[PASSED] The Central Library Compact

[The Atlae Isles]

After reviewing the proposal in more detail, I am getting more and more appalled by this proposal with every passing minute.

Given that I have always held to the belief that education is the silver bullet - that it can be the solution to almost every problem out there, and that every person deserves the best education they can have and the best education they want - it is a wonder that a proposal such as this, one that appears to have a sole purpose of increasing education across The WA, can make me despair so much and just make me recommend leaving The WA to My Tri-Arch and her executive council.

We are both very supportive of The ULC - spreading information by the most expedient means available, is something that both I and My Tri-Arch can be supportive of. And while we do occasionally take part in the ULEN part of the resolution, we do it so rarely and only for books that we consider to be of great importance.

However having a single, central library for the whole of The WA is just insane. And crazy. And insane. As I have said previously - shipping books off to some central location - potentially thousands of miles, maybe billions of miles, from Calladan - doesn't seem to serve the people of my nation all that well.

It's voluntary. You may DONATE them. You do not have to send them off.

First - it removes those books from our country, depriving our citizens of the chance to read them, and places them somewhere completely out of our control. So we are most likely to donate crappy books of which we have thousands of copies ("Trixie Goes To The Big City" - a riveting read about a sheep that goes to a big city to pursue an acting career) and never donate important, one of a kind books (one of the hand written records of the leader of The Blessed Order) because we don't want to risk them being destroyed or damaged.

On the contrary, Ambassador, it spreads the books. I assume, by looking at your "Industry: Book Publishing" that since you have a book publishing industry in the top 17%, you will have no problem printing books. In fact, as said before, it's VOLUNTARY. You do not have to participate, but it would be preferred if you did. You could scan the books (Trixie Goes to the Big City and Written Records) and send them off, or use microfiche. But without a central library, other nations would never read the riveting stories coming from your country. Illiteracy rates wouldn't go down.

Second - no matter what insurance you have against fire, flood and other damage, there is always the danger of it. And while you can compensate us for the loss of the books, IT DOESN'T BRING BACK THE BOOKS. Now I accept that the same thing can happen when the books are in Calladan, but we accept that, and we have faith in our own systems. We are not sending them off to be managed by people we don't know in a place we might never visit.

Yes, Ambassador, there is always a risk. Of course, there are precautions people take for them, like halon gas (now illegal), argon, or other automatic fire suppression. Now floods, we would know when they happen. We could ship them off to another place, or give them back. If you know the perfect system of book preservation, please. Tell us.

Now, book loss. Yes, it's tragic. But we can bring back the books. Unlike other systems that fail (OOC: Library of Alexandria) all texts are, these days, backed up electronically. Also, these books would be sold locally in member countries, just like regular libraries.

Third - we would be obligated to withdraw from our participation in the ULEN if this proposal goes through.

So? That's your decision, not ours.

Fourth - it's a backwards step. Information and the distribution of it is the single most powerful force for good in the known universe. You don't centralise it in one place - you distribute it and disseminate it as WIDELY as you can using the most expedient and best means possible. This is not it, and neither I nor my government will be a party to it.

You seem to forget, Ambassador, that we're not taking all the books from libraries and taking them all here. We just create a centralized system so as to accompany the local ones. It also serves to bail out local libraries, if they have damage of any kind, and vice versa.

[Bakhton]

"We largely approve of this natural expansion of the Universal Library Coalition. A few things however. We fail to see any mention of the sorts of texts to be allowed in the WACLC. If this is not specified member nations could in an act of spite, flood these facilities full of their letters and garbage. As well, there should be a section of the clause on reconstructing old works that 1. the works may not be altered from their original intent, and 2. the up-most care shall be taken in the handling of said rare items. If these things are added we would enthusiastically support this proposal as opposed to our more mild approval at the current moment." Lara Qzu fumbled through the transcript of the prior discussions on this proposal which have taken place in this chamber. "Also, 'For some texts to be placed on the Internet, it has to be carefully preserved, and scanned with possibly expensive equipment. I believe that a central library is essential for that.' something along these lines should be added to the introduction in order to establish the need for said proposal."

[Balochistan and New York]

Our nation supports this Proposal and believes books are an important pillar in society, When this resolution gets passed you can count on our nation to be the largest donator.

[The United Royal Islands of Euramathania]

"As a technologically advanced country I believe that hard copies can't be hacked but I also believe digital medium allows replication and reproduction as well as widespread availability. To put it bluntly we support this resolution but as for the implementation of this we believe that copies sent by each country should be restored and then copied into a new more suitable hard text. The original should either be permitted to be returned to the donating country or the copy. This wouldn't allow another Library of Alexandria to happen again as every country still retains a copy of their donated works. The copy stored in the central could than be uploaded to a cloud based site so everyone is allowed to download via the Internet and read such works. For countries lacking such technology to download and distribute digital work such as books allow the ability for a copy of the hard text to be made onsite and sent to the requesting country for reading and distribution within their own boarders. Open Sourcing Books as we say. Of course I believe you should periodically compare the hosted digital copy of the book to the hard copy of the book to ensure tampering of the digital medium has not occurred. Since the only way tampering of the hard copy would occur would be if someone physically edited the copy which is hard to do if the copy of the books are printed on tamper proof paper similar to pharmacy prescriptions.

"We largely approve of this natural expansion of the Universal Library Coalition. A few things however. We fail to see any mention of the sorts of texts to be allowed in the WACLC. If this is not specified member nations could in an act of spite, flood these facilities full of their letters and garbage. As well, there should be a section of the clause on reconstructing old works that 1. the works may not be altered from their original intent, and 2. the up-most care shall be taken in the handling of said rare items. If these things are added we would enthusiastically support this proposal as opposed to our more mild approval at the current moment." Lara Qzu fumbled through the transcript of the prior discussions on this proposal which have taken place in this chamber. "Also, 'For some texts to be placed on the Internet, it has to be carefully preserved, and scanned with possibly expensive equipment. I believe that a central library is essential for that.' something along these lines should be added to the introduction in order to establish the need for said proposal."

J. Everett: We thank the delegations from Raven Landing & Bakhton for their thoughtful insight into improving the quality of the resolution its it's effectiveness. We agree that original and rare works should stay within member states, as well as insuring that the central library will not be flooded with "A. Bott discovers love", and similar such works. We shall consult on the best wording of how to achieve this within the resolution.

Mandates that the Office of Building Management (OBM) locate suitable land(s) in international territory on which to build the WACLC, which shall:
-Insure necessary protection against fire, natural elements, and weather;

Barbera: A building cannot insure, Ambassador, and I fear that involvement with a private insurance company may compromise the neutrality of the World Assembly.

J. Everett: The intent here was to make sure that the gnomes did not build somewhere that was, for instance, near a volcano, in the middle of tornado alley, next to a black hole etc... We were not expecting miracles from the OBM.

Affirms that all donators retain cultural ownership of all written works donated to the WACLC and may elect to remove their work from circulation by proving notice of such intent to the ULCEC;

Harold: "Donators"? I'll donate a word: Donors! Speaking of which, I'll be happy to act as a brain donor. (honks nose)

Barbera: Is there a procedure for how a donor may prove a notice of intent to the Universal Library Coalition Executive Committee?

A Wilde: ~shakes her head~ "Donators." ~scoffs~ The Ambassador likes using longer words to say the same thing, I will revise that.

J. Everett: Leave my superfluous verbiage alone. Its dignified. As for the procedure to remove a written work, I am sure we can add in that it will be in writing.

OOC: I think that the GA Secretariat needs to decide definitively about how the 'Committee Only' rule works. As that rule has been interpreted by the Mods for quite a few years, this proposal -- as currently worded -- would be illegal because if you removed the committee then there would be no effect on the member nations thing left to justify the stat changes.

However - setting that aside, does this proposal actually do anything? Other than creating a bunch of committees, does it require member nations to do anything? It "encourages nations to donate books" but that is not a mandatory thing (which is good, because we have no intention of donating anything anyway) so what does this do?

OOC: In WA speak an encouragement clause is an action on member states as they cannot avoid being encouraged.
In the past, the committee rule test would be to strip out the committee(s) and see what's left. In this case, as the WACLC is a building rather than a committee, I think that clause is sufficient to get this proposal past the committee rule.

OOC: Can anyone remember what the ruling was for the court (international criminal?) thing? And how has General Fund been recently treated? Because the main issue here is "what counts as a committee"? Technically, if the WACLC isn't committee-related, then it would count as "not-a-committee", but I really can't see how it isn't committee-related.

I think we would be left with a building and purpose of storing, displaying, and restoring written works as stated in the first paragraph. Kinda like The Library from Doctor Who. Not sure what part of that is being dinged as being a committee. Also on a related note, the committees already exist in GA 78, so it is not setting up any new committees. I tried to avoid setting up a new agency to deal with essentially the same things. GA#78 already handles the internet distrubtion of works. I was more concerned with where to put them. If you have any thoughts on how to disentangle this, I'd be glad for the help.

[The Atlae Isles]

In addition, Ambassador, instead of using "insure" against fire and whatnot, use "ensure."

[The United Royal Islands of Euramathania]

J. Everett: We have provided an update of the resolution to address some of the concerns brought forward during the debate, and that it adequately meets the standards set forth by this esteemed body.

World Assembly Central Library Compact
Category: Education| Area: Cultural Heritage

The World Assembly,

Recognizing the work of the Universal Library Coalition (ULC), its Executive Committee (ULCEC), and their Universal Literary Exchange Network (ULEN), in promoting literacy and cross cultural understanding;

Concerned, however, that their mission, to preserve and distribute works of cultural importance by scanning and digitizing them, is hindered by lacking a central library within which to store physical copies of such works, and within which to have space and equipment to conduct this work;

Hereby:

Establishes and builds a World Assembly Central Library Complex (WACLC), with the purpose of:
-Restoring and Replicating older written works, which may have become damaged with age,
-Collecting new and informative written works for archival purposes,
-Displaying rare, unique, or important works from member states,
-Providing access to scholars, and maintaining the circulation of written works among member states;

Mandates, that in order to achieve these goals, that the ULC be tasked with:
-Collecting and preserving written texts as donated by member states to the WACLC, and returning orginal copies to their donor,
-Providing for the display of and public access to written texts donated by member states at the WACLC,
- Creating replicated copies of works within the WACLC which may not be stable enough for public handling, in order to display said replicas,
-Restoring and repairing written texts which may have become damaged through age;

Mandates that ULCEC oversee and consult with member states on the restoration or replication of written works provided to ensure authenticity and validity, the security of written works donated to the WACLC, the protection of written works and replicas against loss or damage, and transfers of written works from member states to the WACLC;

Requires that for any written work provided through the ULEN, a replicated copy of the work must be donated to WACLC;

Mandates that the Office of Building Management (OBM) locate suitable land(s) and/or a planet, in international territory on which to build the WACLC, which shall:
-Have adequate access to transportation to and from the WACLC,
-Be sufficiently large enough to include for future expansion(s) of the WACLC as deemed necessary to accommodate donations of written works,
-Ensure necessary protection against fire, natural elements, and weather, or other natural phenomena;

Encourages member states, organizations, and authors to donate written works to the WACLC;

Affirms that all donors retain cultural ownership of all written works donated to the WACLC and may elect to remove their work from circulation by proving written notice of such intent to the ULCEC;

Clarifies that nothing herein shall be read as to remove written works from member states, and that all contributions to the WACLC must be voluntary;

And in doing so;

Agrees to and codifies "The World Assembly Central Library Compact"

So I hope that helps remove it from committee-only status. I have expanded its mandate and function and clarified that is a new building that is the focus, and am only using existing committees to carry out the work, and use of the building.

[Imperium Anglorum]

And in doing so;

Agrees to and codifies "The World Assembly Central Library Compact"

You don't need any of this.

[Calladan]

After reviewing the proposal in more detail, I am getting more and more appalled by this proposal with every passing minute.

Given that I have always held to the belief that education is the silver bullet - that it can be the solution to almost every problem out there, and that every person deserves the best education they can have and the best education they want - it is a wonder that a proposal such as this, one that appears to have a sole purpose of increasing education across The WA, can make me despair so much and just make me recommend leaving The WA to My Tri-Arch and her executive council.

We are both very supportive of The ULC - spreading information by the most expedient means available, is something that both I and My Tri-Arch can be supportive of. And while we do occasionally take part in the ULEN part of the resolution, we do it so rarely and only for books that we consider to be of great importance.

However having a single, central library for the whole of The WA is just insane. And crazy. And insane. As I have said previously - shipping books off to some central location - potentially thousands of miles, maybe billions of miles, from Calladan - doesn't seem to serve the people of my nation all that well.

It's voluntary. You may DONATE them. You do not have to send them off.

I understand that. I cam capable of understanding the difference between "mandates" and "encourages" given that I finished school and have been reading books for more than a few years now.

My point is not that I am going to be FORCED to do this, but that one of the key parts of this proposal gives no tangible benefits to the people of my nation so why would I bother supporting it. It would be like saying "Look - if you buy this computer, you get a free coffee maker thrown in" to someone who is allergic to coffee and then getting pissed off with them because they aren't excited about the coffee maker.

First - it removes those books from our country, depriving our citizens of the chance to read them, and places them somewhere completely out of our control. So we are most likely to donate crappy books of which we have thousands of copies ("Trixie Goes To The Big City" - a riveting read about a sheep that goes to a big city to pursue an acting career) and never donate important, one of a kind books (one of the hand written records of the leader of The Blessed Order) because we don't want to risk them being destroyed or damaged.

On the contrary, Ambassador, it spreads the books. I assume, by looking at your "Industry: Book Publishing" that since you have a book publishing industry in the top 17%, you will have no problem printing books. In fact, as said before, it's VOLUNTARY. You do not have to participate, but it would be preferred if you did. You could scan the books (Trixie Goes to the Big City and Written Records) and send them off, or use microfiche. But without a central library, other nations would never read the riveting stories coming from your country. Illiteracy rates wouldn't go down.

We already scan our books and submit them to The ULC where other nations may read them. Now if this shiny new book depository wants to print copies from the web, they are free to do so - they can print them, bind them and store them at their own cost and I will have no objection to that. But since we are ALREADY taking the time to scan and submit books to a central online book repository, I see no reason why we should spend yet MORE money to support something we find utterly pointless.

Second - no matter what insurance you have against fire, flood and other damage, there is always the danger of it. And while you can compensate us for the loss of the books, IT DOESN'T BRING BACK THE BOOKS. Now I accept that the same thing can happen when the books are in Calladan, but we accept that, and we have faith in our own systems. We are not sending them off to be managed by people we don't know in a place we might never visit.

Yes, Ambassador, there is always a risk. Of course, there are precautions people take for them, like halon gas (now illegal), argon, or other automatic fire suppression. Now floods, we would know when they happen. We could ship them off to another place, or give them back. If you know the perfect system of book preservation, please. Tell us.

Now, book loss. Yes, it's tragic. But we can bring back the books. Unlike other systems that fail (OOC: Library of Alexandria) all texts are, these days, backed up electronically. Also, these books would be sold locally in member countries, just like regular libraries.

We don't know of a perfect book preservation system, but as I said - if we keep our most precious and important books in Calladan, we can protect them as we see fit, and if we lose them, we know we have no one to blame but ourselves if they are damaged or lost.

Third - we would be obligated to withdraw from our participation in the ULEN if this proposal goes through.

So? That's your decision, not ours.

Yes - and since this is a list of MY objections to this proposal, I think that this is a relatively important one and was worth mentioning.

Fourth - it's a backwards step. Information and the distribution of it is the single most powerful force for good in the known universe. You don't centralise it in one place - you distribute it and disseminate it as WIDELY as you can using the most expedient and best means possible. This is not it, and neither I nor my government will be a party to it.

You seem to forget, Ambassador, that we're not taking all the books from libraries and taking them all here. We just create a centralized system so as to accompany the local ones. It also serves to bail out local libraries, if they have damage of any kind, and vice versa.

[/quote]

The ULC does that perfectly well. This is just a power grab for whichever nation/nations get to host the actual building that the books will be in, and it while it will possibly benefit a few nations (those who can afford to send their citizens to this central location to read the books) every other nation will either end up ignoring it (because why bother sending books halfway across the universe to a place where you are never going to visit) or will send books to it and never get any benefit from it (and after half a year or so of this will end up ignoring it).

And - as I said - it's backwards and recessive. We started with words, people told stories and we had an Oral Tradition. Then people started writing them down, and we got scrolls, and tablets. But these had to be hand copied, so it was a slow process. So then we got the printing press and my gods the world was revolutionised again - we got books and newspapers and the information revolution took off. But now even books and newspapers are coming to an end because a book can only be shared with one person at a time. But you generate an electronic copy and it can be duplicated far, far more easily - you can literally share it with everyone. Books, newspapers, magazines, information can be shared right around the world. We have the greatest tools of mass media at our finger tips and this proposal will set us back to the virtual dark ages.

Instead of spending boatloads of money on this, we should be ensuring more people can access the internet - more people can have access to The ULC.

I realise this is not a popular view, but books are done and we should not be spending time and effort collecting them when there are better things we can do.

[Bears Armed]

OOC: I think that the GA Secretariat needs to decide definitively about how the 'Committee Only' rule works. As that rule has been interpreted by the Mods for quite a few years, this proposal -- as currently worded -- would be illegal because if you removed the committee then there would be no effect on the member nations thing left to justify the stat changes.

In the past, the committee rule test would be to strip out the committee(s) and see what's left. In this case, as the WACLC is a building rather than a committee, I think that clause is sufficient to get this proposal past the committee rule.

OOC: Can anyone remember what the ruling was for the court (international criminal?) thing? And how has General Fund been recently treated? Because the main issue here is "what counts as a committee"? Technically, if the WACLC isn't committee-related, then it would count as "not-a-committee", but I really can't see how it isn't committee-related.

I think we would be left with a building and purpose of storing, displaying, and restoring written works as stated in the first paragraph. Kinda like The Library from Doctor Who. Not sure what part of that is being dinged as being a committee. Also on a related note, the committees already exist in GA 78, so it is not setting up any new committees. I tried to avoid setting up a new agency to deal with essentially the same things. GA#78 already handles the internet distrubtion of works. I was more concerned with where to put them. If you have any thoughts on how to disentangle this, I'd be glad for the help.

On past precedent, as I remember and -- unless that rule does get changed -- would argue to apply it, "committee" in that context effectively means "committee, agency, or WA institution of any other type"... so this would be illegal.

[The United Royal Islands of Euramathania]

On past precedent, as I remember and -- unless that rule does get changed -- would argue to apply it, "committee" in that context effectively means "committee, agency, or WA institution of any other type"... so this would be illegal.

OCC: So you keep saying. But how? What makes it different from other resolutions that establish an agency, committee or GA or WA body, to carry out a purpose? The critique without clarity isn't really helpful. By my reading of what you are inferring then GA resolutions 31,60,86,287,291,320,and 322, which all establish committees before they require any changes to international laws, would be read as being 'comittee only'. Unless there is something different that you haven't mentioned as a means test for understanding this rule, that would classify this as seperate. I cannot fix it unless I know what you are meaning, and merely proclaiming that it's illegal doesn't help.

[Raven Landing]

I am in favor of the changes in this current draft, I see no issue with what is written, as for those who live extremely far away from this library I see no reason why there should be any problems, if you have already scanned and uploaded a copy of your texts to be online and available for downloading it's simply a matter of confirming what texts you want in the Library, double checking that the digital copy matches your hard copy and submitting them. The hard copy will then be made from the digital copy and stored in hard format as the standard for the particular novel which the digital copy will periodically be compared to, to ensure tampering has not occurred of the digital medium. As for it's usefulness the library should and is committed to ensuring ANYONE can receive access to the written works of donating countries be it digital medium or a sent copy of the book that is stored in the library.



OOC:

I question the validity of the claims that if they reside thousands of light years away why on earth would they be interested in listening or participating with the WA at all, the governance of this body in my belief would have very little effect or ability if they are unable to transport themselves or goods to other WA nations.

[Calladan]

I am in favor of the changes in this current draft, I see no issue with what is written, as for those who live extremely far away from this library I see no reason why there should be any problems, if you have already scanned and uploaded a copy of your texts to be online and available for downloading it's simply a matter of confirming what texts you want in the Library, double checking that the digital copy matches your hard copy and submitting them. The hard copy will then be made from the digital copy and stored in hard format as the standard for the particular novel which the digital copy will periodically be compared to, to ensure tampering has not occurred of the digital medium. As for it's usefulness the library should and is committed to ensuring ANYONE can receive access to the written works of donating countries be it digital medium or a sent copy of the book that is stored in the library.



OOC:

I question the validity of the claims that if they reside thousands of light years away why on earth would they be interested in listening or participating with the WA at all, the governance of this body in my belief would have very little effect or ability if they are unable to transport themselves or goods to other WA nations.

But again - I am forced to ask why? Why spend thousands of coins building one place when instead The WA could do something far more sensible (in my view).

If The Great Library 2.0 is just going to be a repository of printed out works from The ULC, then why centralise it? And why do we need it? If we have sent an electronic copy of a work to The ULC then it stands to reason there must be two copies of this work already - the one we have, and the one that is in The ULC. Plus (and I admit I can not speak for the rest of the member nations), but generally for books that are considered important enough to donate to The ULC, we generally keep multiple backups across Calladan.

So the idea that they need to print out a hard copy to ensure it is preserved and kept for safety and security just seems to be insane and crazy making. A hard copy - a single, solitary hard copy - is far more susceptible to damage and risk of destruction than the dozens of copies we hold electronically. I literally can not see the point of printing out a copy halfway across the universe just because someone thinks we need an extra backup of "Muffy Goes To The Market".

And then there is the expense of the building. A library big enough to hold books from all over The WA is going to have to be massive. And if it is going to require extending every time it runs out of space, it will be an on-going cost that will never end, because new books are being written all the time, new nations are joining all the time and - well, you get the idea.

Surely there are better things to spend the money on. What about - if people are so hyped up on having printed copies - member nations (or citizens within member nations) file a request for a copy of a book held in The ULC repository, and that request gets sent to the originating nation. Then The WA provides the funds (that it would have used to build a huge white elephant of a building in the middle of nowhere) to the originating nation to ship a copy of the book to the person who requested it.

To me this seems a better use of the money. Then again, taking the money and setting fire to it to keep the homeless warm at night would be a better use of the money.

[Bears Armed]

On past precedent, as I remember and -- unless that rule does get changed -- would argue to apply it, "committee" in that context effectively means "committee, agency, or WA institution of any other type"... so this would be illegal.

OCC: So you keep saying. But how? What makes it different from other resolutions that establish an agency, committee or GA or WA body, to carry out a purpose? The critique without clarity isn't really helpful. By my reading of what you are inferring then GA resolutions 31,60,86,287,291,320,and 322, which all establish committees before they require any changes to international laws, would be read as being 'comittee only'. Unless there is something different that you haven't mentioned as a means test for understanding this rule, that would classify this as seperate. I cannot fix it unless I know what you are meaning, and merely proclaiming that it's illegal doesn't help.

GAR #31:

I) Strongly encourages nations to make spending commitments to achieving decent health standards for their people;

II) Further encourages coordination between the existing health agencies of nations in order to promote decent health standards in the international community;

and

V) Strongly encourages individual nations to:
-create agencies concerned with the health of their people,
-research ways to prevent and remedy threats to decent health,
-disseminate such information in the international community in order to impede threats to decent health.

would still affect member nations if the committee wasn’t there.

GAR #60:

4) REQUIRES that nations afflicted by nuclear disasters take the following measures in dealing with the disaster, including, but not limited to:

A) Evacuating any areas that have been contaminated by radiation as a result of the disaster, beginning with areas closest to the source of radiation and moving outwards.
B) Providing clean water to areas that have had their sources of drinking water contaminated as a result of the disaster.
C) Providing immediate medical services to those suffering from radiation poisoning as a result of the disaster.
D) Clearly marking contaminated zones with multi-lingual signs, using languages present in the surrounding area.
E) Taking appropriate measures to prevent the spread of radiation by restricting or diverting the flow of contaminated waterways, where possible.

would still affect member nations if the committee wasn’t there.


GAR #86: I agree, according to the precedent that I mentioned, that proposal should have been considered illegal.

GAR #287: It’s borderline, but arguably

4. Encourages all nations to make a good faith effort to preserve their culturally relevant sites, and to assist other nations in the preservation of their culturally relevant sites,

would still affect member nations if the committee wasn’t there.

GAR #291:

URGES all states to set aside a portion of their extant forest for conservation, that such forest, or forests, be as large, and its boundaries as uniform as possible, and be in the most environmentally sensitive areas;

and

STRONGLY URGES states to avoid harvesting trees near waterways and coastlines;

ENCOURAGES that areas damaged by acts of nature, or cleared prior to the passage of this resolution, be reforested;

CALLS UPON able states to lend aid and assistance to neighboring states which may need it.

would still affect member nations if the committee wasn’t there.

GAR #320:

2. Requires that each nation encountering a public health hazard of infectious disease within their sovereign territory or any other territory under their jurisdiction:

Seek expert medical counsel to determine necessary medical precautions to be undertaken by visitors to that territory;

Publicly promulgate a travel advisory and any updates in its status until the hazard has been resolved, describing relevant medical precautions to be undertaken by visitors to that territory;

Inform, at minimum, their World Health Authority national office and the embassies, consulates and other diplomatic missions they have established with any nation from which they permit travel, of this advisory and of any updates in its status;

would still affect member nations if the committee wasn’t there.

GAR #322: I agree, according to the precedent that I mentioned, that proposal should have been considered illegal.

__________________________________

Does that help?

[Excidium Planetis]

OOC
That rule needed to go. Shame mods didn't ditch it when they threw out the WA Army rule.

Until a Bookkeeping category is introduced, I am firmly opposed to ditching the 'Committee Only' rule.

Why? You can have a Human Rights Committee, or a Disarmament Committee. Why is the Bookkeeping Category needed for committee only?

[Bears Armed]

OOC
That rule needed to go. Shame mods didn't ditch it when they threw out the WA Army rule.

I wouldn't necessarily object to getting rid of that rule , but think that doing so should only follow a formally agreed & announced change in the rules instead of just being a matter of people ceasing to enforce it.

[Excidium Planetis]

OOC
That rule needed to go. Shame mods didn't ditch it when they threw out the WA Army rule.

I wouldn't necessarily object to getting rid of that rule , but think that doing so should only follow a formally agreed & announced change in the rules instead of just being a matter of people ceasing to enforce it.

OOC
Certainly. That would open a bad precedent of GenSec choosing to ignore rules they didn't like.

[Bakhton]

GAR #322: I agree, according to the precedent that I mentioned, that proposal should have been considered illegal.

OOC: But doesn't the fact that it went through act as precedent for these sort of things not being illegal?

[Araraukar]

GAR #322: I agree, according to the precedent that I mentioned, that proposal should have been considered illegal.

OOC: But doesn't the fact that it went through act as precedent for these sort of things not being illegal?

OOC: No.

[States of Glory WA Office]

Mandates, that in order to achieve these goals, that the ULC be tasked with:
-Collecting and preserving written texts as donated by member states to the WACLC, and returning orginal copies to their donor,

Harold: An orginal copy, eh? I prefer regular copies, thank you.

Affirms that all donors retain cultural ownership of all written works donated to the WACLC and may elect to remove their work from circulation by proving written notice of such intent to the ULCEC;

Barbera: How do they prove written intent? Through a signature, perhaps? Fingerprints? A retinal scan? This proposal speaks much about proving intent, yet it is not very specific as to how such intent is to be proven.

I cam capable of understanding the difference between "mandates" and "encourages" given that I finished school and have been reading books for more than a few years now.

Barbera: It is perhaps safe to say, Ambassador McGill, that not all of the Ambassadors who have been dispatched to this august organisation are aware of the distinction between a mandate and an encouragement.

[The United Royal Islands of Euramathania]

Does that help?

OOC: Yes.that was most helpful. I will work on establishing a functional clause and mandate to states separate from the existence of an agency. Also in that light it has a kinda house of cards feel to it as well that can be eliminated. Though isn't irl international governance basically just committees making reports? Just saying that overseeing and watching things is like 1/3 of real world international laws. Thanks for the help.

Edit: So based on the above I have submitted a new draft that should address the "house of cards-ness" and the "committee only" factor of the original drafts. I have also scaled back the reach of the WACLC to address some issues of scale, for which I cannot think of an IC reason to justify at the moment.

World Assembly Central Library Compact
Category: Education| Area: Cultural Heritage

The World Assembly,

Cognizant of the diversity of nations, cultures and literary traditions among member-states;

Recognizing the work of the Universal Library Coalition (ULC), its Executive Committee (ULCEC), and their Universal Literary Exchange Network (ULEN), in promoting literacy and cross cultural understanding;

Concerned, however, by a lack of protections for preserving physical written works, and thus, that mission of digitizing and distributing literary works may be hindered by not having a central repository from which to conduct this import work;

Therefore, Hereby:

Establishes and builds a World Assembly Central Library Complex (WACLC), with the purpose of:
-Restoring and Replicating older written works, which may have become damaged with age,
-Collecting new & informative written works for archival purposes,
-Displaying rare, unique, or important works from member states,
-Providing scholastic access to such works, and maintaining the circulation of important written works among member states;

Mandates that member-states seek to preserve and, wherever possible, restore the historic and cultural written works of their nation, which may have become damaged through age;

Further, Requires all member-states adopt standards governing the preservation, restoration, and security of historical, cultural, or important written works;

Encourages that all member-states unable to provide themselves for the preservation and security of historic and cultural written works, seek wherever permissible to donate such works to the WACLC;

Mandates, that in order to achieve these goals, that the ULC be tasked with:
- Collecting and preserving written texts as donated by member states to the WACLC, and when applicable returning original texts to their member-state donor,
- Providing for the storage and security of written works by member-states whom may be unable to provide for such storage;
- Creating replicated copies of works within the WACLC which may not be stable enough for public handling,
- Comparing digital copies of works to original written works to prevent tampering;
- Restoring and repairing, at fair cost, written texts, at the request of member-states, institutions, or donors;

Mandates that ULCEC oversee and consult with member states on
- the importance, or literary value of a written work donated to the WACLC,
- the restoration or replication of written works provided to ensure authenticity and validity,
- the security of written works donated to the WACLC,
- the protection of written works and replicas against loss or damage,
- new standards of preservation, restoration, and protection of written works,
- transfers of written works from member states to the WACLC;

Requires that for any written work provided through the ULEN, that a replicated copy of the work must be donated to WACLC,

Mandates that the Office of Building Management (OBM) locate suitable land(s) and/or a planet, in international territory on which to build the WACLC, which shall:
- Have adequate access to transportation to and from the WACLC and member-states,
- Be sufficiently large enough to include for future expansion(s) of the WACLC as deemed necessary to accommodate donations of written works,
- Ensure necessary protection against fire, natural elements, and weather, or other natural phenomena;

Encourages all member-state to seek wherever possible to donate new, informative written works to the WACLC and the ULEN, for circulation, and archival;

Affirms that all donors retain cultural ownership of all written works donated to the WACLC and may elect to remove their work from circulation by providing written notice of such intent to the ULCEC;

Clarifies that nothing herein shall be read as to remove written works from member states, and that all contributions to the WACLC must be voluntary;

Affirms the rights of all member-states in promoting and encouraging, as they see fit, the written works and literary traditions of their nation;

And in doing so;

Agrees to and codifies "The World Assembly Central Library Compact"

[Bears Armed]

Though isn't irl international governance basically just committees making reports? Just saying that overseeing and watching things is like 1/3 of real world international laws.

OOC: but then the passage of RL international law doesn't have automatic effects on nations' stats...

[Calladan]

While all my previous objections still stand, I now have one more question regarding the legality of the proposal as it stands.

From what I understand, proposals are not permitted to rely on other Resolutions, because if the previous resolution is repealed, then it leaves a hole in the proposal that can't be filled (so to speak).

So - all my other objections aside - I have a question about this clause :-

Requires that for any written work provided through the ULEN, that a replicated copy of the work must be donated to WACLC,

If The ULC (Resolution #79) is repealed, and The ULEN no longer exists, would that action invalidate this clause and so make the proposal kind of a mess?

[Bears Armed]

So - all my other objections aside - I have a question about this clause :-

Requires that for any written work provided through the ULEN, that a replicated copy of the work must be donated to WACLC,

If The ULC (Resolution #79) is repealed, and The ULEN no longer exists, would that action invalidate this clause and so make the proposal kind of a mess?

I think that it would, but that could easily be fixed by giving the ULEN a specific [new] duty to accept those donations which -- as the rules stand -- would be enough to keep the ULEN in existence for that purpose.
OOC: A larger problem is that the draft now seems somewhat longer than maximum possible length set by the game's coding, which is 3'500 characters including punctuation, spaces between words, & line breaks.

[States of Glory WA Office]

OOC: A larger problem is that the draft now seems somewhat longer than maximum possible length set by the game's coding, which is 3'500 characters including punctuation, spaces between words, & line breaks.

Wait, they changed the character limit for titles but not for proposals?

[Tinhampton]

OOC: A larger problem is that the draft now seems somewhat longer than maximum possible length set by the game's coding, which is 3'500 characters including punctuation, spaces between words, & line breaks.

Wait, they changed the character limit for titles but not for proposals?

Yes.