[PASSED] Explosive Remnants of War

[Muscalia]

Jorge smiled at the European Islands' protest, shaking his head some.

"Always a loud minority...Safe to say this will pass. Needless to say, there may be action to repeal. In which case, I ask opponents of the bill to consider the following when creating your proposal: Should this be repealed, It must be replaced with a proposal of equal or greater impact on the assembly at large. We as a society, must maintain the safety of the world and ourselves, and to fail to do that defeats the purpose of the World Assembly."

[The European Islands (Ancient)]

We have decided to change our mind.

[Separatist Peoples]

We have decided to change our mind.

"Okay."

[Wallenburg]

Wallenburgian Cabinet of War - World Assembly Offices
Message from Chief Representative Mikael Ogenbond

---

In evaluating this resolution, I find myself in strong agreement with my predecessor, and I adopt her opinion on the merits of this bill. As with this resolution's sister law, "Landmine Safety Protocol", this piece of legislation offers little to complain about and no real controversy. The basic standards it sets for humanitarian demining operations are far from objectionable, and my office has confirmed that compliance will prove particularly easy, given the wide range of options for demining, and the ability of the Explosive Remnants of War Action Subcommittee to cooperate with the Wallenburgian government in any case of a significant demining operation.

Antipersonnel mines are of little interest to Wallenburg, and so I can anticipate that even the more hawkish legislators of our sister republics will show strong domestic support for the mandates of this resolution. As a dedicated proponent of the rights of civilian non-combatants to their lives and health, I happily vote in favor of this resolution, and encourage my colleagues to do the same.

[The Silver Sentinel]

Wallenburgian Cabinet of War - World Assembly Offices
Message from Chief Representative Mikael Ogenbond

---

In evaluating this resolution, I find myself in strong agreement with my predecessor, and I adopt her opinion on the merits of this bill. As with this resolution's sister law, "Landmine Safety Protocol", this piece of legislation offers little to complain about and no real controversy. The basic standards it sets for humanitarian demining operations are far from objectionable, and my office has confirmed that compliance will prove particularly easy, given the wide range of options for demining, and the ability of the Explosive Remnants of War Action Subcommittee to cooperate with the Wallenburgian government in any case of a significant demining operation.

Antipersonnel mines are of little interest to Wallenburg, and so I can anticipate that even the more hawkish legislators of our sister republics will show strong domestic support for the mandates of this resolution. As a dedicated proponent of the rights of civilian non-combatants to their lives and health, I happily vote in favor of this resolution, and encourage my colleagues to do the same.

I have been through every post in this thread, and I cannot find one post where you state that you support this. Now all of a sudden you are singing its praises?

[Wallenburg]

I have been through every post in this thread, and I cannot find one post where you state that you support this. Now all of a sudden you are singing its praises?

OOC: We're going to incur the Wrath of Mod on this OOC silliness, but Death Star is basically just a big gun. People understand guns. Just look at my past posts with PPU to see how difficult it is to wrap people's heads around the idea of something truly out of this world. I'm not asking you here to make it believable in RL, I'm asking you how it would work in your RP explanation. (And I'd like to point out to you at this instance that I have actually thought of an RP reality way of explaining how a forest fire can be sapient!)


Which one?

OOC: If you really want my guess, I'd go with magic for the landmines. Landmines United is my puppet.

IC: "We will support the resolution at vote, in spite of some unfortunate errors, as a means of reducing civilian casualties, even at the expense of...err..." The secretary stares at the shouting landmine for a moment. "Umm...certain objectors."

I suggest that next time you look through a thread, you actually use your eyes.

[The Emerald Legion]

Slight difficulty, this is billed under Healthcare. But it has litterally nothing to do with the category whatsoever.
As written, it....

A.) Requires you to report minefields to ERWAS and cooperate with them in their attempts to remove landmines.

B.) Requires every nation in the WA to send a team to every land-mine site in the entire world. To aid in Demarcation, Clearance, and Quarantine.

C.) Requires that the mine sites be cleared at a 99.7% effectiveness rate. A rather random number. Unsure as to why it was chosen.

This has nothing to do with Health, nor the funding there of in less fortunate nations.

[Cybraxia]

Slight difficulty, this is billed under Healthcare. But it has litterally nothing to do with the category whatsoever.
As written, it....

A.) Requires you to report minefields to ERWAS and cooperate with them in their attempts to remove landmines.

B.) Requires every nation in the WA to send a team to every land-mine site in the entire world. To aid in Demarcation, Clearance, and Quarantine.

C.) Requires that the mine sites be cleared at a 99.7% effectiveness rate. A rather random number. Unsure as to why it was chosen.

This has nothing to do with Health, nor the funding there of in less fortunate nations.

OOC: Catagory was agreed to be correct by mods, and the percentage wasn't random. I'd quote to the post explaining it, but I'm on mobile.

[Cybraxia]

OOC: Okay, read through this a few times, and I can only come up with a couple minor nitpicks:

-- 99.7% seems a bit arbitrary.

-- "Member states are required to report sites with significant risks to civilian populations as a result of explosive remnants of war" -- what constitutes a "significant risk"?

OOC: It's 3 standard deviations from a mean on a probability bell curve, as expressed in a percentage. It's mathematically derived, not arbitrary. Regardless of the actual number of the mean, three standard deviations in either direction will cover 99.7% of the data.

That means that, for a given reliability of a method or combination of methods, a nation will not be penalized for missing a particularly difficult to detect explosive device. However, civilians should not be allowed back into an area that is not safe. To do so would undermine the trust in demining operations and render huge swathes of land uninhabitable. With the current standard, which mirrors the UN's demining standard, out of 1000 UXO devices, only 3 will survive the sweep in a given area. If that percentage of reliability were backed down to, say, 95%, that would leave 50 devices in that same area. This is much more dangerous. Remember, this doesn't mean that, for a given plot of land, 99.7% of the mines must be removed. It says that the methods need to test that reliably, so that it is expected that no less than 3 mines or unexploded shells in 1000 would be missed in the first place. Would you prefer testing standards on brakes in your car be at 99.7%, or 95%?

This is an important number to get right. The value in reliably resettling displaced civilians is lost if those areas remain dangerous, and many of these civilians, who have already lost everything by having to flee in the first place, have very little and are unable to leave. As seen in areas like Cambodia or Rwanda, they lack the means to relocate or significantly deviate their day to day activity, because they are already living at or below the level of sustenance. Being unable to change their day to day patterns, they are forced into areas improperly cleared, and end up victims of a war that they thought was over.

Insofar as it is three standard deviations, rather than two or four, yes. The number is somewhat arbitrary. But, considering it is a statistical value, for which four deviations would be too extreme and two deviations, 95.45%, being too lax, it is sensibly placed. It allows for very rapid statistical analyses and ease of data interpretation. For the record, one standard deviation would be 68%, which would be appalling.

OOC: NVM, Quoting anyways.

[Wallenburg]

Explosive Remnants of War was passed 11,028 votes to 3,826.

Congratulations, CDSP. Good work on both resolutions.

[Paffnia]

Per the opinion of the 10000 Islands, I cast the region's vote FOR this resolution. Congrats on its passage!