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[DEFEATED] Repeal GAR#408 Ban On Secret Treaties
Posted:
Sun Jul 08, 2018 3:11 amby Jocospor
General Assembly Resolution #408 “Ban on Secret Treaties” (Category: Furtherment of Democracy; Strength: Mild) shall be struck out and rendered null and void.
The General Assembly,
Appreciating that General Assembly Resolution #408 (herein GAR#408) contains relevant and significant content, and was likely conceived without malice.
Concerned, however, with various aspects of GAR#408.
Noting that GAR#408 lists only the negative affects of what it terms "secret diplomacy." Wishing to clarify that such negotiations can indeed be of benefit, for reasons including but not limited to the following:
Secret alliances between various member states during wartime can often check the balance of power and lead to swifter resolutions, particularly if said alliances are being practised by member states acting defensibly; and
"Ambiguous relations" (defined as: "relations and/or diplomatic agreements that are not necessarily codified and made publicly available") between various member states can often act as a deterrent to aggressive nations, since such nations are more likely to lie dormant than risk involving themselves in what could potentially become a lost cause.
Further noting that GAR#408 concentrates only on "secret diplomacy" taking place during wartime. Understanding that "secret diplomacy" can operate in many other sectors, including but not limited to trade, and convinced that secret diplomacy has the capability to, in this instance, foster economic advantages.
Concluding that the disadvantages within GAR#408 outweigh the advantages.
Therefore, repeals GAR#408 Ban On Secret Treaties.
Posted:
Sun Jul 08, 2018 4:23 amby Bears Armed
22 minutes ago: Bears Armed: Illegal — Proposals must be written from the viewpoint of the GA, not as addresses TO the GA; also, WA committees (such as this Judicial one) are presumed to be incorruptible -- and efficient, too -- (OOC so that authors don't have to expend some of the limited number of characters allowed in a proposal trying to explain how their committees will work; IC because the WA will not admit that its agencies could be flawed) so arguments based on potential corruption are not allowed.
Posted:
Sun Jul 08, 2018 5:12 amby Democratic Empire of Romania
No hope for it.
Posted:
Sun Jul 08, 2018 5:48 amby Frisbeeteria
Good on you for posting a discussion thread. Not-so-good on you for submitting before you posted the thread. The idea is that you post a [DRAFT] to get input, then post your legal submission.
Posted:
Sun Jul 08, 2018 9:04 amby Jocospor
[OOC: Updated, should be legal now]
Posted:
Sun Jul 08, 2018 9:48 amby Kenmoria
Jocospor wrote:[OOC: Updated, should be legal now]
(OOC: Legal does not mean good, it is strongly advised to wait until sufficient feedback has been given before submission, to give your draft the best chance of passing. Don’t submit before a time period has passed that has allowed editing of your repeal.)
Posted:
Sun Jul 08, 2018 12:29 pmby Wallenburg
Jocospor wrote:[OOC: Updated, should be legal now]
Frisbeeteria wrote:Good on you for posting a discussion thread. Not-so-good on you for submitting before you posted the thread. The idea is that you post a [DRAFT] to get input,
then post your legal submission.
Fris isn't talking out of their ass. Please wait for input before rushing to submit.
Jocospor wrote:Thus, hereby:
Permits the practise of "secret diplomacy" between member states of this World Assembly; and
Clarifies that such negotiations may concern a variety of fields, to be determined on a case-by-case basis by the participating member states.
This part in particular is illegal. You cannot legislate in repeals. The only active clause may be the repeals clause.
Posted:
Sun Jul 08, 2018 10:35 pmby Democratic Empire of Romania
Kenmoria wrote:Jocospor wrote:[OOC: Updated, should be legal now]
(OOC: Legal does not mean good, it is strongly advised to wait until sufficient feedback has been given before submission, to give your draft the best chance of passing. Don’t submit before a time period has passed that has allowed editing of your repeal.)
He has submitted one 2 months ago and called forum drafting a chance of corrupting the proposal.
Posted:
Mon Jul 09, 2018 8:26 amby Frisbeeteria
Democratic Empire of Romania wrote:He has submitted one 2 months ago and called forum drafting a chance of corrupting the proposal.
And it lost. Badly.
But at least it was legal! And no corrupting influences like "anyone else's opinions" were allowed in! So, effective business model for losing the vote. Good job, author.
Posted:
Mon Jul 09, 2018 8:30 amby Aclion
Democratic Empire of Romania wrote:Kenmoria wrote:(OOC: Legal does not mean good, it is strongly advised to wait until sufficient feedback has been given before submission, to give your draft the best chance of passing. Don’t submit before a time period has passed that has allowed editing of your repeal.)
He has submitted one 2 months ago and called forum drafting a chance of corrupting the proposal.
Just the sort of secretive behaviour this resolution was designed to prevent!
Posted:
Mon Jul 09, 2018 9:24 amby Democratic Empire of Romania
It's kinda funny that Jocospor said that he has "plenty of secret alliances that are bigger than I could think of".
Posted:
Tue Jul 10, 2018 12:58 amby Jocospor
We have since amended the repeal proposal, and it has now been deemed legal by the General Secretariat.
Posted:
Tue Jul 10, 2018 7:47 amby Grays Harbor
Jocospor wrote:We have since amended the repeal proposal, and it has now been deemed legal by the General Secretariat.
Again, just as a reminder; "Legal" =/= "Good".
And this ain't good
Posted:
Tue Jul 10, 2018 10:42 amby Democratic Empire of Romania
Grays Harbor wrote:Jocospor wrote:We have since amended the repeal proposal, and it has now been deemed legal by the General Secretariat.
Again, just as a reminder; "Legal" =/= "Good".
And this ain't good
But he is talented in writing them.
Legal =/= Good
Posted:
Tue Jul 10, 2018 11:49 amby Jocospor
There is nothing wrong with this repeal proposal. We strongly believe here in the Confederation that secret alliances are of benefit to all political doctrines, whether such be democratic or dictatorial.
The fact that such restrictive legislation was allowed to pass in the first place shows an error in judgement of certain World Assembly member nations. This is not the first instance of this, either.
Posted:
Tue Jul 10, 2018 8:09 pmby Democratic Empire of Romania
Jocospor wrote:There is nothing wrong with this repeal proposal. We strongly believe here in the Confederation that secret alliances are of benefit to all political doctrines, whether such be democratic or dictatorial.
The fact that such restrictive legislation was allowed to pass in the first place shows an error in judgement of certain World Assembly member nations. This is not the first instance of this, either.
You've wrote it carefully and has a well-looking aspect. We'll see how it goes at vote.
Posted:
Tue Jul 10, 2018 8:21 pmby Hiram Land
very nice proposal.
The UNOE WA Delegate (me) has approved this bill and will vote yes when this bill goes to the voting floor.
good luck!
Posted:
Tue Jul 10, 2018 9:01 pmby Jocospor
We thank you for your support in this matter. Thanks to nations like your own, we're going to be able to restore the World Assembly as a judicious and moderate collective.
Posted:
Tue Jul 10, 2018 11:01 pmby Imperium Anglorum
There are two, I'll be generous, 3 arguments: (1) secret treaties may be useful at defeating a foe, (2) secret treaties produce deterrence, and (3) secret treaties may be useful at changing the terms of trade.
Argument 1 is an invitation for nations to deceive each other about what gets what out of a war, this is bad since it encourages people to overpromise. Overpromising creates ripe conditions for further conflict. The World Assembly has an ethical obligation to prevent future conflict. A body made up of persons which have ethical obligations does not absolve those persons of those obligations.
A real world example of this is Italy after the First World War, where territories from the Austro-Hungarian Empire were not transferred at war end, leading to the rise of strong nationalist movements. Similarly, there was significant conflict in the post-Great War Near East, where Arabia was engulfed in internecine warfare due to broken promises by the Entente. These kinds of issues, and the preceding issues that led to the Great War itself, are why Wilson proposed the elimination of secret diplomacy in his Fourteen points.
Argument 2 is necessarily false. You cannot deter anyone if you don't tell them. If you read Mearsheimer's treatise on deterrence, the largest factor is the expected cost incurred by an invading force. Insofar as the invading force doesn't know about costs, that doesn't appear in the decision calculus. The counterargument here is basically baiting wars. But that fails the Assembly's ethical obligation to prevent future conflict.
Argument 3 could be true if (a) nations conspiring had significant international market control and (b) you believe tariffs are good. But I'd say warrant (a) is false because NS is too large and warrant (b) sucks because tariffs are bad. There can be situations where national welfare increases with tariffs. But you need to exercise significant market control. Otherwise, deadweight loss always outweighs. And the existence of that loss means such imposition harms the nation doing so.
If you interpret it another way, like a trade agreement, that makes even less sense. How could someone effectively do trade if the government has concealed tariff rates from them? Or if the breadth of the free trade zone is unknown? Both of these create significant risk, which increases the expected costs of doing business, leading to people doing less of it. Either way, it doesn't make sense.
Posted:
Tue Jul 10, 2018 11:26 pmby Wallenburg
No draft, no support. Thanks for making my vote easy to decide, I guess.
Posted:
Tue Jul 10, 2018 11:36 pmby Kenmoria
"If this had been drafted for a sufficient period of time, it could have had this delegation's support. As it turns out, you did not think to do this, so we must automatically vote against."
Posted:
Wed Jul 11, 2018 6:09 pmby Shaktirajya
We, the People's Hindu Matriarchy of Shaktirajya, hereby vote FOR this resolution in concert with Our regional delegate Davelands. No more thought has been given to the matter. It seems to us, a fool's errand to prohibit secret treaties as they are by their very nature, secret.
Vaktaha Samajadinaha Matarajasya Shaktirajasya
Posted:
Wed Jul 11, 2018 6:30 pmby Jabberwocky
How did this thing reach a vote?
Posted:
Wed Jul 11, 2018 6:30 pmby Sciongrad
OOC: Heads up, all. Unfortunately, we did not notice this early enough, but the repeal at vote currently misinterprets GAR#408 in violation of the honest mistake rule. The "further noting" clause states that GAR#408 focuses "only on "secret diplomacy" taking place during wartime." In fact, the resolution applies to secret diplomacy in all contexts. It only mentions war specifically in two preamble clauses, and nowhere does it limit its effects to war. The resolution, therefore, will be discarded if the voters fail to reject it.
Posted:
Wed Jul 11, 2018 6:34 pmby The United Orthodox States
OOC: Damn.