[Legality Challenge] Convention on Domestic Partnerships

[Clean Land]

Challenged Proposal:

General Assembly Proposal
ID: auralia_1508558566
Convention on Domestic Partnerships

A resolution to improve worldwide human and civil rights.

Category: Human Rights

Strength: Significant

Proposed by: Auralia

Acknowledging the significance of marriages and similar relationships in numerous member states,

Reaffirming the right to sexual privacy previously guaranteed by this Assembly,

Believing that an individual should generally be free to enter into a domestic partnership with others, to raise the children for whom they are responsible in the context of such a partnership, and to dissolve such a partnership if necessary,

Seeking to protect these rights while respecting the sociocultural and religious differences between member states,

The General Assembly,

Requires member states to permit a legally competent individual to:

enter into a domestic partnership with other legally competent individuals and thereby share a common domestic life together, with the mutual informed consent of all parties,

provide for, safeguard, and educate the children for whom the individual is legally responsible, in the context of a domestic partnership, and

dissolve a domestic partnership to which the individual is a party, regardless of whether the other parties consent to such dissolution;

Directs member states to provide appropriate assistance to individuals in the pursuit of any of the above, with the understanding that member states are free to treat domestic partnerships as a private contractual affair if they so choose;

Further requires member states to ensure that, upon the dissolution of a domestic partnership, all parties:

shall not be subject to disadvantageous treatment by a member state simply by virtue of seeking the dissolution without the consent of the other parties,

shall not lose legal guardianship of a child simply by virtue of the dissolution, and

shall receive an equitable portion of shared assets in accordance with the terms of the partnership and relevant law;

Prohibits member states from engaging in unjust discrimination in the application of the above provisions, including but not limited to disadvantageous treatment on the basis of the race, sex, gender, sexual orientation, or legal mutual sexual activity of the parties to the domestic partnership;

Clarifies that nothing in this resolution shall be interpreted so as to prevent a member state from:

removing legal guardianship of a child from an individual or enforcing the terms of a child custody agreement when a competent tribunal determines that it would be in the best interests of the child, or

enforcing lawful restrictions on habitation or movement, such as imprisonment;

Reserves to member states the right to define, recognize, support, or regulate marriages, domestic partnerships, and similar relationships, to the extent permitted by this and previous World Assembly resolutions;

Further clarifies that nothing in this resolution prohibits the World Assembly from:

requiring the recognition of foreign marriages, domestic partnerships, and similar relationships that are otherwise valid in a member state's law,

regulating the distribution of assets following the dissolution of a marriage, domestic partnership, or similar relationship with international elements, or

engaging in generally applicable regulation that may affect marriages, domestic partnerships, and similar relationships as a secondary effect, such as regulation on sexual consent, legal guardianship, or contractual agreements or unions in general.

Approvals: 40 (Infernia, Imperium Anglorum, TexJeeps, Costasland, Pilarcraft, Ancian, Forty-Kay Humour, United Republic Empire, Oakrugia, Jerusal, Nearly Finland, Spexico, Laeral, Aleisyr, Solborg, New Ciencia, The Aquarian Islands, Republic of British Russia, Zaquardia, Starbursts Chews, Charcoaltropolis, Karamiko, Kylistan, Ruthshan, Eat Pant, Digna, Harmony Cafe, Fortisian Isles, Billy Bob Jenkins, Kronomia, Altorea, Ravnabbor, Lacovia, Logic Gate, Mikeswill, Holocron of Revan, Pasliberta, Krioval, Zombiedolphins, Libertatis Regalis)
GenSec Status: LEGAL
Info

Legal (3): Bananaistan, Bears Armed, Sierra Lyricalia

18 minutes ago: Sierra Lyricalia: Legal
7 hours ago: Bears Armed: Legal
7 hours ago: Bananaistan: Legal

Status: Lacking Support (requires 47 more approvals)

Voting Ends: in 2 days 21 hours

Debate Thread:
https://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=425805
Rule(s) broken:

Duplication: From the verb 'to duplicate' - to do or repeat a specific action or concept over again. Proposals may elaborate in specific areas of policy, where broad legislation exists but may not replicate specific policy. Authors may re-iterate in general terms a minor part of existing policy to provide support to their proposal.

Edit:

Amendments: A supplementary set of clauses that either enhance or modify an active proposal's text. Proposals cannot amend existing resolutions because the game's coding does not allow for it. To introduce new legislation, the active resolution must be repealed. This applies to appeals as well.
Repeals: Legislation to remove an active resolution. Repeals can only be submitted by click the repeal link at the foot of the target resolution. Repeals submitted using anything but the repeal function are automatically removed.

Duplicated resolution:

World Assembly Resolution #39
The Right to a Lawful Divorce
A resolution to improve worldwide human and civil rights.

Category: Human Rights
Strength: Significant
Proposed by: Sionis Prioratus

Description: THE PEOPLES OF THE WORLD ASSEMBLED,

CELEBRATING the cultural diversity of its member states,

RECOGNIZING that legal unions of marriage vary among member nations and include civil contracts regulating the union of two or more persons including nationally recognized effects on the common estate and inheritance rights of the parties,

RECOGNIZING the fallibility of sentient desires and actions, failures which can touch aspects fundamental to a person's pursuit of happiness, among them the choice of entering in good faith in a partnership for the purpose of lasting a lifetime,

RECOGNIZING that unions of marriage may become unwanted, untenable, undesirable, harmful, and even dangerous,

APPALLED that certain member States have not desisted to devise ever subtler ways to try to ignore self-evident sentient rights, such as the right to happiness, the right to avoid harm to oneself and one's children, the right to self-determination, and the right to pursue a second chance in life,

ENACTS the following resolution:

1) Divorce is the legal dissolution of a marriage, which ceases to have legal existence between the requesting party or parties to said marriage from the date the divorce is legally and finally pronounced, and shall henceforth be available to all inhabitants of the World Assembly member states without let or hindrance.

2) Any of the parties to a marriage may ask for and obtain a lawful divorce in appropriate legal systems of the member state which they inhabit, which shall resolve such dissolutions fairly, equitably, and with promptitude.

3) Legal parenthood shall never be annulled by the sole reason of a divorce. In case the divorcing parties to a marriage have children, appropriate legal systems of member states shall resolve issues of custody of and support for said children with an overriding priority of the best interests of each and every child.

4) Upon divorce proceedings, appropriate latitude shall be given in the defense of personal assets, and appropriate legal systems of member states shall determine equitable distribution of the parties’ common estate and inheritance rights.

5) No penalty of any kind shall be imposed on a party or parties seeking divorce for the sole reason of such seeking or for the sole reason there is no consent of all parties to such divorce.

6) Nothing in this Resolution shall be construed so as to dictate the beliefs or the internal, solely religious procedures and rites any religion should follow.

Clause 6 in resolution 39 clarifies that it does not apply to religious marriage ceremonies.
Thus, the only application is to civil marriages or religious marriage with civil effects.
Which are a subset of domestic partnerships.
Literally every single meaningful clause is being duplicated.
This is also not a case of specific legislation operating within broad legislation; the proposal is less specific than the resolution.

3) Legal parenthood shall never be annulled by the sole reason of a divorce. In case the divorcing parties to a marriage have children, appropriate legal systems of member states shall resolve issues of custody of and support for said children with an overriding priority of the best interests of each and every child.

4) Upon divorce proceedings, appropriate latitude shall be given in the defense of personal assets, and appropriate legal systems of member states shall determine equitable distribution of the parties’ common estate and inheritance rights.

5) No penalty of any kind shall be imposed on a party or parties seeking divorce for the sole reason of such seeking or for the sole reason there is no consent of all parties to such divorce.

are being duplicated by:

Further requires member states to ensure that, upon the dissolution of a domestic partnership, all parties:

shall not be subject to disadvantageous treatment by a member state simply by virtue of seeking the dissolution without the consent of the other parties,

shall not lose legal guardianship of a child simply by virtue of the dissolution, and

shall receive an equitable portion of shared assets in accordance with the terms of the partnership and relevant law;

and

1) Divorce is the legal dissolution of a marriage, which ceases to have legal existence between the requesting party or parties to said marriage from the date the divorce is legally and finally pronounced, and shall henceforth be available to all inhabitants of the World Assembly member states without let or hindrance.
2) Any of the parties to a marriage may ask for and obtain a lawful divorce in appropriate legal systems of the member state which they inhabit, which shall resolve such dissolutions fairly, equitably, and with promptitude.

are being duplicated by:

Requires member states to permit a legally competent individual to:
(Text that is not of any relevance removed from the quote)
dissolve a domestic partnership to which the individual is a party, regardless of whether the other parties consent to such dissolution;

Further requires member states to ensure that, upon the dissolution of a domestic partnership, all parties:
(Text removed from the quote)
shall receive an equitable portion of shared assets in accordance with the terms of the partnership and relevant law;

Edit: Additionally, one more reason for the illegality of this proposal is thhat the proposal has the indirect effect of amending or rather, repealing the Resolution 39 by negating its entire effect, circumventing the Repeal process.

[Separatist Peoples]

One involves marriage, the other addressed legal partnerships which include those not part of marriage. I don't see a significant enough overlap to merit illegality. I would like to see the Author's response, though.

[Clean Land]

One involves marriage, the other addressed legal partnerships which include those not part of marriage. I don't see a significant enough overlap to merit illegality. I would like to see the Author's response, though.

I am strongly confused by this comment.

Proposals (Text removed from quote)may not replicate specific policy. Authors may re-iterate in general terms a minor part of existing policy to provide support to their proposal.

This proposal definitely replicates specific policy in a wider context. It, in terms of effects, REPEALS the whole resolution 39 and replaces it.
One involves marriage(but not purely religious marriage, just civil marriage) and the proposal affects legal partnerships, and civil marriage is a subset of legal partnerships.
You are saying that you don't see an overlap between a proposal legislating upon rectangles and an extant resolution about squares.

[Auralia]

One involves marriage, the other addressed legal partnerships which include those not part of marriage. I don't see a significant enough overlap to merit illegality. I would like to see the Author's response, though.

I think this challenge is motivated by a misunderstanding of the duplication rule. It's pretty obvious that Convention on Domestic Partnerships consists of substantially new material:

1. Two of the three purposes of Convention on Domestic Partnerships are to guarantee a right to enter a domestic partnership and to raise children within the context of such a partnership. The Right to a Lawful Divorce doesn't touch on a right to marriage or domestic partnership at all, nor of the right to raise children within such a marriage or partnership.
2. The third purpose is to guarantee a right to dissolve a domestic partnership. I agree this partially duplicates The Right to a Lawful Divorce, but, as you point out, Convention on Domestic Partnerships still goes farther in that the former only applies to marriages while the latter applies to any kind of domestic partnership, which is a constituent part of basically all marriages. Since Convention on Domestic Partnerships is a superset of The Right to a Lawful Divorce, the former was carefully written to avoid any contradiction.

Clause 6 in resolution 39 clarifies that it does not apply to religious marriage ceremonies.
Thus, the only application is to civil marriages or religious marriage with civil effects.
Which are a subset of domestic partnerships.
Literally every single meaningful clause is being duplicated.
This is also not a case of specific legislation operating within broad legislation; the proposal is less specific than the resolution.

This proposal definitely replicates specific policy in a wider context. It, in terms of effects, REPEALS the whole resolution 39 and replaces it.
One involves marriage(but not purely religious marriage, just civil marriage) and the proposal affects legal partnerships, and civil marriage is a subset of legal partnerships.
You are saying that you don't see an overlap between a proposal legislating upon rectangles and an extant resolution about squares.

If I understand you correctly, you object to the fact that Convention on Domestic Partnerships is a superset of The Right to a Lawful Divorce, which as a result is effectively rendered obsolete by this proposal. This is not a violation of the duplication rule. At least, I don't think it is. The rule is worded somewhat ambiguously. In any event, it shouldn't be.

As I understand it, the purpose of the duplication rule is to ensure that the primary effect of a proposal is to add something new to the substance of international law and not just repeat what has come before. It is not to ensure that prior resolutions do not become obsolete. Such an interpretation would be quite dangerous, actually, in that it would make every single resolution a blocker against future legislation on that topic. This would create a perverse incentive against taking incremental steps towards a particular legislative goal, since every resolution must be the last word on that topic.

For example, imagine a nation passes a mild Social Justice resolution urging member states to adopt a living wage. It would be absurd and harmful to the game to say that it would be illegal for another nation to pass a later resolution requiring member states to adopt a living wage, and that the prior resolution encouraging living wages must first be repealed.

There are numerous actual examples of this:

1. Reproductive Freedoms largely rendered On Abortion obsolete.
2. It has been argued that The Charter of Civil Rights rendered Freedom of Marriage Act obsolete, and indeed the latter was repealed on that basis.
3. Sciongrad's proposal World Assembly Agreement on Trade effectively renders one of my own resolutions, World Assembly Trade Rights, obsolete. World Assembly Trade Rights requires that member states at a minimum adopt WTO-style most-favoured-nation tariff rules while Sciongrad's proposal abolishes them altogether.

[Sierra Lyricalia]

I think this challenge is motivated by a misunderstanding of the duplication rule. It's pretty obvious that Convention on Domestic Partnerships consists of substantially new material...

(emphasis added) This is my sense as well.

[Clean Land]

One involves marriage, the other addressed legal partnerships which include those not part of marriage. I don't see a significant enough overlap to merit illegality. I would like to see the Author's response, though.

I think this challenge is motivated by a misunderstanding of the duplication rule. It's pretty obvious that Convention on Domestic Partnerships consists of substantially new material:

1. Two of the three purposes of Convention on Domestic Partnerships are to guarantee a right to enter a domestic partnership and to raise children within the context of such a partnership. The Right to a Lawful Divorce doesn't touch on a right to marriage or domestic partnership at all, nor of the right to raise children within such a marriage or partnership.
2. The third purpose is to guarantee a right to dissolve a domestic partnership. I agree this partially duplicates The Right to a Lawful Divorce, but, as you point out, Convention on Domestic Partnerships still goes farther in that the former only applies to marriages while the latter applies to any kind of domestic partnership, which is a constituent part of basically all marriages. Since Convention on Domestic Partnerships is a superset of The Right to a Lawful Divorce, the former was carefully written to avoid any contradiction.

Clause 6 in resolution 39 clarifies that it does not apply to religious marriage ceremonies.
Thus, the only application is to civil marriages or religious marriage with civil effects.
Which are a subset of domestic partnerships.
Literally every single meaningful clause is being duplicated.
This is also not a case of specific legislation operating within broad legislation; the proposal is less specific than the resolution.

This proposal definitely replicates specific policy in a wider context. It, in terms of effects, REPEALS the whole resolution 39 and replaces it.
One involves marriage(but not purely religious marriage, just civil marriage) and the proposal affects legal partnerships, and civil marriage is a subset of legal partnerships.
You are saying that you don't see an overlap between a proposal legislating upon rectangles and an extant resolution about squares.

If I understand you correctly, you object to the fact that Convention on Domestic Partnerships is a superset of The Right to a Lawful Divorce, which as a result is effectively rendered obsolete by this proposal. This is not a violation of the duplication rule. At least, I don't think it is. The rule is worded somewhat ambiguously. In any event, it shouldn't be.

As I understand it, the purpose of the duplication rule is to ensure that the primary effect of a proposal is to add something new to the substance of international law and not just repeat what has come before. It is not to ensure that prior resolutions do not become obsolete. Such an interpretation would be quite dangerous, actually, in that it would make every single resolution a blocker against future legislation on that topic. This would create a perverse incentive against taking incremental steps towards a particular legislative goal, since every resolution must be the last word on that topic.

For example, imagine a nation passes a mild Social Justice resolution urging member states to adopt a living wage. It would be absurd and harmful to the game to say that it would be illegal for another nation to pass a later resolution requiring member states to adopt a living wage, and that the prior resolution encouraging living wages must first be repealed.

There are numerous actual examples of this:

1. Reproductive Freedoms largely rendered On Abortion obsolete.
2. It has been argued that The Charter of Civil Rights rendered Freedom of Marriage Act obsolete, and indeed the latter was repealed on that basis.
3. Sciongrad's proposal World Assembly Agreement on Trade effectively renders one of my own resolutions, World Assembly Trade Rights, obsolete. World Assembly Trade Rights requires that member states at a minimum adopt WTO-style most-favoured-nation tariff rules while Sciongrad's proposal abolishes them altogether.

Your argumentation does only make me think that there is more wrong with your proposal, not less.
The rules explicitely state that repeals may only be repeals and amendments are illegal. What is the difference between repealing a resolution and duplicating its entire effect in another resolution?
Only one: You have a backup resolution.
And I don't care if it is impractical. You are changing the strength of a resolution to "None" as soon as your proposal passes, until it gets repealed.(Strength measures the impact of WA resolutions on our nations)

[Auralia]

The rules explicitely state that repeals may only be repeals and amendments are illegal. What is the difference between repealing a resolution and duplicating its entire effect in another resolution?

The difference is quite clear. Repealing The Right to a Lawful Divorce would eliminate the right to divorce. Passing Convention on Domestic Partnerships would guarantee this right for all domestic partnerships, not just marriages. Passing Convention on Domestic Partnerships would obviously not eliminate the right to divorce -- that would be contradiction.

And I don't care if it is impractical. You are changing the strength of a resolution to "None" as soon as your proposal passes, until it gets repealed.(Strength measures the impact of WA resolutions on our nations)

This just isn't true. The Right to a Lawful Divorce still guarantees a right to a lawful divorce.

[Bears Armed]

For example, imagine a nation passes a mild Social Justice resolution urging member states to adopt a living wage. It would be absurd and harmful to the game to say that it would be illegal for another nation to pass a later resolution requiring member states to adopt a living wage, and that the prior resolution encouraging living wages must first be repealed.

That is how the rule has been interpreted in the past (with an "Urges" clause, because it implicitly recognises the right not to do as urged too, blocking further mandates on [basically] the same points...) as I recall it, although in another recent discussion some of my colleagues held that it should be interpreted as you suggest.

I agree, however, that your proposal contains substantially new material and is thus nou illegal for duplication.

[Wallenburg]

For example, imagine a nation passes a mild Social Justice resolution urging member states to adopt a living wage. It would be absurd and harmful to the game to say that it would be illegal for another nation to pass a later resolution requiring member states to adopt a living wage, and that the prior resolution encouraging living wages must first be repealed.

That is how the rule has been interpreted in the past (with an "Urges" clause, because it implicitly recognises the right not to do as urged too, blocking further mandates on [basically] the same points...) as I recall it, although in another recent discussion some of my colleagues held that it should be interpreted as you suggest.

No, it isn't. Your failure to produce any evidence of such precedent hasn't helped you.

[Bears Armed]

That is how the rule has been interpreted in the past (with an "Urges" clause, because it implicitly recognises the right not to do as urged too, blocking further mandates on [basically] the same points...) as I recall it, although in another recent discussion some of my colleagues held that it should be interpreted as you suggest.

No, it isn't. Your failure to produce any evidence of such precedent hasn't helped you.

So where's your precedent that it hasn't been interpreted this way?
One of the Mods spent a couple of hours going through the Mods' own records but couldn't find any actual formal rulings either way, so any such discussions in the past must have been settled before the submission/challenge stage. You're asking me to prove a negative, because I'd have to hunt through every potentially relevant thread until I found ones where the Mods gave their opinion and this was stated to be the case -- without obvious keywords capable of narrowing that search significantly... but if you are right then proving me wrong should require a lot less work, because you'd just need to hunt through the resolutions that had actually been passed until you found ones where such an over-ride had taken place and then check the threads for those to confirm that that was after Modly opinion had been given rather than just something that had slipped through. So, where's your proof?

[Araraukar]

So where's your precedent that it hasn't been interpreted this way?

With me agreeing with him rather than you, that's 2 against 1.

We could have a vote about this if you'd like, to see how many agree with our side. Because I can't remember it ever having been interpreted so that an urges/encourages clause would block a later mandate one on the same subject.

Think of how a parent urges their kid to not fool around with their skateboard indoors at a mall. They can ignore the urging and do it anyway.

Then comes a mall security officer who says they can't do that inside the mall and that if they damage something, the police will be called. Is she overriding the mother's instruction? No, they're enhancing it, validating it.

The kid ignores them too and something breaks and the police are called in, and after issuing the fine, they tell the kid that the law says she has to obey what the mall security officer says while within the mall. Are they overriding the mother's instruction? Again, no, they're merely enforcing it and upgrading it from a "should" to a "must" with the force of law.

That's how my common sense sees it.

If your example was correct, then neither the police nor the mall security officer could do anything about the kid breaking things while skateboarding inside the mall, because she has been urged not to do it, so they can't ban her from doing it.

[Wallenburg]

No, it isn't. Your failure to produce any evidence of such precedent hasn't helped you.

So where's your precedent that it hasn't been interpreted this way?
One of the Mods spent a couple of hours going through the Mods' own records but couldn't find any actual formal rulings either way, so any such discussions in the past must have been settled before the submission/challenge stage. You're asking me to prove a negative, because I'd have to hunt through every potentially relevant thread until I found ones where the Mods gave their opinion and this was stated to be the case -- without obvious keywords capable of narrowing that search significantly...

You want me to prove a negative. That is not possible, unless I choose to drudge up every post ever made in the WA by a mod or member of GenSec about a proposal with mandates.

It is beyond ridiculous to dismiss a request to back up your positive assertion with evidence as a demand to prove a negative, and then demand that I prove a negative.

but if you are right then proving me wrong should require a lot less work, because you'd just need to hunt through the resolutions that had actually been passed until you found ones where such an over-ride had taken place and then check the threads for those to confirm that that was after Modly opinion had been given rather than just something that had slipped through. So, where's your proof?

No, that's not even close to accurate. I would truly have to look through every attempt to push a proposal that has a mandate in it, comb it for claims of contradiction due to preexisting "urges" clauses, and demonstrate that the proposal was not ruled illegal. And even then, you could claim that I simply missed an incident in which such a proposal was ruled illegal. And why? Because you want me to prove a negative.

[Clean Land]

https://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=340135&start=25
I found that in the archives. It seems to me that the rule was never being consistently applied. But- I fail to see any support for duplication that makes a resolution fully worthless.

[States of Glory WA Office]

I would like to quote the greatest WA jurist of our time, Harold "The Clown" Johnson:

Harold: Anyway, say that Barbera allows you to jump out of a ten-storey window, I urge you to jump out a ten-storey window and Fairburn, being Fairburn, decides to compel you to jump out of a ten-storey window by defenestrating you himself. It would be foolish even by my standards to claim that all of our actions contradicted each other, yet you are arguing such a thing!

Seriously, though, BA, even if we say for the sake of argument that the historical interpretation of the rule is what you suggest it to be, there appears to be a clear consensus that a clause mandating something shouldn't be considered to be a contradiction of a clause urging the same thing (or vice versa). As the GenSec member who is the most vocal that GenSec should modify interpretation if there is a consensus amongst the GA community, I don't see why you are so resistant to this change, provided that it even is a change.

[Clean Land]

I would like to quote the greatest WA jurist of our time, Harold "The Clown" Johnson:

Harold: Anyway, say that Barbera allows you to jump out of a ten-storey window, I urge you to jump out a ten-storey window and Fairburn, being Fairburn, decides to compel you to jump out of a ten-storey window by defenestrating you himself. It would be foolish even by my standards to claim that all of our actions contradicted each other, yet you are arguing such a thing!

Seriously, though, BA, even if we say for the sake of argument that the historical interpretation of the rule is what you suggest it to be, there appears to be a clear consensus that a clause mandating something shouldn't be considered to be a contradiction of a clause urging the same thing (or vice versa). As the GenSec member who is the most vocal that GenSec should modify interpretation if there is a consensus amongst the GA community, I don't see why you are so resistant to this change, provided that it even is a change.

We have shown that there was a consensus about the D U P L I C A T I O N clause that seemed to say that total duplication of an entire extant WA legislation is not wanted. There was no talk about Contradiction before you came up with it.

[Bears Armed]

No, that's not even close to accurate. I would truly have to look through every attempt to push a proposal that has a mandate in it, comb it for claims of contradiction due to preexisting "urges" clauses, and demonstrate that the proposal was not ruled illegal.

No, you''d only have to look through the passed resolutions for pairs with overlapping subjects and then look through the threads for the second members of each pair until you found a ruling that such a replacement of 'Urges' by 'Requires' was okay... which, as I said, would -- if you're correct -- be a lot easier than the job you're trying to set me of proving the reverse.

And even then, you could claim that I simply missed an incident in which such a proposal was ruled illegal.

But could only claim that credibly if I could actually find that example myself....

________________________________________________

Also, maybe I should repeat a comment that i made to somebody else earlier:
'Urges [or synonym]' = "The WA would like you to do this, but you can choose not to do it"; 'Requires' [or synonym] = "The WA says that you must do this, no choice"... How the hell is "No choice" instead of "Choice" not logically a contradiction -- or maybe an amendment ?

[Sierra Lyricalia]

Also, maybe I should repeat a comment that i made to somebody else earlier:
'Urges [or synonym]' = "The WA would like you to do this, but you can choose not to do it"; 'Requires' [or synonym] = "The WA says that you must do this, no choice"... How the hell is "No choice" instead of "Choice" not logically a contradiction -- or maybe an amendment ?

I disagree with your (subtext? substitution? definition?) of "urges" here. It's not that the WA is saying "You don't have to if you don't want to," it's in fact saying "We would really like you to do this, it's just we're not enforcing it right this second." Later on, the WA will in fact be enforcing it. No contradiction, only minor duplication.

[Bears Armed]

t's not that the WA is saying "You don't have to if you don't want to," it's in fact saying "We would really like you to do this, it's just we're not enforcing it right this second." Later on, the WA will in fact be enforcing it. No contradiction, only minor duplication.

Even if I agreed with that interpretation of "Urges" and that there was therefore no Contradiction, which I still don't, how would replacing "we're not enforcing it right this second" with "we are now enforcing this" not be an Amendment and therefore still illegal?
Might you, perhaps, be being influenced subconsciously by how RL law works?

[Sierra Lyricalia]

t's not that the WA is saying "You don't have to if you don't want to," it's in fact saying "We would really like you to do this, it's just we're not enforcing it right this second." Later on, the WA will in fact be enforcing it. No contradiction, only minor duplication.

Even if I agreed with that interpretation of "Urges" and that there was therefore no Contradiction, which I still don't, how would replacing "we're not enforcing it right this second" with "we are now enforcing this" not be an Amendment and therefore still illegal?

?
Because it just isn't? Keep in mind the subtext is only a subtext. Call it a magic invisible clause if it makes you feel better about ignoring it. The law does what the law says, not what it doesn't say. In Resolution A, the WA says "You shouldn't do that." In Resolution B, the WA says "You must not do that." The normative should is contained within the imperative must and is later incorporated in it, not altered by it.

Might you, perhaps, be being influenced subconsciously by how RL law works?

I don't think so, but obviously I don't have immediate access to my subconscious, so I won't say "HELL NO HOW DARE YOU ETC." If I am being so influenced, though, I don't see how that's a problem. It's not like I'm trying to abolish any rules, I just don't agree with you that this particular thing violates any of them.

[Clean Land]

t's not that the WA is saying "You don't have to if you don't want to," it's in fact saying "We would really like you to do this, it's just we're not enforcing it right this second." Later on, the WA will in fact be enforcing it. No contradiction, only minor duplication.

Even if I agreed with that interpretation of "Urges" and that there was therefore no Contradiction, which I still don't, how would replacing "we're not enforcing it right this second" with "we are now enforcing this" not be an Amendment and therefore still illegal?
Might you, perhaps, be being influenced subconsciously by how RL law works?

Right, amendments are illegal...
I'd say that any proposal that has one of the following characteristics is an amendment:
1.It contains a clause "The World Assembly amends/changes WA resolution X" or similar
2.It expands or duplicates extant WA resolutions in a manner that would lead to changes of the strength of that extant WA resolution or itself as long as both are effective.
Resolutions have a strength, that indicates their effect. If you have resolution A (mild) and proposal B(significant) and A urges and B mandates on the same topic, then the combined strength of both would be not mild+significant, but rather only significant. And that is what the amendment rule is designed to prohibit, if I read it correct.

[Separatist Peoples]

Even if I agreed with that interpretation of "Urges" and that there was therefore no Contradiction, which I still don't, how would replacing "we're not enforcing it right this second" with "we are now enforcing this" not be an Amendment and therefore still illegal?
Might you, perhaps, be being influenced subconsciously by how RL law works?

Right, amendments are illegal...
I'd say that any proposal that has one of the following characteristics is an amendment:
1.It contains a clause "The World Assembly amends/changes WA resolution X" or similar
2.It expands or duplicates extant WA resolutions in a manner that would lead to changes of the strength of that extant WA resolution or itself as long as both are effective.
Resolutions have a strength, that indicates their effect. If you have resolution A (mild) and proposal B(significant) and A urges and B mandates on the same topic, then the combined strength of both would be not mild+significant, but rather only significant. And that is what the amendment rule is designed to prohibit, if I read it correct.

Nope. It's just to prevent explicit revision attempts.