NationStates

The Group of Twenty (G20)
Category: Declaration | Authored by: Coffee mostly

The World Assembly,

Recognizing the need for a series of regular intergovernmental forums to facilitate discussions between world powers on current events and international challenges,

Believing that the international recognition and codification of these forums will help ensure structure, continuity, and adoption,

Cognizant of the importance of giving special voice to smaller regions internationally in recognition of the contributions they make to NationStates and the international community-at-large,

Hereby declares:

Article 1: Membership

1. The Group of Twenty (G20) shall include the twenty regions with the most highly endorsed WA delegates in NationStates on January 1st of the current year.
   
2. In the event of a tie, all qualifying regions will form the G20 for that year.
   
3. The G20 shall also include special membership, with full voting and hosting rights, to the United Regions Alliance (URA) and may elect only by a two-thirds decision to revoke this membership and/or confer this membership to a different region or organization.

Article 2: Summits

1. Diplomatic representatives of all G20 members are invited to attend biannual G20 summits during the first week of February and the first week of August of each year.
2. A week-long emergency summit of the G20 may be called at any time with the support of seven G20 members.
3. Participating members are invited to host these summits on a rotational basis based off the same order the World Census Report uses to update daily, with a preference given to those members that have not previously hosted a G20 summit.
4. G20 members may by majority vote decide to postpone an biannual summit by up to three months.
5. Any region or organization may decline to attend or host the aforementioned summits.

Article 3: Censure

1. By a two-thirds decision, the G20 may elect to censure an eligible member.
2. A censured G20 member is barred till the end of the calendar year from exercising its voting rights in the G20 or attending or hosting G20 summits.
3. The next eligible region, in terms of the criteria outlined in Section 1.1, shall be included as a G20 member, with full voting and hosting rights, in lieu of the censured member.

Article 4: Observer parties

1. Any region or organization eligible to participate in the G20 as a full voting member may opt to attend any G20 summit instead as a non-voting observer.
2. Other regions or organizations, not described in Article 4.1 or Article 3.2, may attend a G20 summit as a non-voting observer with the sponsorship and approval of three eligible member regions.
3. In the event that more than one party has reasonable claim as the legitimate government of a G20 region at the start of a summit, all such parties will be invited to sit as non-voting observers to the summit unless the other participating regions elect by a two-thirds decision to recognize one of the parties as the official representative for the region in question.

Andusre wrote:Sorry to come across so harshly but this in practice would mean getting some regions who massively disagree with each other to be part of an organisation with no real power and would effectively just be some sort of shiny bragging rights for superdelegates.

Unibot III wrote:The Group of Nine (G9) encompasses all feeder and sinker regions. At the time of writing, this includes Lazarus, Osiris, The Rejected Realms, The East Pacific, The Pacific, The South Pacific, The North Pacific, and The West Pacific.

Kranostav wrote:I find this concept interesting, but this would require a great amount of work outside of just this proposal. We'd need a discord server for the meetings, a GP thread, perhaps a symbolic region, and gauging interest for all the parties involved so this isn't dead on delivery. I would suggest starting by reaching out to regional leaders to gauge interest, form a working concept with them, and then come back to this and pass a potential proposal confirming it when you have everyone on board.

Cormactopia Prime wrote:

Andusre wrote:Sorry to come across so harshly but this in practice would mean getting some regions who massively disagree with each other to be part of an organisation with no real power and would effectively just be some sort of shiny bragging rights for superdelegates.

You've essentially just described the real life G7 and G20...

The point of it is diplomacy and discussion between very different regions of differences, yes, as well as what common ground can be found. While I'm not sure how well this would work in practice, and I particularly hate that it will primarily benefit the GCRs and their closest allies the most, I think it merits some consideration.

Unfortunately, I don't think it will get the consideration it deserves.

Unibot III wrote:Thanks Cormac, do you think it might be better to split the G9 and G20 as separate proposals?

I wasn’t sure. I recognize that there’s obvious some antipathy towards GCRs today, but I also saw the need for a body between GCRs to discuss issues especially close to them.

I could foresee dropping the G9 from the proposal and running with the G20 in its lonesome. And then at a later date, pursuing a G9 as a distinct proposal.

Nova Vandalia wrote:Also Hot Take, and purely just my own personal opinion, GCR Peace and Cooperation isn't always in the best interest of UCR's, so I'm not sure I feel comfortable with the G9 being expressed as a good and correct thing by this body.

Sanctaria wrote:-snip-

Cormactopia Prime wrote:

Unibot III wrote:Thanks Cormac, do you think it might be better to split the G9 and G20 as separate proposals?

I wasn’t sure. I recognize that there’s obvious some antipathy towards GCRs today, but I also saw the need for a body between GCRs to discuss issues especially close to them.

I could foresee dropping the G9 from the proposal and running with the G20 in its lonesome. And then at a later date, pursuing a G9 as a distinct proposal.

I'm honestly not sure. On the one hand, I see the utility of both and I think it makes some sense to have them in a combined proposal. On the other hand, I do think having the G20 come first might encourage GCRs not to band together in the G9 first to decide what the G20 agenda is going to be.

But, on the other other hand, there would be nothing stopping the GCRs from doing that whether a G9 exists or not. And I'm not sure all the GCRs are on the same page enough, to say the least, to be able to band together and dictate an agenda for the G20.

So, basically, I'm not sure! But I do like the overall concept regardless.

Hulldom wrote:I understand the purpose of this but as reiterated elsewhere in this thread: there’s next-to-zero chance that this would work out in practice, even if this is, in theory, a good idea.

Imperium Anglorum wrote:This runs into the ancient discussion on committees in the GA. Just because you say a committee now exists doesn't make it actually exist. I think it was either Fris or Hack which brought this up in the committees discussion of the GA rules revision in 2005. Perhaps that's a bit esoteric, but I don't see the point of "creating" a committee without the infrastructure that is needed to actually create it.

Unibot III wrote:(1) reoccuring intergovernmental forums won't occur without a prompt from an international body like the WA, due to the usual cat-herding - some ad hoc forums are occasionally run, but in 19 years of NS, we've never had a routinely occurring intergovernmental forum because of turnover, lack of continuity etc.

(2) providing some of the organizing structure for the forum evades messy multilateral decisions over details like hosting order and dates and membership that, while may seem trivial, are often the most politically sensitive aspects of these kinds of high political affairs - usually those are the kinds of things that torpoedo GP forums and events.

(3) the infrastructure shouldn't be codified because it should be left fluid for hosts to modify and adapt. Platforms change. Neutral moderators for the forums will have to be agreed upon. Logistics like these get sorted rather quickly, the actual intiation of the event itself often does not get off the ground without some sort of prompt or externality.

Imperium Anglorum wrote:

Unibot III wrote:(1) reoccuring intergovernmental forums won't occur without a prompt from an international body like the WA, due to the usual cat-herding - some ad hoc forums are occasionally run, but in 19 years of NS, we've never had a routinely occurring intergovernmental forum because of turnover, lack of continuity etc.

(2) providing some of the organizing structure for the forum evades messy multilateral decisions over details like hosting order and dates and membership that, while may seem trivial, are often the most politically sensitive aspects of these kinds of high political affairs - usually those are the kinds of things that torpoedo GP forums and events.

(3) the infrastructure shouldn't be codified because it should be left fluid for hosts to modify and adapt. Platforms change. Neutral moderators for the forums will have to be agreed upon. Logistics like these get sorted rather quickly, the actual intiation of the event itself often does not get off the ground without some sort of prompt or externality.

I don't buy that anyone is going to form this G20 just because the SC told them to.

Unibot III wrote:

Imperium Anglorum wrote:I don't buy that anyone is going to form this G20 just because the SC told them to.

Hahaha, I do.

The resolution doesn’t tell anyone to form the G20. It forms the G20 and invites the eligible members to host & participate in the G20. That’s an important distinction.

Now, some regions may decline at first — but most regions will agree to attend an exclusive international forum they’re invited to, and most regions won’t refuse an opportunity to host a major international forum they’re eligible to host either.

This is the strange psychology of NSGP. If there’s a pond with fish in it, major diplomatic powers would go hungry and starve. If you put out some fishing rods and tell them they and only they are invited to use the fishing rods, most diplomatic powers will start to fish and those that don’t will get on board later.

Trust old man time himself, I may be a hermit and a pariah but I know how the game is played. Left to its own devices, a G20 won’t likely ever get off the ground or endure as an event. Ratify a stupid resolution and the thing will never die.

Why don’t we pass the thing and see who is right?

I think that’s where the GA and the SC will have a very different relationship with committees, because the SC will be useful in overcoming the inevitable inability of GP to initiate and organize international forums, coalitions, and agreements.

In the GA, committees are a dirty little cheat to process decisions too complicated to address within the resolution itself. In the SC, committees will be a ground-breaking political tool. In the future, I strongly suspect that Declarations will serve as a way of organizing and initiating NSGP activities that are effectively unintiatable in the traditional context.

Kranostav wrote:So from a legal standpoint, this does not create anything. You can say it does, but SC proposals have no method to create those things therefore it simply would not officially exist. I really do strongly suggest you attempt to get any indication of favor outside of this thread, and then move forward when you know it will actually have a chance, vs throwing something at the new category which will likely just end in arguing and never actually occuring.

Also your take on GA committees isnt really accurate, as they exist in an area where we cant micromanage or want to do so, so they make the most sense for resolutions that would require a continuous body to function

Hulldom wrote:3. Flexibility. Obviously we’d love to see this work out, or at least I would, but could such a group be amended in the future to allow for new entrants/replace old ones that fall out of this group? It may seem trivial, but I don’t think you want to get into a situation where (for instance) Karma falls out of the Top 20 and a region like Cape of Good Hope rises into the Top 20 in this endos metric and there’s no way to replace them. Also, how would this work of two regions (like let’s say Conch Kingdom and Thaecia, for instance) continually trade 20th position? I’m sure you could define this in the resolution so it would be easy to replace them, but.,,.is it worth doing this noting the above?

Unibot III wrote:Formation
2. The Group of Twenty (G20) encompasses the G9, in addition to the eleven regions with the most highly endorsed WA delegates in NationStates (excluding the G9) on January 1st of the current year.
3. In the event of a tie, all qualifying regions will be included in the G20 for that year.

Auphelia wrote:

Hulldom wrote:3. Flexibility. Obviously we’d love to see this work out, or at least I would, but could such a group be amended in the future to allow for new entrants/replace old ones that fall out of this group? It may seem trivial, but I don’t think you want to get into a situation where (for instance) Karma falls out of the Top 20 and a region like Cape of Good Hope rises into the Top 20 in this endos metric and there’s no way to replace them. Also, how would this work of two regions (like let’s say Conch Kingdom and Thaecia, for instance) continually trade 20th position? I’m sure you could define this in the resolution so it would be easy to replace them, but.,,.is it worth doing this noting the above?

I do not know how well the rest of it would work or how feasible this proposal is, but your question is answered here:

Unibot III wrote:Formation
2. The Group of Twenty (G20) encompasses the G9, in addition to the eleven regions with the most highly endorsed WA delegates in NationStates (excluding the G9) on January 1st of the current year.
3. In the event of a tie, all qualifying regions will be included in the G20 for that year.

Thanks for that. And assuming it’s a once yearly thing that would do. But if it was to be some sort of continual cooperation, I reiterate the problems I think could arise.

From this and based on the meeting date of February, the positions will be determined as of the first day of the new year and hold that position until the same time next year, in which case they may be replaced should they fall below another region.

Hulldom wrote:Thanks for that. And assuming it’s a once yearly thing that would do. But if it was to be some sort of continual cooperation, I reiterate the problems I think could arise.