[Draft] Prevention of Arms Races

[Glurponia]

Category: Global Disarmament // Strength: Significant

The General Assembly,

Making note of the many needless deaths and misery that war causes,

Acknowledging the tendency of nations to fund their military highly in fear of said misery occurring to their people,

Keeping in mind that the re-armament of a neighbor often inspires nations to boost their own armed forces out of a desire not to get left behind,

Realizing that the aforementioned practice may lead to a vicious cycle known as an arms race in which two countries each channel more and more money out of public works and into military growth in order to protect against the other's aggression,

hereby

Defines an arms race as a phenomenon in which two rival nations each pour money into military development in order to outwit the other's military development;

Emphasizes that arms races have only negative effects on civilians of the affected nations due to decreased funding for education and public works;

Creates an impartial, international law enforcement body to investigate and recognize when arms races are occurring throughout the world;

Gives this body the power to invoke World Assembly authority and force the guilty parties to demobilize.

[Morover]

OOC:

It would seem that this contradicts GAR#2, which states that "the World Assembly as a body maintains neutrality in matters of civil and international strife. As such, the WA will not engage in commanding, organising, ratifying, denouncing, or otherwise participating in armed conflicts, police actions, or military activities under the WA banner."

[Libertas Omnium Maximus]

Category: Global Disarmament // Strength: Significant

The General Assembly,

Making note of the many needless deaths and misery that war causes,

Acknowledging the tendency of nations to fund their military highly in fear of said misery occurring to their people,

Keeping in mind that the re-armament of a neighbor often inspires nations to boost their own armed forces out of a desire not to get left behind,

Realizing that the aforementioned practice may lead to a vicious cycle known as an arms race in which two countries each channel more and more money out of public works and into military growth in order to protect against the other's aggression,

hereby

Defines an arms race as a phenomenon in which two rival nations each pour money into military development in order to outwit the other's military development;

Emphasizes that arms races have only negative effects on civilians of the affected nations due to decreased funding for education and public works;

Creates an impartial, international law enforcement body to investigate and recognize when arms races are occurring throughout the world;

Gives this body the power to invoke World Assembly authority and force the guilty parties to demobilize.

"Ambassador, it's my understanding that the WA may not suppress the growth of a sovereign state's military. In fact, the right of states to possess and operate nuclear weapons is enshrined in international law. Please correct me if I am mistaken.

[Wallenburg]

Military development and mobilization are two extremely different things. Regardless of other issues, requiring member states to demobilize during a period of military tension is extremely dangerous.

[Libertas Omnium Maximus]

"In short, Ambassador, your proposal has no basis for existence. I'm sorry to say it."

[Kenmoria]

Category: Global Disarmament // Strength: Significant

The General Assembly,

Making note of the many needless deaths and misery that war causes,

Acknowledging the tendency of nations to fund their military highly in fear of said misery occurring to their people,

Keeping in mind that the re-armament of a neighbor often inspires nations to boost their own armed forces out of a desire not to get left behind,

Realizing that the aforementioned practice may lead to a vicious cycle known as an arms race in which two countries each channel more and more money out of public works and into military growth in order to protect against the other's aggression,

hereby

Defines an arms race as a phenomenon in which two rival nations each pour money into military development in order to outwit the other's military development;

Emphasizes that arms races have only negative effects on civilians of the affected nations due to decreased funding for education and public works;

Creates an impartial, international law enforcement body to investigate and recognize when arms races are occurring throughout the world;

Gives this body the power to invoke World Assembly authority and force the guilty parties to demobilize.

"Ambassador, it's my understanding that the WA may not suppress the growth of a sovereign state's military. In fact, the right of states to possess and operate nuclear weapons is enshrined in international law. Please correct me if I am mistaken.

“The WA is allowed to suppress the growth of a state’s military in many ways, and has indeed done so in several past resolution. Furthermore, the Nuclear Arms Protection Act does not restrict the WA from imposing restrictions on nuclear weapons, and doesn’t appear to contradict this proposal.

However, there are issues with GA #002. It seems debatable whether there is contradiction, so would be helpful if others could weigh in on whether there is an issue.”

[Grays Harbor]

Emphasizes that arms races have only negative effects on civilians of the affected nations due to decreased funding for education and public works;

IC: “Only negative effects”. Jobs. Lots of jobs building things. And building things in support of things. They may not be the jobs you like because “oh no, military!”, but not everybody thinks like that.

Creates an impartial, international law enforcement body to investigate and recognize when arms races are occurring throughout the world;

OOC: GenSec hat on. No, automatic illegality. No WA police.

Gives this body the power to invoke World Assembly authority and force the guilty parties to demobilize.

IC: You may want to look up the difference between an “arms race” and “demobilize”, because the two are not even remotely similar.

[Libertas Omnium Maximus]

"Ambassador, it's my understanding that the WA may not suppress the growth of a sovereign state's military. In fact, the right of states to possess and operate nuclear weapons is enshrined in international law. Please correct me if I am mistaken.

“The WA is allowed to suppress the growth of a state’s military in many ways, and has indeed done so in several past resolution. Furthermore, the Nuclear Arms Protection Act does not restrict the WA from imposing restrictions on nuclear weapons, and doesn’t appear to contradict this proposal.

However, there are issues with GA #002. It seems debatable whether there is contradiction, so would be helpful if others could weigh in on whether there is an issue.”

"In that case, I respectfully retract my earlier statement."

[Estlandic Ethnostate]

The nation of Estland does what it wants and what is in the best interest of the Estlandic State and its people.

[BlackLight Covenant]

" 'Scuse me, ambassador, but how do ya propose that this would work when one of them guilty parties is a non-WA member? General Assembly can't force 'em to do anythin' if they ain't a member, beyond perhaps sendin' a strongly-worded letter, but who reads those, anyway? Seems to me like yer proposal might be overextendin' a bit with that one. Might wanna rewrite that clause to only include WA members, unless ya want a lot of ridiculin' spam mail from non-members to flood the WA's archives."

"Regardless, though, I ain't seein' much of a positive side to this proposal of yers. Any member state stuck in an arms race with a non-member would be forced to stop their build-up, puttin' 'em at a real disadvantage against that non-member, and considerin' our own experience with the galaxy our nation happens to be in, such a disadvantage is unacceptable to say the least. We're not gonna sacrifice our colonies and fleets just because of some vague need to stop arms races, ambassador."

With a swift motion, ambassador Lovik tossed the proposal onto a pile of papers labelled "minor security threats", before retrieving a metal paperweight in the shape of one of the spaceborne navy's destroyers from one of the drawers next to her, and placing it on top of the pile, the desk creaking underneath the thing's weight. "What is it with these blasted bureaucrats and forgettin' that non-member threats exist?" she whispered under her breath.

[Waldenes]

“I concur with the ambassador from Blacklight. Waldenes is a pacifist nation. We empathize with the desire to see the idea of war fall away completely and become nothing more than an artifact of barbaric by-gone times- but how would we enforce this outside of the World Assembly, ambassador?”