[IC] [TWI-Only] The League of TWI (Assembly)

[The Tsunterlands]

"The Cooperative Tsunter Republic shall vote against resolution 22."

[Nhoor]

"The Dominion of Nhoor abstains from voting on Resolution 22."

[Westmoor Isles]

The Realm of the Westmoor Isles has chosen to vote against this proposal.

[Serpens Land]

The Realm of Serpens Land will vote against this resolution.

[Ainslie]

The Unified Electorates commends the intent and the goal of the resolution but cannot in good faith support the means by which it seeks to bring about this end. As such, we must abstain from this vote.

[Bhikkustan]

Baeriswyl permitted a curt expression to creep onto his face as he looked at the delegates voting against. Clearly it was better for them to defend their 16th century conceptions of sovereignty than make a real difference in the life of the enslaved masses.

"Albeuve votes FOR the resolution."

[Dormill and Stiura]

"The Ambassador for the United Republics, upon consideration from Congress, believes that the aim of this resolution is best achieved via bilateral means. As such, the United Republics shall abstain from the measure at vote."

[New Aapelistan]

"Aprosia shall abstain from the vote."

[Weinam]

Minister Jiang Yan, League representative of Weinam makes his way into the hallowed halls and takes his seat among the assembly.

[Segentova]

"Segentova votes AGAINST this resolution."

[Roendavar]

"We, from the Utopian Kingdom of the Union of Roendavarian States, vote in FAVOUR of Resolution No. 22."

[Thromsa]

"The Union of Thromsa has decided to ABSTAIN from voting on the matters of this Resolution 22".

[Corindia]

"Corindia votes in favor of the resolution"

[The United Partitions]

"After much debate, the United Partitions of Salimanasia have finally decided to vote against the proposition of Resolution 22"

[Ioudaia]

"Ioudaia reluctantly votes against this resolution."

[San Montagna]

"San Montagna will vote in favour of the resolution."

[Aizcona]

"Aizcona is against this resolution."

[Corsitilia]

The Pordeneo of Corsitilia is strongly AGAINST the resolution

[The League of TWI]

"The period of voting for Resolution No.22 has elapsed. Results of the voting is as follows,

FOR:
1. The Republic of Biaten
2. The United Republic of Solaryia
3. The Kingdom of Havalland
4. The Republic of Albeuve
5. The Utopian Kingdom of the Union of Roendavarian States
6. The Democratic States of Corindia
7. The Republic of San Montagna

AGAINST:
1. The Kingdom of Wellsia
2. The Cooperative Tsunter Republic
3. The Realm of the Westmoor Isles
4. The Realm of Serpens Land
5. The Republic of Segentova
6. The United Partitions of Salimanasia
7. The Kingdom of Ioudaia
8. The Estral Republic of Aizcona
9. The Pordeneo of Corsitilia

ABSTAIN:
1. The Dominion of Nhoor
2. The United Electorates of Ainslie
3. The United Republics of Dormill and Stiura
4. Aprosian People's Democratic Union
5. The Union of Thromsa

With 7 FOR THE RESOLUTION, 9 AGAINST THE RESOLUTION, AND 5 ABSTAINING, Resolution No. 22, therefore, does NOT PASS.

[Roendavar]

"The Utopian Kingdom of the Union of Roendavarian States wish you all the blessing of Life and the reprieve of Death.

We believe that it is no secret that our world today is facing tumultous times. All circumstances point to a climate emergency, one that we, ourselves, are the root cause of. Our forests are dying, our seas are slowly turning into poison, the very air we breathe laced and dirtied, our fields drying and turning into deserts, and who can we forget the storms that ravage our nations, just as it did over the past months. Meanwhile, as the majority suffer, there are those who remain greedy. There are those who continue to take more and more in excess and, a result, ruin the very Earth we take from. There are those who take and take, and at our path, we will continue to take, until there will be no more.

We acknowledge that progress is something we must all work towards to, but to see progress and the protection of our environment as a black and white choice, is a grave mistake. There is progress in harmony with the world around us, and we believe that we must work towards it.

Ecocide, as it is considered, is an act that must be stopped at once. The destruction of our environment and of our natural resources is a scourge to humanity and, while we may reap its benefits today, we face a future of reckoning, one that we, and all others after us, will live to see. The unjust destruction of our environment is and must be crime.

Thus, our Union files Resolution No. 22, a resolution on defining, recognizing, and combatting ecocide in the Western Isles."

RESOLUTION NO. 22
A RESOLUTION ON DEFINING, RECOGNIZING, AND TO COMBAT ECOCIDE

The League of the Western Isles,

Acknowledging the importance of nature and the environment in the well-being and development of human societies, its importance in facilitating the production of goods essential to the welfare of humanity, and its inherent connection and mutual relation with humanity itself,

Acknowledging the role of humanity in safe-guarding and protecting ecological systems and biosphere as humanity holds more power in the decision of acts that would impact and alter the environment both short-term and long-term,

Acknowledging that act of ecocide, as defined, and its harmful effects on human societies and civilization as an act disrupting natural processes integral in the functioning of the environment and the world,

Recognizing ecocide as a form of crime of local, regional, international, and intersectional magnitude,

Recognizing the need for a framework that would delineate and define the boundaries in which an act can be treated as ecocide, as such, subject to different systems,

Noting with great concern that most nations do not have a significant framework on handling ecocide,

Recognizing the need for nations to develop national frameworks that would identify and monitor the act of ecocide and to define responsibilities of respective nations to protect the harm of their respective environments,

The League of the Western Isles, thus,

1. Defines the term ecocide as;

(a) Any act that results in the temporary or permanent damage of an ecosystem or a significant area of ecological importance, determined by its net biomass, biodiversity, population of endemic or endangered species, conductivity to human society, and importance to human welfare, whether intentional or accidental;

(b) Any act that would drastically alter or irreversibly damage the ecology of a biosphere conducive to the processes of nature, such as but not limited to, animal migration, animal breeding grounds and seasons, floral adaptation, floral reproduction, natural nocturnal cycles, etc.;

(c) Any act done that deliberately harms the environment in order to deprive a group of people of natural resources and processes in the production of basic necessities, such as but not limited to, food, water, clothing, and shelter, etc.;

(d) Any deliberate act that would involve intentional and malicious incapacitation or death of flora and fauna on an unnecessary scale of number, as such that it will not yield any positive outcome;

(e) Any act, whether intentional or accidental, that would be conducive to an ecological catastrophe on a global or regional scale, that would cause significant harm to the welfare of human societies and nature;

2. Recognizes ecocide as a crime punishable by;

(a) International courts via the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice in cases that transcend national boundaries and jurisdictions and in cases wherein governments, states, or political entities are party;

(b) National courts in cases that involve acts in accordance to respective nations’ procedures and legal systems within their sovereign boundaries, as is their own discretion,

3. Encourages the creation of an international framework that shall oversee the act of ecocide in terms of transnational and international acts, to oversee compliance to international environmental standards, and to act upon discretion and interpretation, the definition and bounds of the act of ecocide,

4. Encourages nations to evaluate their legal systems and laws in order to accommodate the recognition of ecocide as crime and to implement measures in upholding such,

5. Urges nations to act in prevention and punishment of the crime of ecocide in their respective jurisdictions,

6. Encourages nations to affirm their commitment in environment and ecological preservation, as so to act in the prohibition and criminalization of ecocide,

7. Emphasizes the gravity of the act of ecocide as harmful and a threat to all nations and people.

[The League of TWI]

Resolution No. 22, titled A RESOLUTION ON DEFINING, RECOGNIZING, AND TO COMBAT ECOCIDE, as submitted by the Utopian Kingdom of the Union of Roendavarian States, is recognized. All member states of the League may now discuss and deliberate on the resolution. This period shall last indefinitely. Any amendments or proposals can immediately be put forth.

[Jeriga]

Matilde Mireya, a woman of 53 and ambassador of Jeriga to the League, stood. "The State of Jeriga supports this resolution in spirit and letter, though we have reservations about Article 2, section A. While Jeriga recognizes the need of international courts to regulate government actions in respect to issues which cross national boundaries, political entities and states is far too broad. In this context, are we discussing states as political entities within a sovereign nation or are we discussing states as sovereign nations? And what political entities? Are we discussing political parties, NGO's, corporations, or some other 'entity'?"

She took a quick look at the resolution in front of her, flipping over the short document. "In fact, Article 2 as a whole should be wiped out and all references to a "crime" be removed. It is too clumsily written, too broad in its reach, and too vague to be of use. It attempts to define how the crime is punishable while not describing the punishment and granting far too much power to the ICJ."

She flipped again. "Article 3 should remain. We agree with it in it's entirety. But the previous article should be removed for the sake of national sovereignty and for the sake of the resolution as it will not pass any other way. Please do not take this statement as anything other than a stance of sovereignty by a sovereign state. Jeriga believes in green energy and in the preservation of our planet. However, we cannot accept the resolution as written."

"Thank you."

[Ainslie]

Jesse poured over the contents of the resolution, with this topic of discussion coming as quite a surprise for him. Ecocide was something that was only just beginning to make the agenda in Ahnslen politics and this resolution was going to add fuel to the environmentalist left’s campaigning on the issue. Fortunately, he was still prepared to respond as the position on the criminalisation of damage to the environment was something that the Ahnslen Law Reform Council had been looking at for a little while now. He briefly gathered his thoughts before speaking to the League at large.

“I do commend the sentiment of the Roendavarian delegate. We agree that there is a climate emergency and we are seeing it firsthand in Ainslie. Our wildfires are becoming more severe, our floods more devastating and our fields are indeed drying up - and we are already preparing for the next water shortage crisis that will no doubt be upon us soon.

Ainslie has been on the forefront of environmentalist actions for many years now, but we simply cannot support the resolution proposed in its current state. Our particular concerns revolve around the ability for courts to fairly and justly hold those who commit ecocide to account whilst sparing those whose acts are not to the criminal standard. The definition seems incredibly broad and indeed would encompass a situation where unknowingly someone may commit ecocide without knowing the potential effects of their acts. It is our position that unintentional acts and reckless acts seem more suited to the law of negligence and nuisance rather than to the criminal law.

I must inform this League that we do not approach this issue with fresh eyes but rather our Law Reform Council has been undertaking a review of environmental laws in Ainslie with a focus on the ability for negligence and nuisance and ecocide to operate together to better regulate and compensate for damage caused to the environment. A more comprehensive statement about the topic at hand will be made when we can, based off of the advice of our Law Reform Council.

Whilst we sternly disagree with the sentiment that international courts should be handling this issue as suggested in Section 2(a), we do believe that they have an important role to play in this process. Perhaps we should allow them to hear cases where various nations are affected by the same wrong act that has been done - that would prevent fights between nations over who gets to bring the wrongdoers to justice. We cannot immediately see any issues with the rest of the resolution, that being Sections 2(b), 3, 4, 5, 6 & 7 but we are awaiting further advice on that.

This resolution appears as a step in the right direction although we must be careful so as to ensure that each nation creates the appropriate laws for their different contexts and how their legal systems operate. That is what we are doing in Ainslie and we will not let a League Resolution dictate that process or determine how we adopt the recommendations of our own Law Reform Council.”

[Thromsa]

"The Union of Thromsa, in general, sees this Resolution proposal with happy eyes, as it is certainly a step to improve International Law, and specifically International Environmental Law and International Criminal Law, which my Government is, and will be, most delighted on working on its quality development.

Back in 1995 the Union Parliament approved the Environmental Offences Act 1995, which started with a mere intervention of administrative offences, but in 2009 grew to be part of the Union criminal law, quite recently there has been another reform to such Act, that allowed for the extraterritoriality of its application, as such, it is my Government's position that the protection of the Environment is of the utmost importance, internally and, as well, externally.

The first point on which I would like to address the impossibility of compliance of the Union of Thromsa with Section 2(a), firstly, because there is no set-up framework on what kind of prison would the execution of an International Court sentence would be carried in, which could bring serious internal problems on the matters of Thromsonian Constitutional Law, and secondly, because the legal framework of Thromsa is not keen on loosing its jurisdiction, especially if it is on criminal matters, when the same acts are already punishable under Thromsonian Law, which, in its internal view, has probably much more guarantees of criminal procedure than what a possible International Court have, as well as our internal case law and legal thinking has been suspicious of this Assembly's activity on International Law, as we can see clearly on the still recent decision by our Constitutional Court in Case P-3/2019. For that reason, Thromsa could accept Section 2(a) with a reservation, or even applying the internal mechanisms to prevent the application of such removal of Thromsonian jurisdiction.

The second point touches a more sensible matter regarding Sections 4 to 6, when interpreted as a forceful mechanism of international imposition of criminalisation of acts. In principle, the Union does not oppose this, but we must remember the previous behaviour of this chamber regarding the previous Proposal for A resolution to combat indentured servitude, which it also did the same, regarding Section 4 of such proposal. I remind that the Union is in favour, despite the lack of will from various nations of the Isles to such behaviour."

[Belantica]

"The Belantic delegation commends the Resolution proposal, as the climate emergency is of much importance to all, and will help as with protecting our environment for generations to come.

While this proposal is noble in it's intentions, there was been a number of concerns that we have noticed alongside other delegations. The first of these concerns would be Section @a of the prosed Resolution, as the legal framework is not specified, and the way that the legal system of Belantica is structured, it would not be keen on handing over the enforcement of environmental laws to an international body, when the legal system there would be more than capable of handling our own violations. Furthermore there isn't an international concesus on what can be defined as 'ecocide' and not does not, and in many case, this can become a gray area.

Another issue regards Section 4. We are not certain that the League would have the necessary resources and manpower to handle all potential cases across the Isle, when many nations being able to handle such cases within their own legal frameworks.

At this time, the Belantic delegation cannot accept the proposal in it's current form."