NationStates

Repeal “Uranium Mining Standards Act”
Category: Repeal | Resolution: #263

The World Assembly,

Taking note of the passage of World Assembly Resolution #263, “Uranium Mining Standards Act”,

Not standing opposed to the general principle of promoting the common good through appropriate environmental international law,

However taking into consideration the following arguments:

1. The World Assembly should promote clean and renewable energy sources. Nuclear energy is a form of clean energy, a position endorsed by the General Assembly through World Assembly Resolution #357, “Promotion of Clean Energy”. Burdensome regulations on uranium mining that do not serve any purpose beyond limiting the economic viability of providing fuel for nuclear energy are likely to force nations unable to otherwise meet their energy needs to return to polluting and non-renewable sources of energy such as oil and coal.
   
   
2. The mandates of Resolution #263 constitute such burdensome regulations:
   
   
   • A requirement for ‘radiation precautions’ specific to uranium mines is a nonsensical and scientifically illiterate mandate, given that mining uranium ore poses no greater radiological risk than mining any other mineral, or for that matter than farming bananas.
     
     
   • A requirement that no mine may endanger – nor even have endangered through past actions – ‘any species in the general vicinity’ is so overbroad as to likely render repeated obstacles to any mining operations while the wholesale transplantation of such species takes place, regardless of whether doing so serves any purpose in terms of promoting biodiversity.
     
     
   • The only alternative offered is relocation of the mine itself, which given the impossibility of relocating ore deposits would necessarily render mining of them unfeasible.
3. Taken together, these requirements are such that uranium mining within World Assembly nations would frequently be rendered an economically impractical prospect. This would further affect nations that rely on imports to fuel their domestic nuclear energy production by driving higher prices. In both cases, the end result would tend towards promoting carbon-intensive energy sources, exacerbating climate change.
   
   
4. The World Assembly should respect each nation’s sovereign economic rights over their own territory and resources therein. International law curtailing economic activity is only merited in cases where the transnational impact of such activity would cause one nation’s actions to affect another nation. Resolution #263 does not identify any such impact intrinsic to uranium mining.In the absence of any transnational impact, national regulators are best placed to determine the regulatory needs of mines operating within their jurisdiction.
   
   
5. The World Assembly should not duplicate general mandates for specific industries. Workplace safety, prevention of water contamination, and protection of endangered species are all already adequately addressed by extant international law through World Assembly Resolutions #7, #107, and #465. As such the repetition of concern for these subjects in Resolution #263 is redundant, and striking it out will in no way lead to violations of workplace safety, contamination of clean water sources, nor risk to endangered species, as these threats are all already adequately protected against.

Deciding that on the balance of these arguments Resolution #263 is neither necessary nor effective in advancing the interests of the World Assembly and its member nations:

Repeals World Assembly Resolution #263, “Uranium Mining Standards Act”.

“While we wait response to our comments on our other draft, we present the following draft resolution for query and comment.”

-- Júlía Maria Jónsdóttir
Economic Advisor to the Græntfjall WA Mission

Júlía Maria’s interns distribute a list containing further information on the resolutions cited in the proposal text:

• Workplace Safety Act
• Clean Water Act
• Preventing Species Extinction
• Promotion of Clean Energy

"Honeydewistania shall lend their support for this resolution. It’s about time it gets removed from the books."

OOC: Fix the preamble to make it more precise and coherent.

"Taking note of" into "Noting";
"Not standing opposed" into "Unopposed";
"However into consideration" (is that even English?) into "However, after considering".

Edit:

Deciding that on the balance of these arguments

What do you mean by that? Do you mean "on the merits"?

Picairn wrote:"However into consideration" (is that even English?) into "However, after considering".

OOC: D'oh! Missed out a word. Thanks for spotting that.

Graintfjall wrote:OOC: D'oh! Missed out a word. Thanks for spotting that.

OOC: No problem. However, what about the rest of my suggested improvements?

OOC: I don't see any need for them but I'm not wildly opposed either. To be honest, I prefer to do the polishing of the text as the last step, and first of all take care of the substance of the issue, so I'll circle back to them if this approaches some final draft stage.

Graintfjall wrote:OOC: I don't see any need for them but I'm not wildly opposed either. To be honest, I prefer to do the polishing of the text as the last step, and first of all take care of the substance of the issue, so I'll circle back to them if this approaches some final draft stage.

Ooc: I would be the most envious player ever were that how your draft proceeded. Alas, I dare to dream.

Separatist Peoples wrote:

Graintfjall wrote:OOC: I don't see any need for them but I'm not wildly opposed either. To be honest, I prefer to do the polishing of the text as the last step, and first of all take care of the substance of the issue, so I'll circle back to them if this approaches some final draft stage.

Ooc: I would be the most envious player ever were that how your draft proceeded. Alas, I dare to dream.

OOC: Right? From my experience in collaborative projects, people tend to comment on whatever is the easiest/most obvious thing to point out - which style and small grammatical quibbles are compared to the much more difficult and time-consuming tasks of substantive changes and suggestions.

Graintfjall wrote:

1. The World Assembly should respect each nation’s sovereign economic rights over their own territory and resources therein. International law curtailing economic activity is only merited in cases where the transnational impact of such activity would cause one nation’s actions to affect another nation. Resolution #263 does not identify any such impact intrinsic to uranium mining.

"This argument falls flat on me, Ambassador. You say the World Assembly should only legislate on issues that are international on impact, yet later go on to cite WAR#7 - a resolution whose impact isn't international and is almost entirely domestic. The World Assembly reserves the right to legislate on any issue it deems is of great enough importance."

Graintfjall wrote:The World Assembly should not duplicate general mandates for specific industries. Workplace safety, prevention of water contamination, and protection of endangered species are all already adequately addressed by extant international law through World Assembly Resolutions #7, #107, and #465. As such the repetition of concern for these subjects in Resolution #263 is redundant, and striking it out will in no way lead to violations of workplace safety, contamination of clean water sources, nor risk to endangered species, as these threats are all already adequately protected against.

The World Assembly should promote clean and renewable energy sources. Nuclear energy is a form of clean energy, a position endorsed by the General Assembly through World Assembly Resolution #357, “Promotion of Clean Energy”. Burdensome regulations on uranium mining that do not serve any purpose beyond limiting the economic viability of providing fuel for nuclear energy are likely to force nations unable to otherwise meet their energy needs to return to polluting and non-renewable sources of energy such as oil and coal.

"Which one is it, Ambassador? Is the target resolution almost entirely duplicative or does it introduce burdensome regulation that overly-restricts economic development? I do not understand how these two arguments can possibly be true at the same time."

Heidgaudr wrote:"This argument falls flat on me, Ambassador.
...
"Which one is it, Ambassador?"

“Who?”

Júlía Maria looks around confusedly. An intern prompts her: “I think they’re talking to you.”

“But I’m not an ambassador?”

The intern shrugs helplessly, such matters far above their paygrade.

Júlía Maria sighs, shuffles some papers around, and leans into the microphone.

“The World Assembly does indeed reserve the right to legislate on domestic matters. For a long time the World Assembly reserved the right to legislate on gun control and gambling law despite almost universal scorn for such a position. That the World Assembly can do something does not mean that it should. Our delegation’s position is that international law should be reserved for international matters, and nothing in the Resolution at hand demonstrates itself to be such. That we also cite in our support existing Resolutions of a similarly domestic scope is no problem in itself, just a recognition of political reality.

“Similarly, the Resolution at hand can quite easily both duplicate existing mandates and provide an additional burden. This is chiefly through the action of the NESC, a committee granted vague and vast powers by this Resolution. Let’s use workplace safety as an example as it’s been raised. Any nation in good faith compliance with Resolution #7 will already be protecting the safety of workers at uranium mines, yet will be required to conduct an additional annual audit anyway.

“Or, to turn the argument on its head: say this repeal were to pass. What important aspect of workplace safety would now be endangered, with respect to uranium mines, given the existence of separate international workplace safety law anyway?”

-- Júlía Maria Jónsdóttir
Economic Advisor to the Græntfjall WA Mission

Hmmmm... This seems awfully well written for someone new to the game. Could this perhaps be the work of Gruen?

Wayneactia wrote:Hmmmm... This seems awfully well written for someone new to the game. Could this perhaps be the work of Gruen?

OOC: I have not tried to hide that. That said, could we keep that stuff out of these threads?

Graintfjall wrote:

Wayneactia wrote:Hmmmm... This seems awfully well written for someone new to the game. Could this perhaps be the work of Gruen?

OOC: I have not tried to hide that. That said, could we keep that stuff out of these threads?

OOC: Where exactly are you not hiding that? I don't see a forum siggy mention (if you're a puppet) or co-author tag (if you're using someone else's text) anywhere.

IC: "Around here everyone who presents drafts for the Assembly's consideration, is considered to be an ambassador, because otherwise you basically have no business doing so. Even if your actual title was not "ambassador", if you're acting like one, you're going to be called one. I suggest learning to live with it."

"Writ large, Ms Jónsdóttir, it seems to me that you are arguing more for the redundancy of the existing resolution than for specific harms or impacts associated with that proposal. It may prove more fruitful to highlight those harms and then defend against disadvantages instead of the reverse."

Elsie Mortimer Wellesley
Perm Rep for Imperium Anglorum

Given it had only been a couple of days since Elsie had acknowledged Júlía Maria’s doctorate, the Ms Jónsdóttir could not help but feel like a deliberate slight. But if it were intended as such Júlía Maria had no intention of dwelling on it, as she was simply overjoyed to have some comment on the substance of the draft, for a change.

“That’s fair. Our delegation was concerned with proving to those concerned about the environmental issues involved that repealing the resolution would offer no active harm (admittedly also wishing to stave off the perennial, boring, calls for a ‘replacement’). We could probably have done a better job of showing the resolution itself already serves active harm, though. To whit, the argument under (3) is probably strongest.

“We’ve taken a stab at a redraft, fleshing out some of these points, then. Not the most elegantly written draft,” she glares at a bashful intern, “But then that’s not likely to be our delegation’s forte.”

-- Júlía Maria Jónsdóttir

“I have full support for this draft. You do need to make a change to clause 2 would be that ‘of farming bananas’ should be ‘than farming bananas’, to match ‘than mining any other material’. Also, clause 4 could be improved by emphasising the improved efficacy of national regulations over international ones with respect to local issues, rather than national sovereignty per se.”

Kenmoria wrote:“I have full support for this draft. You do need to make a change to clause 2 would be that ‘of farming bananas’ should be ‘than farming bananas’, to match ‘than mining any other material’. Also, clause 4 could be improved by emphasising the improved efficacy of national regulations over international ones with respect to local issues, rather than national sovereignty per se.”

“OK, that’s reasonable. If at all possible I’d prefer to avoid those hoary old clichés ‘one-size-fits-all’ or ‘micromanagement’.”

“You’re a whorey old cliché,” pipes up a voice from the back.

“Thank you Kastíel,” Júlía Maria murmurs under her breath, before scribbling down some draft language for circulation:

‘National regulators are best placed to determine the regulatory needs of mines operating within their jurisdiction.’

-- Júlía Maria Jónsdóttir

"We reiterate our support for any repeal of the target. We do note that the italics and bolding may slightly annoy the Anglican delegation."