[Challenge] RAT III

[Separatist Peoples]

Wordy, but I'll sign.

[Sierra Lyricalia]

Took out just a couple of more verbose constructions, but honestly I'm not up for much more elision/editing. No sentence meanings changed. I'll post this publicly tonight and then I'm fucking off to the beach for the four-day weekend. Hope you all have a great time!

We are asked to determine the legality of the proposal "Repeal 'Responsibility in Transferring Arms.'" On examination we find an Honest Mistake violation, and the repeal is illegal as submitted.

Simply put, the repeal proposal is misleading because a war cannot be a war of conquest unless the warring nation seizes territory. If one nation invades another in order to stop "genocide, slavery, and other human rights violations" without taking territory, that war is not a war of conquest by definition. This renders the clause regarding humanitarian interventions (below) a clear Honest Mistake.

Arguing that war intended to halt blatant abuses of World Assembly prohibitions on genocide, slavery, and other human rights violations may still be considered conquest if the offending nation does not pose a persistent or existential threat, or has not taken territory from the attacking nation.

However, we must ask whether the phrase "may be considered" (emphasis added) gets that clause off the hook. Institutions have incorrect opinions all the time, and the repeal might not be arguing that these "just wars" will by the WA be considered conquest; simply that they may be so considered by some WA or national bureaucrat. This would render the Honest Mistake so minor as to be not worth troubling about.

But we cannot so rule. The basis of the repeal cannot be that someone might crazily misinterpret the definition of conquest (that fact is true, trivial, obvious, and its type has been an invalid argument for repeal since NS Antiquity). This is not a valid argument, essentially. No nation substantially engaged in the arms trade is going to accept that a humanitarian intervention is a war of conquest without serious evidence - e.g. outright annexation or some similar, perhaps political, process. Especially since there are plenty of unjust wars, that nevertheless do not constitute "conquest," that remain legally supportable/suppliable under RTA. This is very basic Reasonable Nation Theory.

Therefore the argument that nations might misinterpret things to their own disadvantage can be either a useless factoid (of no consequence for the repeal); or an Honest Mistake (assuming it's at all pertinent to the repeal argument). The author has actually argued the former in the challenge thread. But accepting the premise still doesn't make the repeal legal. If the premise is not an Honest Mistake, it's gibberish because it bears no relation to actual national practice, and therefore doesn't belong in a repeal argument. Meanwhile if it does claim relevance to national practice it is false and therefore an Honest Mistake.

The only way to save this, in short, is to assume the author is naively asserting that nations blunder through the ages without bothering to set policy, gain advantage, or frame international disputes so they get ahead. In other words, either the statement itself or its underlying premise violate RNT. The argument is simply not credible. Therefore the Honest Mistake is inescapable and the proposed repeal is illegal as submitted.

[Christian Democrats]

Four members have already signed onto the previous copy. Just post that one. Who cares if it's verbose?

[Sierra Lyricalia]

Four members have already signed onto the previous copy. Just post that one. Who cares if it's verbose?

Fair point. Done.