Title: Preventing Natural Resource Theft
Category: International Security, Strength: Significant
The World Assembly,
Knowing that when resources are harvested illegally, core concepts of national sovereignty and property rights are undermined and local resource management becomes challenging,
Concerned that rogue states may use resource theft as a tactic to undermine other nations, as an underhanded means to obtain resources inexpensively, or as a way of extracting a resource without concern for the local environmental consequences,
Wishing to take away the ability for resource thieves to use international boundaries and jurisdictions to shield themselves from the legal consequences of their action,
Hereby;
- Defines a resource, for the purposes of this resolution, as any naturally occurring deposits of a material that are located entirely within a nation's sovereign territory and is either,
- non-living material located beneath or at the surface of the earth, that will stay where it is, unless disturbed by sapient activity, or
- living organisms, or material derived from living organisms, that are extremely unlikely to leave a nation's sovereign territory in their life without sapient intervention;
- Defines resource theft, for the purposes of this resolution, as the removal of a resource without the knowledge or permission of the person(s) or governing body with the rights to the resource, or the removal of the resource in a manner that wholly disregards the will of person(s) with the rights to the resource or the relevant governing body's regulations regarding resource removal (excluding a nation lawfully obtaining land or rights from its citizens against their will);
- Bans resource theft, either directly or through contracting or subcontracting;
- Bans the direct or indirect purchasing of resources for which there is reasonable suspicion that the resources have been stolen;
- When there is reasonable suspicion of a suspect participating in, funding, or directly profiting from stealing a resource from another nation, requires a minimum action to be taken against the suspect as follows:
- If the suspect is an individual, extradite the individual to the relevant foreign jurisdiction where permitted by World Assembly or local legislation;
- If the suspect is an organization or legal person, extradite directors, employees or members responsible for the suspected offense to the relevant foreign jurisdiction where permitted by World Assembly or local legislation;
- If extradition is not possible, prosecute suspected individuals or directors, employees or members of suspected organizations;
- If guilt is proven locally seize the stolen resources and profits from the stolen resources, and where legally possible and practical return the seized items to the nation of origin, and enact additional punitive action against individuals or organizations;
- Clarifies that the prohibitions and mandates in this resolution and only this resolution do not apply when two countries are at war with each other;
- Further clarifies only resources stolen after this resolution is passed will be subject to this resolution's regulations;
- Noting the difficulty of assigning whole or partial sovereignty in situations where resource deposits are shared between nations or resources are mobile, and urges the passage of specifically targeted resolutions to address each of these situations where they have not already been addressed.