The Duplication Rule

[Mallorea and Riva]

Duplication

If the majority of your Proposal is covered by an existing Resolution, your Proposal is toast. We've got enough of these things already, we don't need to double up (i.e. the WA has already banned landmines, we don't need to do it again). As an aside, since the WA has already banned biological weapons, you don't need to include it in your Proposal to ban nuclear and chemical ones. (see: House of Cards)

[The Dark Star Republic]

Kind of kicking the tires on this one, but I'd be OK with getting rid of this rule.

There are over 300 resolutions. Some are repealed, some are repeals, but still an awful lot of ground has been covered. While contradiction poses a problem of interpretation, duplication does not. If the WA legalises abortion and then bans abortion, players don't know what the law is. If the legalises abortion twice, they know what the law is - in fact, they're doubly sure of it.

It would be boring if we ended up voting in the same resolution endlessly, but one possible solution to the problem posed by early resolutions like Ban on Slavery and Trafficking or Charter of Civil Rights that covered massive issue areas yet might prove difficult to repeal would be, instead of a hard reset as done in 2008 (which was not well handled, especially in hindsight) to relax the rules on duplication and allow a bit of overlap.

[Christian Democrats]

I actually would like to see the Duplication Rule enforced more strictly. Otherwise, a player who wants to change GA law has to pass two or three repeals just so he can get around to writing original legislation on the topic with which he is concerned.

Right now, for example, the GA has three resolutions recognizing a right to obtain therapeutic abortions. Do we really need to protect something that many times?

"If the majority of your Proposal is covered by an existing Resolution, your Proposal is toast."

Why a "majority"? If any section of your proposal has already been legislated, why should it be legislated again?

[Jean Pierre Trudeau]

Meh... remove it. We need more legislation on nuclear weapons anyway.

[Kaboomlandia]

This:

As an aside, since the WA has already banned biological weapons, you don't need to include it in your Proposal to ban nuclear and chemical ones. (see: House of Cards)

I never actually understood why this was mentioned and nothing else. Why does it deserve special mention?

[Greater Louisistan]

I have to agree with CD on this one. There is no particular need to legislate on the same matter twice.

[Frisbeeteria]

There is no particular need to legislate on the same matter twice.

Based on the number of complaints I see about "this proposal duplicates COCR" or some of the other broad-spectrum resolutions, I disagree. I think there are any number of smaller points that could be addressed within the context of a broader resolution. Allowing some duplication also allows us to get around unnecessarily broad blockers. Pure duplication should continue to be blocked, but some aspects should be allowed.

I'm at a loss on how to phrase this concept without it requiring a significant amount of moderator judgement. If somebody wants to take a crack at it, please do.

[The Dark Star Republic]

There is no particular need to legislate on the same matter twice.

Based on the number of complaints I see about "this proposal duplicates COCR" or some of the other broad-spectrum resolutions, I disagree. I think there are any number of smaller points that could be addressed within the context of a broader resolution. Allowing some duplication also allows us to get around unnecessarily broad blockers. Pure duplication should continue to be blocked, but some aspects should be allowed.

I'm at a loss on how to phrase this concept without it requiring a significant amount of moderator judgement. If somebody wants to take a crack at it, please do.

To be honest that's what the current rule was meant to be, if you read the original discussion and recall previous rulings. It's only more recently that it's grown in scope - a result, I'm sure, of how often it is completely incorrectly invoked by players in the Silly/Illegal Proposals thread - and seen, for example, the Repatriation of Remains proposal deleted because of some really marginal overlap.

Oh, and incidentally, we repealed the landmines ban - so if the rule is kept, that example needs to be changed. This has been a common theme of many of the rules: it would be better to avoid direct references to any passed resolutions in the rules, as repeals will see the examples go out of date.

[Christian Democrats]

COCR has been overinterpreted. All it does is prohibit discrimination on a number of grounds in a handful of areas:

• Legislation (excluding WA law)
• Private employment
• Housing
• Education
• Employment benefits
• Compensation
• General public services

Not to mention that COCR says, "All inhabitants of member states are entitled to rights secured to them in international law."

[Greater Louisistan]

There is no particular need to legislate on the same matter twice.

Based on the number of complaints I see about "this proposal duplicates COCR" or some of the other broad-spectrum resolutions, I disagree. I think there are any number of smaller points that could be addressed within the context of a broader resolution. Allowing some duplication also allows us to get around unnecessarily broad blockers. Pure duplication should continue to be blocked, but some aspects should be allowed.

I'm at a loss on how to phrase this concept without it requiring a significant amount of moderator judgement. If somebody wants to take a crack at it, please do.

I think, I know what you're getting at. There is a legal principle in some countries that goes along the lines of this: If two legal rules apply in a matter and one is more general than the other, the more specific rule supersedes the more general one.

And yes, I can see how something like that might be desirable. However, if at all possible it should be worded to only apply to situations like this. We don't need two resolutions which actually do the same thing on the same level of generalisation.

[Frisbeeteria]

Summary of proposed changes:

No consensus reached. No rewrite offered.

[The Dark Star Republic]

While researching an answer for a post in the forum (which I don't have time for today, sorry Sierra Lyricalia), I came across this, which I knew I'd seen before but had forgotten to bookmark:

The rule on duplication means that there is no feasible and legal way for the Appropriate Punishment Act to contain any language prohibiting the practice of torture as it's is clearly already covered in resolution #9, which you've acknowledged. So, with that already covered, we can take the fourth clause to mean that a nation can determine the appropriate punishment for the crime, so long the adopted law is in compliance with all current General Assembly resolutions.

This is what seems to be the new version of the duplication rule: an absolute stance that any duplication is illegal. The "majority" of that resolution was about a whole bunch of other stuff, yet it seems that even a small aspect of it reaffirming the illegality of torture would have been considered illegal.

If you look at the rule the way it is written now, though, that's in no way obvious. It simply says that if a "majority" of your proposal is duplicative, it's "toast".

No rewrite offered.

The rule doesn't seem to be being interpreted as written currently. So what's the point of rewriting it? You should say what you, the moderators, consider duplication to be: if the interpretation above is valid, then you should phrase it something like:

If the majority any of your Proposal is covered by an existing Resolution, your Proposal is toast. We've got enough of these things already, we don't need to double up

If the interpretation is more in line with the rule as currently written, though, then there's nothing the players can do about that.

[Omigodtheykilledkenny]

Yeah, I got a (pre-RF) abortion rights proposal dinged for "duplicating" On Abortion. Why? Because I forgot to exclude abortions already legalized by OA, meaning I was essentially legislating on them twice. Obviously it was kryo moderating, so it should be taken with a grain of salt, but it flies directly in the face of previous conventions that expanding on rights already offered by the WA isn't duplication. I appealed, and got a "we're looking into it."

Three years later, still having gotten no response, I assumed the ruling held, so I filed a GHR against Reproductive Freedoms for essentially "duplicating" OA in the same manner...and never got a response.

So I suppose the point to this little story is, overly strict rulings on this are a problem, and the rule clearly needs to be scaled back. I'd be fine with scaling back the rule, and banning Kryozerkia from ruling on it ever, but sine that isn't an option...

It would be boring if we ended up voting in the same resolution endlessly, but one possible solution to the problem posed by early resolutions like Ban on Slavery and Trafficking or Charter of Civil Rights that covered massive issue areas yet might prove difficult to repeal would be, instead of a hard reset as done in 2008 (which was not well handled, especially in hindsight) to relax the rules on duplication and allow a bit of overlap.

This.

[Omigodtheykilledkenny]

Also:

Duplication

If the majority of your Proposal is covered by an existing Resolution, your Proposal is toast. We've got enough of these things already, we don't need to double up (i.e. the WA has already banned landmines, we don't need to do it again). As an aside, since the WA has already banned biological weapons, you don't need to include it in your Proposal to ban nuclear and chemical ones. (see: House of Cards)

Obviously this bit needs to be changed, although the whole rule could do with a rewrite.

[Christian Democrats]

We definitely need more consistency, but I would say "no overlap whatsoever." Repeal the old resolution first if you want to expand on that topic.

[Mikeswill]

What the members of my region would like to see is a Resolution that passes not be immediately Repealed regardless of the reason.

[Flibbleites]

What the members of my region would like to see is a Resolution that passes not be immediately Repealed regardless of the reason.

Which really has absolutely nothing to do with the Duplication Rule, now does it?

[Mikeswill]

No, it does not have anything to do with the Duplication rule.

[Ainocra]

I am of the opinion that it could be relaxed to a degree.

lets say I write a resolution that mandates all whhozits have a specific safety feature.
(net effect statwank +1)

Someone else should also be allowed to write another one adding a safety feature to the aforementioned whhozits.
(moar statwank +1)

as it now stands they could conceivably get it thrown out because whhozits safety has already been covered.

Where the line should be drawn though is at multiple copies that accomplish the exact same thing

so in the above whhozits debacle people couldn't keep calling for the same safety feature over and over again.


if that makes any sense

[Christian Democrats]

Maybe, it would be better to rewrite the Duplication Rule in terms of the old resolution.

"If your proposal would make an old resolution essentially meaningless or duplicative, your proposal will be removed. If the GA, for example, has a resolution that imposes carbon emissions limits on cars, you can't submit a proposal outlawing the automotive industry without first repealing the old resolution."

[The Dark Star Republic]

But doesn't Reproductive Freedoms render On Abortion "meaningless or duplicative"?

[Defwa]

But doesn't Reproductive Freedoms render On Abortion "meaningless or duplicative"?

The loop hole for that is the term termination of pregnancy.
OA mandated abortions in certain circumstances.
RF didn't mandate abortion if another option was there

[Omigodtheykilledkenny]

But doesn't Reproductive Freedoms render On Abortion "meaningless or duplicative"?

Not necessarily; OA contains a few clinical regulations on abortion that RF lacks -- including the right to let mothers die if doctors don't believe in performing an abortion to save their life.

The loop hole for that is the term termination of pregnancy.
OA mandated abortions in certain circumstances.
RF didn't mandate abortion if another option was there

Not helping.

[Defwa]

But doesn't Reproductive Freedoms render On Abortion "meaningless or duplicative"?

Not necessarily; OA contains a few clinical regulations on abortion that RF lacks -- including the right to let mothers die if doctors don't believe in performing an abortion to save their life.

The loop hole for that is the term termination of pregnancy.
OA mandated abortions in certain circumstances.
RF didn't mandate abortion if another option was there

Not helping.

I'm sorry, I'll make sure not to countermand your agenda in the future.

But we can both agree RF is a thoroughly legal resolution that will be on the books forever.

[The Dark Star Republic]

But we can both agree RF is a thoroughly legal resolution

My exact question was how, given previous interpretations of the Duplication rule, it could be legal.