[DEFEATED] The Amelioration of Maritime Conditions

[Radical Republic]

Figured I should use the forum this time. Anyway, here's the draft:

Recognizing the vast amount of pollutants in the hydrosphere.

Defining a pollutant as a substance added to the hydrosphere that has negative effects on organisms.

Wishing to monitor and record the sources and track the severity of pollutants in the hydrosphere.

Hereby:
[list=1][*]Requires all governmental organizations to keep a record of any and all pollutants added by them to the hydrosphere.
[*]Encourages governments to legislate private corporations to keep a record themselves.
[*]Requires the record to be accessible to anyone who wishes to view it. This includes other governments or citizens.

[Araraukar]

OOC: Welcome to the GA forum!

Am I right in guessing that this was marked illegal after you first submitted it? Did you take note of what it was marked illegal for?

The usual questions:

Category and strength/AoE? (Some categories have strengths, some have areas of effect, and you can find them in the proposal rules, which are in a sticky on this forum.)

In case you were aiming for Environmental, then this doesn't actually do anything about the pollutants, so it's not really a good fit. The problem is that it's not really a good fit in anything else either, given that Bookkeeping isn't a real category.

This would be akin to, let's say you wanted to stop people from speeding, and you mandated that people kept records of how often they drive faster than the speed limit, and by how much did they exceed it. That wouldn't actually do anything about the problem.

Another problem here is the wording "added by them to the hydrosphere", as that could read as only meaning pollutants added directly into water. Air pollution becomes hydrosphere pollution when it rains, yet it's not added directly into the hydrosphere, unless you take the view that clouds count as part of hydrosphere, in which case you will likely need to add a definition of hydrosphere, as that's not the normal reading. Same for any pollution that might be washed into water by rain, after it had been dumped on land. The polluting company could easily declare that they didn't add it into the hydrosphere, that it was due to a natural process (rain) and thus not their fault.

Ironically you would catch sewage purification plants and such, which are trying to limit water pollution.

The failed code was already in it.

Figured I should use the forum this time. Anyway, here's the draft:

Recognizing the vast amount of pollutants in the hydrosphere.

Defining a pollutant as a substance added to the hydrosphere that has negative effects on organisms.

Wishing to monitor and record the sources and track the severity of pollutants in the hydrosphere.

Hereby:
[list=1][*]Requires all governmental organizations to keep a record of any and all pollutants added by them to the hydrosphere.
[*]Encourages governments to legislate private corporations to keep a record themselves.
[*]Requires the record to be accessible to anyone who wishes to view it. This includes other governments or citizens.

[Bears Armed]

OOC
I'm not entirely sure that it was marked as illegal, it might just have failed to reach quorum due to the lack of a lobbying campaign.
Looking at it now, though, it certainly needs to specify that it's only applying to member nations' governments.

[New Jorsonn]

As an island nation, we are very interested in the recording of maritime pollution, however, we believe that this bill doesn't go far enough to address maritime pollution's causes and effects. Ideally, this bill would require something more substantial than record keeping. Maybe it should require member nations of the World Assembly to monitor and attempt to rectify pollution occurring in their national waters. Remember also that international waters are vast and a World Assembly organization built to deal with pollution there would get a lot of traction.

Elon Rustsson
Minister of Foreign Affairs
New Jorsonn

1159 Coast Guard Street
Freeport, New Jorsonn

[Radical Republic]

The few responses I have gotten provided a great deal of information. A general basis of the new content will include:
1. Redefining a maritime pollutant as a pollutant that affects the hydrosphere. (This includes most chemical pollutants. Excludes pollution like light or noise)
2. Mandating that member nations above the recorded international average must reduce their maritime pollutant production 5% by the end of the fiscal year.
note: I am not sure about point 2 since it includes quantitative actions. I don't know if that goes against WA resolution standard.

[Kenmoria]

The few responses I have gotten provided a great deal of information. A general basis of the new content will include:
1. Redefining a maritime pollutant as a pollutant that affects the hydrosphere. (This includes most chemical pollutants. Excludes pollution like light or noise)
2. Mandating that member nations above the recorded international average must reduce their maritime pollutant production 5% by the end of the fiscal year.
note: I am not sure about point 2 since it includes quantitative actions. I don't know if that goes against WA resolution standard.

(OOC: Point 2 wouldn’t necessarily be bad, but it would mean that nations even with massive pollution would be forced to reduce slightly, and those who are already at a very low standard would be forced to go even further. I recommend looking online for examples of real-world legislation on this issue.)

[Araraukar]

An independent body of experts in the matter at hand is by its nature going to make better decisions.

OOC: Not necessarily, if the experts don't understand the realities that their decisions affect, plus inflexible one-sided decision-making on huge issues is always a bad idea.

But even that aside, anyone wanting to legislate on pollution, should read the already existing ones on the subject, because if "anything that can end up in water" is a water pollutant, that includes air pollutants and there are some resolutions addressing that, already in effect. And there are some already addressing freshwater pollution. (And unless it got repealed and I missed that, there's one for the greenhouse gas cap trade thingy.)

[Araraukar]

OOC: In queue, as submitted:

The Amelioration of Maritime Conditions

Category: Environmental
Area of Effect: All Businesses - Mild

Recognizing the vast amount of pollutants in the hydrosphere.

Defining a maritime pollutant as a pollutant that affects the hydrosphere or on its organisms. These pollutants are limited to substance added directly to the hyrdosphere through methods like dumping or runoff. Airborne pollutants are exempt.

Wishing to monitor and record the sources and track the severity of pollutants in the hydrosphere.

Hereby:

• Requires all governmental organizations to keep a record of any and all pollutants added by them to the hydrosphere.
  
• Encourages governments to legislate private corporations to keep a record themselves.
  
• Requires the record to be accessible to anyone who wishes to view it. This includes other governments or citizens.
  
• Mandating that member nations above the recorded international average must reduce their maritime pollutant production 5% by the end of the fiscal year

Still illegal for failing to specify member nations only for the first three clauses and then using member nations specifically in the last one. Aka legislating on non-members.

[Refuge Isle]

This is a pretty skeletal proposal.

About the only things that it does is require governments to keep track of pollutants they add, and I'm not entirely sure how practical even that is with this wording. If you have a neolithic civilisation, which is somehow able to comprehend membership to the WA, and a rainstorm floods their storehouse of twine, do they have to keep track of every strand as it floats into the sea? Where would a modern nation get the information to be aware of all pollutants that they produce and is any research required? That is to say, if you have written a list of four things that you know you've polluted the ocean with and genuinely aren't aware of the eight billion others, is that compliance? If airborne pollutants are excepted, is it permissible to dispose of your nation's waste with a large seaside catapult? This is the type of stuff that can't really be structured in less than 150 words.

Aside, point 4. mandating a 5% reduction in existing waste is really just duck teeth. Granted there is no pollution metric in the game, but let's say if there were it would be called spilled barrels of oil per day. And the average for the world is 1,300 spilled barrels per day. Alright, well irl that would be quite bad and necessitate international action since I can only assume it's been going on for years. Point 4. would say that anyone who is spilling 1,300 barrels of oil a day is A-OK, and anybody who is spilling 25,000 need only spill 23,750 to be in compliance.

[Kranostav]

Generally against, It feels incomplete and I think its fairly unreasonable to require a nation to know all of its pollutants and then use them to come to a conclusion of reducing them per a national average.

Perhaps task a committee with collection of that data and the public distribution, and then have that committee liaison with nation leaders to find ways to reduce pollutants.

[Kenmoria]

(OOC: I don’t understand why this was submitted. There are still demonstrably legality issues with the proposal, and the legislation generally would have benefitted in quality from a longer period of drafting. I encourage the author to withdraw this proposal so that it can be worked on.)

[Desmosthenes and Burke]

For the record, the submitted version (possibly with some different formatting) is

Recognizing the vast amount of pollutants in the hydrosphere.

Defining a maritime pollutant as a pollutant that affects the hydrosphere or on its organisms. These pollutants are limited to substance added directly to the hyrdosphere through methods like dumping or runoff. Airborne pollutants are exempt.

Wishing to monitor and record the sources and track the severity of pollutants in the hydrosphere.

Hereby:

1. Requires all governmental organizations to keep a record of any and all pollutants added by them to the hydrosphere.
   
2. Encourages governments to legislate private corporations to keep a record themselves.
   
3. Requires the record to be accessible to anyone who wishes to view it. This includes other governments or citizens.
   
4. Mandating that member nations above the recorded international average must reduce their maritime pollutant production 5% by the end of the fiscal year.

(OOC: I don’t understand why this was submitted. There are still demonstrably legality issues with the proposal, and the legislation generally would have benefitted in quality from a longer period of drafting. I encourage the author to withdraw this proposal so that it can be worked on.)

OOC: At current GenSec has marked this legal on the control panel, so maybe someone prod them? If there is a serious question, it would be better to hold it from vote.

[East Meranopirus]

OOC: At current GenSec has marked this legal on the control panel, so maybe someone prod them? If there is a serious question, it would be better to hold it from vote.

GenSec too busy ruling on my proposal at vote, I'm guessing

[Bananaistan]

OOC: The current control panel rulings are consistent with our informal precedent which has been much discussed with the community. References to nations rather than member nations, or in this case governments rather than governments of member nations, are not metagaming violations. The point of the rule is not to force authors to jump through pedantic hoops where "all nations" cannot be used but to actually stop attempts at legislating on non-member nations.

And to get in ahead of accusations of inconsistency, the other submitted proposal, Maritime Safety And Disaster Response, which is currently held as illegal. My illegal vote there is in line with my previously expressed thoughts on international waters.

[Araraukar]

OOC: The current control panel rulings are consistent with our informal precedent which has been much discussed with the community. References to nations rather than member nations, or in this case governments rather than governments of member nations, are not metagaming violations. The point of the rule is not to force authors to jump through pedantic hoops where "all nations" cannot be used but to actually stop attempts at legislating on non-member nations.

And to get in ahead of accusations of inconsistency, the other submitted proposal, Maritime Safety And Disaster Response, which is currently held as illegal. My illegal vote there is in line with my previously expressed thoughts on international waters.

OOC: But it uses literally "Requires all governmental organizations". That's a requirement placed for non-member nations' governmental organizations as well, given that it specifies member nations separately.

*snip*

Pimping your proposal on someone else's thread is bad manners.

[Imperium Anglorum]

it specifies member nations separately.

Code: Select all

Python 2.7.16 (default, Oct 16 2019, 00:34:56)
[GCC 4.2.1 Compatible Apple LLVM 10.0.1 (clang-1001.0.37.14)] on darwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> s = '''Recognizing the vast amount of pollutants in the hydrosphere.
...
... Defining a pollutant as a substance added to the hydrosphere that has negative effects on organisms.
...
... Wishing to monitor and record the sources and track the severity of pollutants in the hydrosphere.
...
... Hereby:
... [list=1][*]Requires all governmental organizations to keep a record of any and all pollutants added by them to the hydrosphere.
... [*]Encourages governments to legislate private corporations to keep a record themselves.
... [*]Requires the record to be accessible to anyone who wishes to view it. This includes other governments or citizens.'''
>>> 'member' in s
False
>>> 'member' in s.lower()
False

[Bananaistan]

it specifies member nations separately.

Code: Select all

Python 2.7.16 (default, Oct 16 2019, 00:34:56)
[GCC 4.2.1 Compatible Apple LLVM 10.0.1 (clang-1001.0.37.14)] on darwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> s = '''Recognizing the vast amount of pollutants in the hydrosphere.
...
... Defining a pollutant as a substance added to the hydrosphere that has negative effects on organisms.
...
... Wishing to monitor and record the sources and track the severity of pollutants in the hydrosphere.
...
... Hereby:
... [list=1][*]Requires all governmental organizations to keep a record of any and all pollutants added by them to the hydrosphere.
... [*]Encourages governments to legislate private corporations to keep a record themselves.
... [*]Requires the record to be accessible to anyone who wishes to view it. This includes other governments or citizens.'''
>>> 'member' in s
False
>>> 'member' in s.lower()
False

OOC: Version submitted is not the one in the OP.

[Borovan entered the region as he]

Our delegation wish to not vote for cuz we feels it is incomplete and needs more weeks or few months of work on the draft so it is more well done.

[Marxist Germany]

The submitted version and title are completely different from OP, I hope that is addressed.

[Araraukar]

[-code-]

OOC: Version submitted is not the one in the OP.

OOC: Indeed, it was posted when I bumped this thread.

[Marxist Germany]

Requires all governmental organizations

OOC: Is illegal. Because

Mandating that member nations

Exists.

[Araraukar]

Requires all governmental organizations

OOC: Is illegal. Because

Mandating that member nations

Exists.

OOC: Yeah, but it looks like it needs an official legality challenge to deal with. You want to do it?

[Ransium]

I have edited the title to be consistent with the submitted version (I hope, I’m on my iPhone walking my dogs, so mistakes are possible).

[Kolm]

This legislation implies that all governments legalize private corporations.

[Zyvetskistaahn]

Clause 1 of this resolution seems to be overbroad, given the lack of any de minimis exception as to the pollutants that need to be recorded, such that it would seem very difficult for a nation to comply with.

On the other hand, given the optionality of clause 2, the reach of the mandatory provisions of the resolution seem too narrow to adequately address the issue it is aimed at.

Finally, given that the mandatory recording applies only to governments, it would seem that there would be disparate impacts of clause 4, in that nations that take the further step to comply with clause 2 would be expected to appear to have a higher level of pollutants while nations that do not (which one might think would seem to have the least regard for the risk of pollution and so the ones most requiring remedial action) would appear to have a lower level and escape the effect of the clause. I may be wrong in my reading, but that is certainly how it appears to me.