NationStates

1. Proclaims
   1. Expresses the disappointment of the Assembly towards those nations who maintain exceptions to their ages of consent.
   2. Reaffirms that a minor is not physically capable of consenting to sexual intercourse or activity.
   3. Maintains that any affirmation by a minor towards performing a sexual act with a legal adult to be invalid.
   4. Defines any sexual act between a minor and a legal adult to be rape.
   5. maintains that any affirmation by a minor towards marriage with a legal adult to be invalid.
2. Mandates
   
   1. 1. Mandates that all member nations have a legal age of consent to sex.
      2. Mandates that all member nations have a legal age of consent to marriage.
   2. 1. Prohibits courts allowing exceptions by which a rapist may marry a minor.
      2. Examples of exceptions include, but are not limited to; 'Marry-your-rapist" laws, by which a rapist may escape legal punishment if they marry the victim, impregnation-laws, by which a rapist may escape punishment if they impregnate or become impregnated by a minor, etc.
   3. Prohibits the affirmation of a minor to a sexual act with a legal adult from being considered valid consent.
   4. Recommends that member nations dedicate funding so as to help the victims of child marriage and sexual abuse.
   5. Prohibits parents or guardians from marrying off minors.
   6. Prohibits the marriage of a minor to a legal adult.
   7. Prohibits the movement of a minor to a non-member nation with the intent to marry or commit sexual acts with, too, or involving them.
   8. Invalidates all previous marriages that is noncompliant with this legislation.
   9. Requires that member states refuse to recognize any marriage in a state of noncompliance with this legislation.
   10. Recommends that member states arrest and punish according to their law any legal adult who has entered within a marriage with a minor within their jurisdiction.
   11. Stipulates that clauses 1a and 1b do not prevent a nation from establishing multiple ages of consent if they so desire.
   12. Creates the Interspecies Relationship Oversight Committee.
   13. 1. Tasks the committee with investigating cases of interspecies intercourse or marriage where one of the parties is a legal minor.
       2. Grants the IROC the power to dissolve interspecies marriage where it finds that the age gap to be too large according to the respective ages of consent for the involved species.

Liberimery wrote:So if an 18 year old woman has sex with her 17 year old boyfriend, we should not have any loophole offering exceptions to what is tantamount to the plot to every teen comedy.

Aclion wrote:

Liberimery wrote:So if an 18 year old woman has sex with her 17 year old boyfriend, we should not have any loophole offering exceptions to what is tantamount to the plot to every teen comedy.

I think it's funny that you need to make it explicit that it is the male that is underaged in order to make your senerio acceptable.
Nice.

Caracasus wrote:

Aclion wrote:I think it's funny that you need to make it explicit that it is the male that is underaged in order to make your senerio acceptable.
Nice.

As distasteful as the acceptability or otherwise of the scenario is, it does raise an important point. I'd imagine most nations would wish to differentiate between a thirty five year old man having sex with a fifteen year old girl and a sixteen year old having sex with an eighteen year old.

Perhaps something along the lines of this? (You'll need to adjust the language no doubt to make it more formalish - it's been a while since I got that involved with drafting)

D) Defines any sexual act between a minor and a legal adult to be rape.

Urges prosecutors in member nations to take into account the respective ages of the participants when enforcing this law

Separatist Peoples wrote:

Caracasus wrote:
As distasteful as the acceptability or otherwise of the scenario is, it does raise an important point. I'd imagine most nations would wish to differentiate between a thirty five year old man having sex with a fifteen year old girl and a sixteen year old having sex with an eighteen year old.

Perhaps something along the lines of this? (You'll need to adjust the language no doubt to make it more formalish - it's been a while since I got that involved with drafting)

D) Defines any sexual act between a minor and a legal adult to be rape.

Urges prosecutors in member nations to take into account the respective ages of the participants when enforcing this law

"Assuming this proposal is necessary, I suspect a stronger Romeo and Juliet exception is necessary than merely urging prosecutors to consider it. Requiring it to be a mitigating factor would probably best serve the policy purpose."

Caracasus wrote:

Separatist Peoples wrote:
"Assuming this proposal is necessary, I suspect a stronger Romeo and Juliet exception is necessary than merely urging prosecutors to consider it. Requiring it to be a mitigating factor would probably best serve the policy purpose."

Hmmm. Perhaps something like: Requires judicial systems in such cases to take into account the respective ages of the participants, granting greater leniency to cases where the difference in age is smaller

Equalsun Empire wrote:Perhaps a harder limit, such as having a built-in system to allow it rather than allowing prosecution ie frivolous cases? For example, establishing the age of consent a few years younger than the age of adulthood, then making it so adults cannot have intercourse with minors more than x years younger than them. This would allow a 17-year-old and 18-year-old couple, while doing away with 40-year-old and 16-year-old couples.

Kowani wrote:

Caracasus wrote:
Hmmm. Perhaps something like: Requires judicial systems in such cases to take into account the respective ages of the participants, granting greater leniency to cases where the difference in age is smaller

Would something along the lines of this be acceptable Requires that, in cases where the age difference between the minor and legal adult is negligible, legal penalties be less punitive?

Equalsun Empire wrote:"Not at all- the exact number of years was left undefined intentionally, to be decided by the nation's legislature in order to fit their needs. This avoids nations having laws to fit an arbitrary number while still standardizing protections for both children and those near the age of adulthood. While we do not quite understand your concerns about maturation cycles, we believe that we have left enough details unspecified to satisfy your first complaint.

That all being said, let us attempt to put our previously unrefined statement into legislative language. If it still does not satisfy your concerns, it will at the very least be easier to comprehend your meaning once our informal thought process is not in question. Our proposed Romeo and Juliet clause reads as follows: 12. Mandates member nations establish a maximum age difference between minors and adults, wherein consensual sex may occur without legal repercussions.

We have one additional concern with this resolution, upon reading it once again. We believe that point number one, reading 'Mandates that all member nations have a legal age of consent to both sex and marriage', does not take into account that youth will likely be having sex before they are ready to marry. Forcing member nations to combine the age of consent with the age of marriage is inflexible. This clause should instead be split into a clause mandating that there will be a legal age of consent, and that youth cannot marry until they have achieved adulthood."

Separatist Peoples wrote:

Kowani wrote:Would something along the lines of this be acceptable Requires that, in cases where the age difference between the minor and legal adult is negligible, legal penalties be less punitive?

"Leas punitive is still punitive, and therefore unreasonable."
Ooc: have you looked at real world Romeo and Juliet laws? They tend to address this pretty well.

Kowani wrote:

Equalsun Empire wrote:"Not at all- the exact number of years was left undefined intentionally, to be decided by the nation's legislature in order to fit their needs. This avoids nations having laws to fit an arbitrary number while still standardizing protections for both children and those near the age of adulthood. While we do not quite understand your concerns about maturation cycles, we believe that we have left enough details unspecified to satisfy your first complaint.

That all being said, let us attempt to put our previously unrefined statement into legislative language. If it still does not satisfy your concerns, it will at the very least be easier to comprehend your meaning once our informal thought process is not in question. Our proposed Romeo and Juliet clause reads as follows: 12. Mandates member nations establish a maximum age difference between minors and adults, wherein consensual sex may occur without legal repercussions.

We have one additional concern with this resolution, upon reading it once again. We believe that point number one, reading 'Mandates that all member nations have a legal age of consent to both sex and marriage', does not take into account that youth will likely be having sex before they are ready to marry. Forcing member nations to combine the age of consent with the age of marriage is inflexible. This clause should instead be split into a clause mandating that there will be a legal age of consent, and that youth cannot marry until they have achieved adulthood."

Noted. Will revise.

Separatist Peoples wrote:
"Leas punitive is still punitive, and therefore unreasonable."
Ooc: have you looked at real world Romeo and Juliet laws? They tend to address this pretty well.

I’m trying to find a way to avoid the sort of legal trickery required by the vagueness of the Assembly’s prohibition of using specific ages. Would it be legal to say: If the combined age difference of the participants is no more than two years, and consent freely given, as long as the minor be within two years of the age of Consent, than intercourse shall be legal?

The Rhenish League wrote:"The two years thing still looks like an arbitrary number to me. While negligible might sound vague, I think it's still better than just throwing a number in, so every nation can decide on their own which age difference is suitable as a maximum. Maybe replace it by appropriate, or reasonably small?

Separatist Peoples wrote:

The Rhenish League wrote:"The two years thing still looks like an arbitrary number to me. While negligible might sound vague, I think it's still better than just throwing a number in, so every nation can decide on their own which age difference is suitable as a maximum. Maybe replace it by appropriate, or reasonably small?

"What is wrong with an arbitrary number? Policies use arbitrary points all the time. Ages of Majority are, by their nature, arbitrary points at which governments decide individuals are fully responsible for their own rights and duties as citizens. In this case, two years makes sense. The situations where this issue arise are almost invariably situations where two youths form a relationship when one is older than the other, and the natural passage of time causes one to reach the age of majority first. Two years encompasses most of those scenarios without implicating more unsavory differences in age. What is so wrong with this?"

Separatist Peoples wrote:

The Rhenish League wrote:"The two years thing still looks like an arbitrary number to me. While negligible might sound vague, I think it's still better than just throwing a number in, so every nation can decide on their own which age difference is suitable as a maximum. Maybe replace it by appropriate, or reasonably small?

"What is wrong with an arbitrary number? Policies use arbitrary points all the time. Ages of Majority are, by their nature, arbitrary points at which governments decide individuals are fully responsible for their own rights and duties as citizens. In this case, two years makes sense. The situations where this issue arise are almost invariably situations where two youths form a relationship when one is older than the other, and the natural passage of time causes one to reach the age of majority first. Two years encompasses most of those scenarios without implicating more unsavory differences in age. What is so wrong with this?"

1. Mandates that all member nations have a legal age of consent to sex.
Mandates that all member nations have a legal age of consent to marriage.
2. Prohibits courts allowing exceptions by which a rapist may marry a minor.

Arasi Luvasa wrote:

1. Mandates that all member nations have a legal age of consent to sex.
Mandates that all member nations have a legal age of consent to marriage.
2. Prohibits courts allowing exceptions by which a rapist may marry a minor.

Sorry, Just realised this.

"Would this line indicate that only a single uniform age of consent may be set? With the plethora of different nations and possible age ranges, this could pose a problem. It would be better to state that there should be laws set regarding the Age of consent, potentially multiple if necessary within a nation."

The Rhenish League wrote:

Kowani wrote:Noted. Will revise.


I’m trying to find a way to avoid the sort of legal trickery required by the vagueness of the Assembly’s prohibition of using specific ages. Would it be legal to say: If the combined age difference of the participants is no more than two years, and consent freely given, as long as the minor be within two years of the age of Consent, than intercourse shall be legal?

"The two years thing still looks like an arbitrary number to me. While negligible might sound vague, I think it's still better than just throwing a number in, so every nation can decide on their own which age difference is suitable as a maximum. Maybe replace it by appropriate, or reasonably small?

I'd also do away with clause 11. While I do understand it's just a recommendation, refusing entry to to non-member citizens on the ground of being married in their home country following their home country's - perhaps awkward - laws fails to make sense to me. If they enter a member nation's country, they have to follow the member nation's law, after all, not their home country's one. It would be enough just refusing to recognize their marriage and punishing them for violating home ground's law in case they do so."

If you have 40 years of difference and one of the pair’s on the wrong side of the age of consent, than you should probably see a psychologist.

Arasi Luvasa wrote:

If you have 40 years of difference and one of the pair’s on the wrong side of the age of consent, than you should probably see a psychologist.

Arasi Luvasa wrote:"Even if the minor is forty years the senior of the legal adult.

I’m sorry what. How would that work? I’m sorry, but if you have a race of time-warpers, then this resolution is pretty much immaterial for you anyway.

Arasi Luvasa wrote: Also I could not help but not that you only considered a species that lives hundreds of years. There are other, like dragons, who live many thousand of years and only mature around five to seven thousand years old.

Well, the nation sets the age of consent. As such, it’s up to them where to put it. However, if you wish, a subclause could be added for exceptionally long lived species.

Arasi Luvasa wrote:If a couple consists of a dragon and a human, should the human reach the age of maturity a few years before the dragon what would happen?"

How’s a dragon going to mate with a human anyway? It wouldn’t fit...

Arasi Luvasa wrote:OOC: You should make it clearer that it does not prevent a nation from setting multiple ages of consent. At present, that would not be a far-fetched reading.

Arasi Luvasa wrote:"My nation consists of multiple species, of which the most abundant are humans and dragons. As it is at the moment, the age of consent for humans is eighteen while the age of consent for dragons is five-thousand. How are we to deal with the situation of a four-thousand-and-sixty year old dragon in a sexual relationship with an eighteen or nineteen year old human? If this example disturbs you, exchange dragons for elves and we have the same issue."

"As for biological compatibility, we don't really understand how but dragons are capable of taking human form."

Arasi Luvasa wrote:"What is it about the situation that disturbs you then? Regardless there is a different set of laws regarding consent in inter species relationships. Usually about five-hundred years is given on the dragons part (in relation to age of majority) and two years on the humans part (in relation to age of majority)."