Bill Clintons we expect national government to understand the concept of "reasonable" and interpret it in good faith.

"Essentially, while the idea itself is not dead-on-arrival, the phrasing of how the issue is meant to be addressed, as well as the vast scope of violence per se makes this idea unworkable within an acceptable word limit that the gnomes force us to fit into. Ask yourself why previous billwriters have chosen a specific topic of focus: rape, pillage, slavery, torture, etc to write. They all involve violence, but yet one small segment in itself suffice in a bill of its own. The Losthaven delegation will never get an acceptable draft within 3500 words on the entire topic of violence, in the Elkean delegation's opinion."

"Neither have anyone before proved that they are able to do so on a comparable topic of such vast scales and depth."

If you have specific ideas about how to tighten the draft up we'd be glad to hear them, but we aren't afraid of the 3500 character limit being a bar to comprehensive legislation: so long as the legislation is broad and general, it should be able to cover a broad, general topic. Much like CoCR did.

Though you do bring up a good point: we don't want this to be a blocker and we'll add an anti-blocker provision to the next draft.

[Separatist Peoples]

This proposal does not ban any ideology and "political assassination" is not an ideology. The WA is built on a democratic principle: we vote on legislation and the majority rules.

"Only in its own mechanism for ruling. It does not endorse democratic ideals over any other because it is barred from doing exactly that. I am not claiming that it is an ideology."

We won't make an exception for killing political rivals; we won't suggest via WA legislation that, for example, shooting Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a legitimate act of "political violence." Please stop asking for that.

"Your lack of respect of cultural difference is quite telling. Just because we don't approve of such methods doesn't indicate a necessity to interfere with a purely domestic matter."

How is the right to be free from violence less of a human right than the right to secure an abortion? To be clear, we are not arguing that the WA should legislate on violence because we've legislated on non-international topics before. We are arguing that violence is an international issue as much as any other we've legislated on.

"Because the level of acceptable violence changes from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. What comes after an international homicide law? Universal speed limits? This is a determination for national and sub-national jurisdictions."

There have been comprehensive pieces of legislation before. CoCR is a good example of one law that covers a whole host of discrimination in one fell swoop. We think the same can be done for violence if enough nations participate: surely we can come to consensus on something this fundamental, as we have time and time before.

"And still has a host of technical issues requiring follow-up legislation. Wasting the Assembly's time with a resolution that won't do anything in the first place is not acceptable to us."

We responded to the "but we don't know what 'reasonable' means?" argument earlier in the post. Unless the World Assembly is made up of a bunch of Bill Clintons we expect national government to understand the concept of "reasonable" and interpret it in good faith.

"Unfortunately, it is...I believe the term "sex addict" is enshrined in law somewhere describing the ambassadors here."

[The Dark Star Republic]

"According to this resolution, resetting a dislocated shoulder would be a violation of international law.

"Is there anything that would convince you not to go ahead with what is undoubtedly one of the worst proposal drafts ever presented to the GA? If there's another project you'd consider, we'd do almost anything to help, so as to avoid ever seeing this stupefying monstrosity again."

~ Daisy Chinmusic
Legislative Intern

[Losthaven]

This proposal does not ban any ideology and "political assassination" is not an ideology. The WA is built on a democratic principle: we vote on legislation and the majority rules.

"Only in its own mechanism for ruling. It does not endorse democratic ideals over any other because it is barred from doing exactly that. I am not claiming that it is an ideology."

I think we're saying the same thing. I suppose we agree that the WA, in principle, does not exist to further democracy (although there is the "Furtherment of Democracy" category and no corollary "Furtherment of Authoritarian Dictatorship" category... but I digress). We also agree that the WA, by its function as a democracy, at least exemplifies democratic principles.

And we both agree that this proposal is not an ideological ban; all philosophical discussion on the WA's institutional bent toward democratic process (or, I suppose, lack thereof) notwithstanding.

We won't make an exception for killing political rivals; we won't suggest via WA legislation that, for example, shooting Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a legitimate act of "political violence." Please stop asking for that.

"Your lack of respect of cultural difference is quite telling. Just because we don't approve of such methods doesn't indicate a necessity to interfere with a purely domestic matter."

We interfere with the "purely domestic matter" of slave ownership. There's no right to kill someone you don't agree with politically, and it's not culturally insensitive to say so.

How is the right to be free from violence less of a human right than the right to secure an abortion? To be clear, we are not arguing that the WA should legislate on violence because we've legislated on non-international topics before. We are arguing that violence is an international issue as much as any other we've legislated on.

"Because the level of acceptable violence changes from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. What comes after an international homicide law? Universal speed limits? This is a determination for national and sub-national jurisdictions."

We hardly think taking an international stand on violence will open the door for international speed limits. This proposal doesn't micromanage anyway.

There have been comprehensive pieces of legislation before. CoCR is a good example of one law that covers a whole host of discrimination in one fell swoop. We think the same can be done for violence if enough nations participate: surely we can come to consensus on something this fundamental, as we have time and time before.

"And still has a host of technical issues requiring follow-up legislation. Wasting the Assembly's time with a resolution that won't do anything in the first place is not acceptable to us."

We will include an anti-blocker provision in the next draft to ensure that the WA can pass follow-up legislation. If you feel like this proposal goes nowhere/does nothing, that's a new one on us; we thought you were upset because you thought this does too much. It would be quite the trick if we passed something that was too broad and expansive at not doing anything at all.

We responded to the "but we don't know what 'reasonable' means?" argument earlier in the post. Unless the World Assembly is made up of a bunch of Bill Clintons we expect national government to understand the concept of "reasonable" and interpret it in good faith.

"Unfortunately, it is...I believe the term "sex addict" is enshrined in law somewhere describing the ambassadors here."

"According to this resolution, resetting a dislocated shoulder would be a violation of international law."

Nonsense, that use of force would obviously be consensual. There's WA law on non consensual medical procedures already, isn't there?

"Is there anything that would convince you not to go ahead with what is undoubtedly one of the worst proposal drafts ever presented to the GA? If there's another project you'd consider, we'd do almost anything to help, so as to avoid ever seeing this stupefying monstrosity again."

We feel like we're making progress with this draft. There's no harm in floating it, is there?

[Separatist Peoples]

I think we're saying the same thing. I suppose we agree that the WA, in principle, does not exist to further democracy (although there is the "Furtherment of Democracy" category and no corollary "Furtherment of Authoritarian Dictatorship" category... but I digress). We also agree that the WA, by its function as a democracy, at least exemplifies democratic principles.

And we both agree that this proposal is not an ideological ban; all philosophical discussion on the WA's institutional bent toward democratic process (or, I suppose, lack thereof) notwithstanding.

"Well, there is Political Stability, which is the opposite of FoD in effect."

We interfere with the "purely domestic matter" of slave ownership. There's no right to kill someone you don't agree with politically, and it's not culturally insensitive to say so.

"I think you're conflating my idea of an attrition-based leadership to a bloodbath in the streets. Plenty of regimes change by ousting and killing the predecessor, and I imagine any Fremen or Klingon delegations, for example, would be very upset if you attempted to change that. Though, I think the last Klingons I saw in this chamber stormed out after breaking somebody's arm..."

We hardly think taking an international stand on violence will open the door for international speed limits. This proposal doesn't micromanage anyway.

"How is determining what constitutes lawful or unlawful violence on a universal level despite dramatically different approaches in every nation to the issue not micromanagement?"

We will include an anti-blocker provision in the next draft to ensure that the WA can pass follow-up legislation. If you feel like this proposal goes nowhere/does nothing, that's a new one on us; we thought you were upset because you thought this does too much. It would be quite the trick if we passed something that was too broad and expansive at not doing anything at all.

"I apologize for being unclear. I was assuming that you made enough changes to account for every exception. Generally, that renders something toothless. Since we're still haggling over exceptions, its not really there yet. I can see I wasn't nearly as clear as I ought to have been with that point, though."[/quote]

[Jarish Inyo]

Think the Klingon delegation would have issues with the part that clause 2 that requires that "cultural types of violence" must me done away with. Personally, I can't vote for anything that forces cultures to changes without their consent.

[Sciongrad]

Think the Klingon delegation would have issues with the part that clause 2 that requires that "cultural types of violence" must me done away with. Personally, I can't vote for anything that forces cultures to changes without their consent.

"This would entail voting against perhaps every meaningful resolution ever passed. 'Slavery is a part of our culture!' 'Torture is a part of our culture!' ad nauseam. There are many reasons to vote against this resolution - that violence is a part of a nation's culture that must not be disturbed is not one of them."

[Separatist Peoples]

Think the Klingon delegation would have issues with the part that clause 2 that requires that "cultural types of violence" must me done away with. Personally, I can't vote for anything that forces cultures to changes without their consent.

"This would entail voting against perhaps every meaningful resolution ever passed. 'Slavery is a part of our culture!' 'Torture is a part of our culture!' ad nauseam. There are many reasons to vote against this resolution - that violence is a part of a nation's culture that must not be disturbed is not one of them."

"No, but there are certain, very deliberately specific examples where it can be considered acceptable in a culture. An excuse for wanton violence is not an excuse, but there absolutely culturally valuable reasons to do so, such as the case in the change of leadership in many decentralized cultural units, like tribes and clans, or, again, in those cases of anarchic societies where justice is meted out by all members of society, and not just police officers. Its a very fine line that, I at least, feel is defined by intent and context. Neither of which this considers."

[Krieg-Deathworld]

Throw this away and burn it.

[The Arkam Asylum]

Everyone here has valid concerns about the issues in this draft. In my opinion if this many people have this many disagreements you need to go back to the drawing board. Not trying to be insulting but this has no chance of reaching a vote as is

[The Miskatonic Valley]

Besides, we happen to enjoy violence.