[DISCARDED] Wet Market Safety Act (By: Gremenia)

[Frisbeeteria]

I didn't see a thread for this, so I thought I'd make one. The author is Gremenia. Category: Regulation. Area of Effect: Consumer Protection

RECOGNIZES that wet markets across the globe may partake in the trade of live animals and wild and exotic animals, exposing the world population to dangerous infectious disease.

WORRIES that the trade of live animals and wild and exotic animals in wet markets can spark new global pandemics.

THE WORLD ASSEMBLY:

1. DEFINES:

a. "wet market" as a marketplace selling fresh meat, fish, produce, and other perishable goods as distinguished from "dry markets" that sell durable goods such as fabrics and electronics.

b. "wild and exotic animals" as products that are derived from non-domesticated animals or plants usually extracted from their natural environment or raised under controlled conditions.

c. "live animals" as all living animals including hatching eggs.

d. "zoonotic diseases (zoonosis)" as an infectious disease caused by a pathogen (an infectious agent, including bacteria, viruses, parasites, prions, etc) that has jumped from non-human animals (usually vertebrates) to humans.

e. "game" as animals like (1) small birds, such as the thrush and quail; (2) game proper, a category that can be subdivided into winged game, such as the goose, duck, woodcock, grouse or partridge, and pheasant; and ground game, such as the squirrel, hare, and rabbit; (3) big game, predominantly venison, including roebuck, deer, elk, moose, and caribou but also including other large animals such as bear and wild boar.

2. ACKNOWLEDGES:

a. the existence of wet markets, a majority of which do not trade in live animals and wild or exotic animals and that those markets which do trade in live animals and wild and exotic animals can be linked to outbreaks of zoonotic diseases.

b. illegal wildlife trade is widespread and constitutes one of the major illegal economic activities, comparable to the traffic of drugs and weapons affecting conservation and leading to the emergence and spread of new infectious diseases in humans, including emergent viruses.

3. PERMITS:

a. the sale of fish products not deemed endangered or dangerous for human consumption.

b. The sale of vegetables, fruits, or plants not deemed endangered or dangerous for human consumption.

c. The sale of domesticated slaughtered animals deemed safe for human consumption.

d. the sale of slaughtered game, deemed safe for human consumption and not endangered.

4. PROHIBITS:

a. the trade of wild and exotic animals, alive or deceased, and any parts of those animals including skins, bones, and meat and other products in wet markets.

b. the trade of live animals in wet markets.

5. MANDATES:

a. wet markets do not partake in the trade or sale of live animals and wild and exotic animals, and all products sold are deemed safe for human consumption and are not known to cause zoonotic diseases.

b. wet markets use modern and proper sanitation and food storage methods to minimize the risk of disease.

c. that member nations shall each establish national standards jointly with the World Assembly Commission on which animals and products are deemed safe for sale and human consumption.

6. ENSURES the health and safety of consumers shall not be compromised at wet markets due to exposure to live animals and wild and exotic animals or due to improper sanitation and food storage.

7. OBLIGES member nations to provide oversight of wet markets and the sale of any products within these markets beyond that exercised by the direct management of these markets.

[Araraukar]

OOC: Important:

Category: Regulation
Area of Effect: Consumer Protection

Also, its clause 3.d. self-contradicts clause 4, but that's not an illegality, unfortunately.

Against for no drafting and the human-specificity.

[Kenmoria]

(OOC: Is the ‘World Assembly Commission’ an actual committee? I haven’t heard of it.)

[Barfleur]

(OOC: Is the ‘World Assembly Commission’ an actual committee? I haven’t heard of it.)

I don't believe so. I think it should be the World Health Authority.

[Imperium Anglorum]

Re proposal. See James C Scott, Against the Grain (2017); Michael Greger. "The Human/Animal Interface: Emergence and Resurgence of Zoonotic Infectious Diseases", (2007) 33 Critical Reviews in Microbiology 243.

A historical look at the spread of zoonotic diseases does not bide well for the consumption of, say, steak, ribs, chicken, etc.

The list of diseases shared with domesticates and com­ mensals at the domus is quantitatively striking. In an outdated list, now surely even longer, we humans share twenty-six dis­eases with poultry, thirty-two with rats and mice, thirty-five with horses, forty-two with pigs, forty-six with sheep and goats, fifty with cattle, and sixty-five with our much-studied and oldest domesticate, the dog. Measles is suspected to have arisen from a rinderpest virus among sheep and goats, small­ pox from camel domestication and a cowpox-bearing rodent ancestor, and influenza from the domestication of water­ fowl some forty-five hundred years ago. The generation of new species-jumping zoonoses grew as populations of man and beasts swelled and contact over longer distances became more frequent. It continues today. Little wonder, then, that southeast China, specifically Guangdong, probably the largest, most crowded, and historically deepest concentration of Homo sapiens, pigs, chickens, geese, ducks, and wild ani­mal markets in the world, has been a major world petri dish for the incubation of new strains of bird and swine flu. Scott (supra) 103.

Writ large, this is more a cause of aggregation and exposure. Markets are a way to do that, certainly, but they are not unique in that respect.

But this aggregation was not a one-species herd but an aggre­gation of many mammalian herds who shared pathogens and generated entirely new zoonotic diseases by the mere fact of being assembled around the domus for the first time ... We were all, one might say, crowded onto the same ark, sharing its microenvironment, sharing our germs and parasites, breathing its air. Scott (supra) 84.

A common theme of primary risk factors for the emergence and spread of emerging zoonoses was the increasing demand for animal protein, associated with the expansion and intensification of an- imal agriculture, long-distance live animal transport, live animal markets, bushmeat consumption, and habitat destruction. Greger (supra) 246.

This is buttressed by the fact that it is not only bats or "exotic" masked palm civets—exotic almost certainly because Westerners haven't heard of them—that cause zoonotic disease. It is the locus of not only "exotic" animals but also intermediate hosts and all kinds of different animals that humans come into contact with. Spread becomes all the easier as people engage in more resource extraction outside of the traditional alluvium and become more interconnected. Greger (supra) 247 (explaining how people have eaten bushmeat for millions of years, but that "commercial hunting using firearms and wire snares to supply logging and oil exploration operation concessions along new roadway networks has dramatically increased the catch in Central African forests") (citations omitted).

Zoonotic disease is not only spreading to human populations, it also affects domestic animals and the plant species with which people live:

The recent rise in zoonotic disease emergence has been paralleled by an apparent increase in non-zoonotic infectious disease emergence among domesticated animals, wild animals, domesticated plants, and wild plants. Palumbi argues that humans are currently the world’s greatest evolutionary force. Ibid 246 (citations omitted).

[Outer Sparta]

Against due to various problems I have with the draft (no drafting, feels rushed, probable badge hunting).

[Imperium Anglorum]

probable badge hunting

So what?

[Outer Sparta]

probable badge hunting

So what?

Alright that shouldn't be on the top concerns. But the resolution isn't drafted here, so the author might have overlooked a thing or two.

[Slackertown]

Why call out Wet Markets specifically and not mandate health standards across the board?

[Imperium Anglorum]

"wet market" as a marketplace selling fresh meat, fish, produce, and other perishable goods...

wet markets ... all products sold are deemed safe for human consumption and are not known to cause zoonotic diseases.

So this meat here is from pigs, cows, etc. It is fresh meat, there's probably fish someplace in the market too, they're all perishable goods. We share a massive number of diseases with pigs, chickens, and cows. How does this massively over-broad definition of "wet market", along with this latter overly broad mandate, not prohibit the sale of chicken, beef, and pork?

[Tinhampton]

Opposed due to failure to permit the sale of food safe for consumption by sapient non-humans but not by humans.

[Outer Sparta]

Opposed due to failure to permit the sale of food safe for consumption by sapient non-humans but not by humans.

Can't we just do a legality challenge and stop this from reaching quorum? At the very least we can have the original author do some more drafting on this particular resolution.

[The New Sicilian State]

OOC: I can’t see anything glaringly illegal... unfortunately stupidity is not illegal.

[Republic of Satherland]

Look, there are several issues with this resolution.

Clause 1(a) defines "wet market" as a marketplace selling fresh meat, fish, produce, and other perishable goods as distinguished from "dry markets" that sell durable goods such as fabrics and electronics. Does the term "wet market" then apply to convenience stores that sell produce or grocery stores if "dry markets" appear to only sell "durable goods" under this definition?

Clause 1(b) defines "wild and exotic animals" as products that are derived from non-domesticated animals or plants usually extracted from their natural environment or raised under controlled conditions. So under this definition, are all non-domesticated animals considered "wild and exotic" then? And why the sudden inclusion of plants? Are non-domesticated plants considered under the category of "wild and exotic animals" now? Furthermore, "usually extracted from their natural environment or raised under controlled conditions". Doesn't that basically cover every sort of plant and animal cultivation? And looking past your usual breeds of domesticated animals, this goes back to my earlier question on whether this means that every other species of animal (or plant, apparently) that isn't domesticated is considered "wild and exotic"?

Clause 4(a) prohibits the trade of wild and exotic animals, alive or deceased, and any parts of those animals including skins, bones, and meat and other products in wet markets. This harks back to your questionable and muddled definition of a "wild and exotic animal". What's defined as "wild and exotic" differs from state to state, and different countries may domesticate some animal species (or possibly plant, according to Clause 1(b)) that aren't domesticated in others and are then deemed "wild and exotic". And if they are raised under controlled conditions, why shouldn't their sale be permitted then? THIS is why you must be more specific when you're working out the terminology for a resolution like this!

Clause 4(b) prohibits the trade of live animals in wet markets. Does that apply to fish and seafood then, which are often sold (especially to restaurants) live to preserve their freshness? So under this clause, will all fish and seafood, including easily perishable species such as lobsters and crabs, and species groups such as crustaceans that need to be served fresh, be legally required to be sold dead?

Clause 5(b) mandates the use of "modern and proper" sanitation and food storage methods to minimize the risk of disease in wet markets. Define "modern and proper". Any country in compliance with this resolution could easily define "modern and proper" however they like, not to mention that some countries don't have access to the hardware that other countries define as "modern". In a hypothetical backwater country where their defintion of "modern food storage methods" is putting their poultry in a basket out in the open, will that be compliant with this WA resolution then? And "proper" is especially problematic. If my country found that it was "proper" to stuff food in their backyard drain as a proper food storage method, would that be compliant with this WA resolution?

[Wallenburg]

"You want to put hunters and herbalists out of a job. Disgusting. Our delegation is firmly against."

[Christian Democrats]

Two concerns: First, by explicitly permitting "sale of slaughtered game, deemed safe for human consumption and not endangered," would this proposal override and preempt national bans on the sale of game? Second, would this proposal ban the sale of live marine crustaceans, such as lobsters and crabs?

[The Palentine]

Oh goody let just make the practice of boiling puppies and kittens alive for human consumption legal in hallowed WA Law.

Against.

Excelsior,
Sen. Horatio Sulla

[Araraukar]

So this meat here is from pigs, cows, etc. It is fresh meat, there's probably fish someplace in the market too, they're all perishable goods. We share a massive number of diseases with pigs, chickens, and cows. How does this massively over-broad definition of "wet market", along with this latter overly broad mandate, not prohibit the sale of chicken, beef, and pork?

OOC:

3. PERMITS:

c. The sale of domesticated slaughtered animals deemed safe for human consumption.

It doesn't say "slaughtered animals that have no possible way of getting us sick", it says "deemed safe for human consumption". The "deemed safe" is an awfully broad and vague thing. Deemed safe by whom? The nation in question? The seller in question? The buyer in question?

Whole clause 3 doesn't touch on zoonotics at all. Later clause 5 says the products "are not known to cause zoonotic diseases". If you don't test them to find some, you won't know they have some. And this is anyway duplication of the existing resolution that requires food to be safe to eat, so every human nation in compliance with that is already in compliance with this.

Non-human nations can just go "Lol, yeah, it's safe for humans as there are no humans here, all restrictions waved, wheee!"

[Kelssek]

Despite its worthy ambitions, this proposal is a complete mess. The goal is to suppress the wildlife trade, but its title implies something else entirely. It regulates practically all grocery stores. It would seem to prohibit farmers selling their products on-site.

Let me also point out something prohibited by this proposal which I don't think was intended, and doesn't serve its supposed purpose: a wet market selling live animals (the ones in the blue netting next to the salmon). Indeed, all kinds of seafood markets and on-boat sales would seem to be outlawed since lobsters, crabs, and shellfish are commonly sold live.

I'd also note that "exotic" is undefined and a culturally-specific word, and thus doesn't mean a lot here. What's exotic to Kelssekians is not necessarily exotic in other countries.

[Barfleur]

"Barfleur is opposed to this proposal, and I will be voting against it when it comes to vote. As well-meaning as it is, and as necessary as it is to regulate the consumption of wildlife, this proposal simply has too many flaws and loopholes. A nation like Barfleur, populated by humans, has no problem with only allowing meat "safe for human consumption," but what about the nations populated by other species? Do food standards not apply to them too? Also, the definition for a 'wet market' is way too broad. A deli selling chicken and a street vendor selling newt liver are two very different establishments, and the law should recognize that, rather than paint all stores that sell meat with one brush."

[Araraukar]

"the law should recognize that, rather than paint all stores that sell meat with one brush."

"Do note that it applies to vegetables too! And fruit. And ice-cream!"

[PotatoFarmers]

Actually, can you argue that clause 3d and 4a contradict each other since "game" is technically "wild and exotic animals"?
Also, saltwater fish are "wild and exotic animals" by definition.

[Tinhampton]

Actually, can you argue that clause 3d and 4a contradict each other since "game" is technically "wild and exotic animals"?
Also, saltwater fish are "wild and exotic animals" by definition.

Perhaps, but - alas - internal contradiction is now legal.

[Maowi]

Actually, can you argue that clause 3d and 4a contradict each other since "game" is technically "wild and exotic animals"?
Also, saltwater fish are "wild and exotic animals" by definition.

Perhaps, but - alas - internal contradiction is now legal.

OOC: If this were to pass - which I sincerely hope it doesn't - I'd guess whatever came last would take precedence, so 4a would take precedence? Although there might also be an argument for the internal contradiction allowing member states to choose the interpretation they prefer, in which case 3d would probably generally take precedence ...

[The New Sicilian State]

OOC: Christ, someone should campaign against this, it shouldn’t even be on the docket...