[Challenge] Trade Of Endangered Organisms

[Christian Democrats]

The proposal below has been challenged as a possible category violation.

viewtopic.php?p=30478641#p30478641

It's two days away from a vote. Only five of us will decide this case since Bears Armed is listed as a coauthor.

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Trade Of Endangered Organisms
Category: Moral Decency
Strength: Mild
Proposed by: Ransium

The World Assembly,

Applauding its members' continued efforts on the preservation of endangered organisms,

Concerned that illegal collection and smuggling of endangered organisms could undermine preservation efforts,

Noting the loss of endangered species has the potential to cause extreme harm to member nations populations; such as possibly hindering the development of life saving medicines and industrial materials, and the destruction of ecosystem services,

Believing that because extinction is irreversible, and letting a species that currently exists in only one nation become extinct therefore permanently renders all nations incapable of ever acquiring populations of that species, member nations have a moral obligation -- not only to their own peoples today, but also to future generations of those peoples and to the international community -- to take action against such illegal collection and smuggling;

Hereby, subject to any limitations set by earlier resolutions that are still in force, including the fact that trade involving certain groups of organisms may already be covered separately by such legislation:

1. Instructs the World Assembly Endangered Species Committee (WAESC) and WA member nation's governments to cooperate with each other in creating and maintaining up-to-date lists of the populations of species and subspecies that qualify as 'Endangered';

2. Bans the international import and export into or from member nations of all organisms from endangered species or subspecies, and of goods derived wholly or in part from said organisms, unless any of the following exemptions applies:

1. They are specimens or goods that are being collected or being returned as part of a scientifically run species restoration program;
   
2. They are specimens or goods derived from specimens that originate from a non-wild source such as a farm, laboratory, or nursery, and are birthed, grown, or hatched from seeds, spores, eggs or other material, that itself was collected from a non-wild source or as part of a scientifically run species restoration program;
   
3. They are commercial, scientific, or other goods that were derived from specimens under the guidance of a species restoration program and collected in a manner which does not further endanger the species;
   
4. They are durable goods such as lumber, which can be historically or scientifically proven to have been processed before the species was first noted as being endangered by WAESC;
   
5. They are unintentionally distributed reproductive or other microscopic materials such as seeds, pollen, eggs or spores in trace amounts that are in or on other trade goods;

3. Requires member nations to ardently enforce measures designed to stop the illegal collection and international trade of endangered species and products derived from them, within their jurisdictions;

4. Urges member nations to pass legislation preventing transporting and profiting from endangered species and products derived from them, within their own borders.

Co-authored by The Free Bears of Bears Armed

https://www.nationstates.net/page=UN_view_proposal/id=ransium_1479866125

[Christian Democrats]

I vote illegal. This proposal belongs in the Environmental category.

According to the Rules, the Human Rights and Moral Decency categories "primarily discuss the domestic Civil policies of WA member nations." Animals, plants, and fungi are not part of civil society, so regulating human conduct toward them is not a Human Rights or Moral Decency issue. Human Rights and Moral Decency deal with relations between persons, not between persons and animals/plants/fungi.

To put my point somewhat differently, we have, under the Rules, civilization on one side and nature on the other. Human Rights and Moral Decency are concerned with what goes on in civilization. The Environmental category is concerned with what goes on in nature.

[Sedgistan]

Category violations are the one area of GA legality where I feel I can be useful. I'll give you an approximate rundown of the stats of the relevant categories:

Moral decency - restricts civil rights.

Environmental - increases government spending on the environment (which often includes enforcement), increases the general population's concern for the environment as well as the quality of the environment, and shrinks the relevant industries depending on which sub-category is chosen.

If this were an NS issue, I would use stats very similar to those of the Environmental category to represent the changes introduced. I would not code any change to civil rights for this.

In my view, this is a very clear category violation, and "Environmental - All Businesses" is the ideal fit for it.

With regards to the strength of that category, its overall impact on industries are stronger than that of the more targeted ones. However, this is much more spread out, so it affects all businesses a bit, whereas Logging for example will affect the Woodchipping industry by a lot more.

My personal view on strength of "All Businesses" is that it should be flexible, taking into account that categories will only be an imperfect match for any given proposal's changes, so both mild and strong proposals should be allowed to go there if they're aimed at industry in general rather than a specific one.

[Separatist Peoples]

Legal.

The proposal can fit into either, and I'm inclined not to remove it just because the category chosen isn't ideal but is otherwise legal. Moral Decency deals with limiting civil freedoms of individuals. Individual includes businesses for the purposes of trade, I would think, because otherwise merely being a business could evade a number of laws. This essentially limits the power of individuals to harvest, transport, and sell specific goods derived from a class of protected sources. Because of the natural element of these sources, it would make more sense to keep this in the Environmental category, but it also fits the description of Moral Decency in that it acts to restrict individual freedoms. Since the proposal fits within the boundaries of Moral Decency, albeit not as well as with Environmental, I am inclined to let the voters decide.

[Sedgistan]

In NS, the freedoms of businesses and to trade (economic freedoms) are separate from the general freedoms of individuals (civil rights).

[Separatist Peoples]

In NS, the freedoms of businesses and to trade (economic freedoms) are separate from the general freedoms of individuals (civil rights).

It also applies to individuals who are engaging in commerce. A proposal can fit into two categories adequately. I believe that this is one. The way I see it, this was successfully shoehorned, and I'm inclined to let the voters determine whether the shoehorning was appropriate. It limits the actions of private entities, so MD can fit.

I will happily concede that this is not the ideal category.

[Sedgistan]

In NS, the freedoms of businesses and to trade (economic freedoms) are separate from the general freedoms of individuals (civil rights).

It also applies to individuals who are engaging in commerce.

Which one? Individuals engaging in commerce is covered under economic freedoms too, not civil rights.

[Separatist Peoples]

It also applies to individuals who are engaging in commerce.

Which one? Individuals engaging in commerce is covered under economic freedoms too, not civil rights.

Clause 3 deals with collection, a non-commercial action even if it's done for the purposes of eventual sale. I'm not convinced this can't fit into Moral Decency and Environment. I think it's close enough to merit going to vote. I'm inclined to be generous, because I think that the GenSec should be yanking submissions only when absolutely necessary.

[Sierra Lyricalia]

On my phone so lots of citations not forthcoming, but framed properly literally any law can be given a Moral Decency justification. MD is for those laws that have no other pragmatic foundations. You could very easily find a moralistic rationale for the entire suite of resolutions on the laws of war, for one thing; yet they're all properly listed under other categories. Even CoCR could be given an MD argument: after all, that resolution prevents individuals working in the government from acting according to their free will and expression when they're incompatible with those or other characteristics of the citizens they're supposed to serve.

Environmental laws by their nature constrain people's choices both as individual actors and as economic agents; they constrain companies' activities economically; and they increase government expenditures in science and conservation, as well as enforcement. This resolution does all of those things, while Moral Decency only focuses on one small aspect. It can't possibly cover all effects that this proposal discusses, whether game stats wise, or In Character.

Illegal.

[Glen-Rhodes]

As I explained in the challenge thread, I think this is obviously not a Moral Decency proposal, and so it's illegal for a category violation.

Also, thanks for your contribution, Sedge! When it comes to categories, it definitely helps to have an Issues guy around

[Bears Armed]

Although I have to recuse myself from voting, presumably I am allowed to express an opinion here?

Obviously, as the change of category was my suggestion, I consider it legal ... and, yes, I regard 'Sensible Limits on Hunting' as an adequate precedent for this.
Although the Mods have allowed some effectively-'Mild' proposals through as 'Environmental (All Businesses) in the past I'm not really happy with that decision, bearing in mind the longstanding principle that a proposal's IC wording should be enough to justify the OOC stat effects.

[Glen-Rhodes]

Although the Mods have allowed some effectively-'Mild' proposals through as 'Environmental (All Businesses) in the past I'm not really happy with that decision, bearing in mind the longstanding principle that a proposal's IC wording should be enough to justify the OOC stat effects.

Is that the case here, though? All of the environmental policy changes won't be reflected by game stat changes if the proposal is passed under Moral Decency.

[Wrapper]

Although I have to recuse myself from voting, presumably I am allowed to express an opinion here?

My opinion: You really shouldn't. Someone who's recused oneself should not be making arguments behind the scenes to sway voting. Instead, I think as co-author your opinion belongs in the public legality challenge thread, and not here.

[Christian Democrats]

Even CoCR could be given an MD argument

It should be in the MD category in my opinion. It restricts people's freedoms for moral reasons.

Illegal.

it's illegal for a category violation

Including me, that's three votes out of five, so we're removing this.

I'll post in the admin/mod request thread, and I'll post in the challenge thread as well.

Does anybody want to write the opinion?

[Separatist Peoples]

Although I have to recuse myself from voting, presumably I am allowed to express an opinion here?

My opinion: You really shouldn't. Someone who's recused oneself should not be making arguments behind the scenes to sway voting. Instead, I think as co-author your opinion belongs in the public legality challenge thread, and not here.

I dunno. As somebody involved in both the resolution and the precedent, I'm interested in his opinion, be it here or the other thread.

I guess, contingent on Sciongrad having a better articulated position, I'll write a dissent.

[Wrapper]

I dunno. As somebody involved in both the resolution and the precedent, I'm interested in his opinion, be it here or the other thread.

I have no problem with Bears expressing an opinion, but I think it belongs in public, in the challenge thread, and not here.

[Bears Armed]

Although I have to recuse myself from voting, presumably I am allowed to express an opinion here?

My opinion: You really shouldn't. Someone who's recused oneself should not be making arguments behind the scenes to sway voting. Instead, I think as co-author your opinion belongs in the public legality challenge thread, and not here.

Okay. That was a point of procedure on which I thought clarification was needed, and now it's sorted out. I'll add it to the 'GAS Code of Conduct' thread.

EDIT: Actually it's already mentioned in Glen-Rhodes' draft Code, but of course we haven't yet voted on that... or discussed Sedge's suggestion, also in that thread, that a seventh member be added to this Council to reduce the likelihood of tied decisions.

[Sciongrad]

My opinion: You really shouldn't. Someone who's recused oneself should not be making arguments behind the scenes to sway voting. Instead, I think as co-author your opinion belongs in the public legality challenge thread, and not here.

I dunno. As somebody involved in both the resolution and the precedent, I'm interested in his opinion, be it here or the other thread.

I guess, contingent on Sciongrad having a better articulated position, I'll write a dissent.

Yeah, my position is basically that heavy handed category policing doesn't contribute anything to the game. If a resolution can reasonably fit into one category, even if it's a much better fit in another category, I'm inclined to let it stand. We really should only intervene when there are no reasonable legal arguments available. In this case, I think the resolution fit more comfortably in the Environmental; All Businesses category, but I also think it could reasonably be sorted under the Moral Decency category. I can see how BA and Ransium reached that conclusion. I wouldn't be so understanding if they placed it in the Global Disarmament category, or whatever. Our willingness to intervene should be at its nadir when a resolution fits into one of two reasonable categories, even if one is a better fit.

SP, if you want to write the dissent based on that reasoning (or something similar), I'll sign on!

[Separatist Peoples]

Tonight I'll definitely try. I'm trying to write a graded memo with a fever at the moment, so once the dancing lights fade and I wrap this up, I'll move to the dissent.

[Glen-Rhodes]

Yeah, my position is basically that heavy handed category policing doesn't contribute anything to the game. If a resolution can reasonably fit into one category, even if it's a much better fit in another category, I'm inclined to let it stand. We really should only intervene when there are no reasonable legal arguments available. In this case, I think the resolution fit more comfortably in the Environmental; All Businesses category, but I also think it could reasonably be sorted under the Moral Decency category. I can see how BA and Ransium reached that conclusion. I wouldn't be so understanding if they placed it in the Global Disarmament category, or whatever. Our willingness to intervene should be at its nadir when a resolution fits into one of two reasonable categories, even if one is a better fit.

This is a fine theory. But the issue here is that it would open up Moral Decency to anything, so long as an author makes some kind of moral argument. It's not so much an issue of it fitting into more than one category, but choosing the one it fits into less. If that was the case, I wouldn't have thought it was a category violation.

[Sedgistan]

I'd suggest that Category violations are something that the Secretariat should definitely be stricter with. Most WA nations don't really care about metagaming, contradiction or branding violations - it's just words, and it doesn't affect them. Nation stats are what most of the (relatively) silent majority care about, and giving 26,000 nations the wrong stats for a resolution is a big thing.

These people are primarily issues players, and they'd expect a level of consistency with how stats are applied across the game. If they'd answered an issue option that had the provisions ToEO did, they'd expect to see a boost to their environment and a hit to their economy/industry, not a change to their civil rights.

Getting categories right is vitally important. When we were discussing which rules enforcement to hand over to the Council, Category violations was something we weren't 100% on relinquishing. I'm not saying this as a stick to beat you guys into doing what I want; rather, I'd like you to appreciate that decisions on this affect more than just the GA forum community, and as such should be treated differently - "it could just about work, kind of, if you squint at it from this angle" isn't good enough for this.

I understand the Category system at present is poor, and it needs either a thorough revamp or complete replacement. I tried sorting it with the rest of the team back when Ard was still around, but after an incredibly frustrating lack of progress, had to abandon it and just do a few basic fixes that we made in December last year. I've got a million things on my plate at present in NS, but will get to Category reform and with your help get things properly sorted. In the meantime, though, it still remains vital that the current categories are enforced properly.

[Sierra Lyricalia]

Opinion draft


We are asked to determine if the proposal Trade of Endangered Organisms ("ToEO") is illegal for a category violation. This proposal was submitted as Moral Decency; ultimately (and despite acknowledged precedent for an apparently environment-centered resolution legally standing as Moral Decency) I find the proposal too broad to fit in MD, and thus illegal.

Moral Decency ("MD") is a category designed to restrict the civil rights of individuals in order to promote a desired "higher" goal; to constrain personal conduct because society as a whole becomes more "good" as a result. From one perspective, all law is on some level a moral decency act, a restriction of individual rights to benefit society; without getting into a genealogy of rules, NationStates specifically is set up to differentiate areas of the law based pragmatically on what parts of society they affect. MD in this scheme is simply that part of the law that primarily restricts individuals, and whose benefit is not measurable in materialistic (that is, economic) terms.

ToEO prohibits a substantial amount of economic activity and requires that nations "ardently enforce" measures to halt that activity. The obvious real-world analogue is CITES, the treaty forming the basis of the international ban on ivory. Killing members of an endangered species may well be morally unacceptable. But the most noticeable consequence of banning such killings isn't a reduction of the civil rights (and a moral improvement in the souls) of would-be poachers, it is the loss of profits to those caught trading in the products of those animals. Therefore, since ToEO acts primarily on economic rights for the benefit of the ecosystem, it properly belongs under Environmental.

One might argue that Sensible Limits on Hunting does basically the same thing - restricts the killing of endangered species - so if that's legal as Moral Decency, why isn't this? Without commenting here on the legality of Sensible Limits on Hunting, I respond that SLoH really does limit itself to acting on the rights of individuals. While there is a clause specifically on the economics of hunting, the focus is on regulating legal trade, getting the right paperwork, and such - not on coming down hard against poachers and ivory traffickers. Where ToEO acts to destroy the lethal trade of endangered species, SLoH acts to make individual hunters follow set procedures in getting permits and in choosing their targets; and the latter is therefore much more able to fit as an act of Moral Decency. ToEO cannot come close to fitting that hole, and is therefore illegal as submitted.

[Glen-Rhodes]

I actually think that last paragraph really demolishes the logic of the opinion, and probably should be removed. Sensible Limits on Hunting doesn't even really try to make a moral argument against Hunting. It relies on economic and trade arguments, along with ecological preservation arguments. Half it's preamble is actually dedicated to talking about economics & trade. Whereas ToEO really does attempt to make a moral argument, but is still not a Moral Decency proposal.

There's no reason to go out of our way to try to find Sensible Limits on Hunting is in the right category. If we mention it at all, we can simply say it might have been prudent to be submitted under Environmental as well. But really, if Sensible Limits is fine under Moral Decency without making an actual moral case in its text, then it would be inconsistent of us to strike down ToEO when it does try to make one.

[Sierra Lyricalia]

The problem is that Sensible Limits on Hunting was specifically brought up as precedent for a Moral Decency resolution focused on the environment in more ways than just "thou shalt not wear mink coats." If we don't take at least some stab at drawing a difference between the two resolutions, we're either obligated to find this proposal legal, or we're obligated to declare Sensible Limits on Hunting illegal - neither of which I'm willing to do at this point. I see the operative mandates of SLoH as primarily regulating individual behavior, and the operative mandates of ToEO as primarily regulating institutional and corporate behavior. That makes the difference.

[Glen-Rhodes]

Well, there isn't really much a difference, is what I'm saying. Sensible Limits on Hunting is in the wrong category, too. I don't know why you're "unwilling" to say that. We can't say it's in the right category -- when it doesn't even make a moral case whatsoever -- and then go and say ToEO isn't. TeEO actually makes a moral case.

Why are you unwilling to stay SLH is in the wrong category?