[PASSED] Prevention of Hate Crime

[The Ice States]

Ooc: Part 1 of a CoCR replacement. See here for associated repeal.

Whereas hate crime is a malum in se which member nations have a duty to protect their citizens against; and

Whereas the repeal of "The Charter of Civil Rights" has left an ominous silence regarding protections against hate crime;

The World Assembly enacts as follows.

1. Any violent or non-violent criminal act against an individual motivated by that individual's real or perceived holding or lack of an arbitrary and reductive characteristic, including but not limited to ethnicity, gender, race, religion, culture, disability, social background or sexuality, shall be classified as a hate crime in every member nation.
   
   
2. Where it can be shown, to the same standard otherwise required to show guilt for the relevant act, that an otherwise-criminal act was of the nature criminalised by Section 1, that fact must be treated as an aggravating factor in sentencing or other enforcement of the criminalisation of said act. Member nations must prohibit advocacy of violence criminalised by Section 1. Nor may any criminal law in a member nation discriminate in its criminalisation of an act based on a real or perceived arbitrary, reductive characteristic of the victim of that act.

[The Ice States]

Drafts murdered based on the arbitrary, reductive characteristic of being subpar.

Whereas hate crime is a malum in se which member nations have a duty to protect their citizens against; and

Whereas the repeal of "The Charter of Civil Rights" has left an ominous silence regarding protections against hate crime;

The World Assembly enacts as follows.

1. Violence, advocacy thereof, or criminal acts against individuals motivated by their holding or lack of an arbitrary and reductive characteristic accordingly protected by World Assembly or other applicable law shall be classified as hate crimes, and therefore criminal violations, in every member nation. That an otherwise-criminal act was of the nature criminalised by this Section must be treated as an aggravating factor in sentencing or other enforcement of the criminalisation of said act.
   
   
2. A member nation may delegate the duty of enforcing the criminalisation of hate crimes under Section 1 to its administrative or political subdivisions, so long as that Section is fully enforced across the entirety of that member nation's jurisdiction.
   
   
3. The World Assembly affirms that all individuals have the right not to be subject to unjust or arbitrary discrimination, and invites the passage of both national and international legislation to this end.

Whereas the repeal of "The Charter of Civil Rights" has left an ominous silence regarding protections against hate crime; and

Whereas hate crime is a malum in se which member nations have a duty to protect their citizens against;

The World Assembly enacts as follows.

1. Violence, or advocacy thereof, against individuals motivated by their holding or lack of a characteristic protected by World Assembly or other applicable law as arbitrary or reductive is prohibited in every member nation. Such violence is to be classified for enforcement purposes as a hate crime, and therefore treated with greater severity than it would be but for the violence being motivated by the victim's holding or lack of such a characteristic.
   
   
2. A member nation may delegate its duty to enforce Section 1 to its administrative or political subdivisions, so long as full coverage of that member nation's jurisdiction is achieved.

[Tinhampton]

Support as written.

[Astrobolt]

Tappe: How are we defining violence here?

[Repreteop]

I would like that perhaps you could add crimes such as vandalism and such which may not be very "violent", but otherwise, its a pretty simple idea. While this could also make this much more of a toss up (due to some viewing that as a attack on free speech), perhaps you could add hate speech too to this list. Perhaps add some parts about trying to prevent events and groups that push for hate crime, there may be more to this you could choose.

[The Ice States]

Tappe: How are we defining violence here?

"We believe the definition of violence is ultimately clear and does not necessitate explicit definition in the resolution text. The term is typically accepted as referring to the act of using physical force to cause harm, and such an interpretation is the only one which could reasonably be taken be a member nation."

~Robert Desak,
World Assembly Ambassador,
The Eternal Union of Devonia and the Ice States.

I would like that perhaps you could add crimes such as vandalism and such which may not be very "violent", but otherwise, its a pretty simple idea. While this could also make this much more of a toss up (due to some viewing that as a attack on free speech), perhaps you could add hate speech too to this list. Perhaps add some parts about trying to prevent events and groups that push for hate crime, there may be more to this you could choose.

Done re other crimes. As to hate speech, note that the resolution applies both to violence/hate crime and advocacy thereof.

[Juansonia]

Member nations must prohibit advocacy of acts contravening Section 1.

"Strongly opposed, since 'advocacy' is a standard far broader than 'incitement'. The addition of this clause was the opposite of an improvement."
- LTC Maria-Fernanda Novo, WA Ambassador for the Armed Republic of Juansonia

[The Ice States]

Member nations must prohibit advocacy of acts contravening Section 1.

"Strongly opposed, since 'advocacy' is a standard far broader than 'incitement'. The addition of this clause was the opposite of an improvement."
- LTC Maria-Fernanda Novo, WA Ambassador for the Armed Republic of Juansonia

"The resolution always prohibited advocacy since we presented it to the drafting chambers, Ambassador. The only change to that wording was to move it to a new Section alongside the enforcement clause, instead of keeping it in Section 1. The reason 'advocacy' is used instead of 'incitement' is to prohibit hate speech, which we believe ought to be prohibited alongside hate crime."

~Robert Desak,
World Assembly Ambassador,
The Eternal Union of Devonia and the Ice States.

[Tinhampton]

I can no longer support this draft.

For the avoidance of doubt: I do not object to proposals to forbid advocacy of violence. I have never supported any attempt at creating an overarching WA hate speech law.

[Imperium Anglorum]

Reference to a person by any characteristic is reductive.

[The Ice States]

Reference to a person by any characteristic is reductive.

Ooc: Thanks, I've changed the wording to "arbitrary and reductive"; I prefer using that instead of just "arbitrary" as it is the more common wording used in WA resolutions.

[Juansonia]

"Strongly opposed, since 'advocacy' is a standard far broader than 'incitement'. The addition of this clause was the opposite of an improvement."
- LTC Maria-Fernanda Novo, WA Ambassador for the Armed Republic of Juansonia

The resolution always prohibited advocacy since we presented it to the drafting chambers, Ambassador. The only change to that wording was to move it to a new Section alongside the enforcement clause, instead of keeping it in Section 1. The reason 'advocacy' is used instead of 'incitement' is to prohibit hate speech, which we believe ought to be prohibited alongside hate crime.

"I will admit, my eyes must have glossed over the 'or advocacy of' portion of the original's text. However, the prohibition of hate speech has no place in a replacement for GA#35, and I doubt that it belongs elsewhere in the World Assembly's active resolution list. Furthermore, this is not a sufficient replacement for GA#35, as it fails to reinstate any of GA#35's protections other than those in clause 2-Bravo."
- Maria-Fernanda Novo, WA Ambassador for the Armed Republic of Juansonia

[The Ice States]

The resolution always prohibited advocacy since we presented it to the drafting chambers, Ambassador. The only change to that wording was to move it to a new Section alongside the enforcement clause, instead of keeping it in Section 1. The reason 'advocacy' is used instead of 'incitement' is to prohibit hate speech, which we believe ought to be prohibited alongside hate crime.

"I will admit, my eyes must have glossed over the 'or advocacy of' portion of the original's text. However, the prohibition of hate speech has no place in a replacement for GA#35, and I doubt that it belongs elsewhere in the World Assembly's active resolution list. Furthermore, this is not a sufficient replacement for GA#35, as it fails to reinstate any of GA#35's protections other than those in clause 2-Bravo."
- Maria-Fernanda Novo, WA Ambassador for the Armed Republic of Juansonia

"It is not meant to replace every provision of GA #35. We intend to also introduce a resolution preventing discrimination against other arbitrary categorisations which would reinstate the rest of GA #35 for those categorisations without the flaws of the original resolution's wording. However, as noted in our repeal draft, Ambassador, the vast majority of groups protected by GA #35 are already protected by other resolutions -- Freedom of Travel for non-sedentary groups, Defending the Rights of Sexual and Gender Minorities for LGBT groups, Supporting People with Disabilities for disabled individuals, and so on. This renders an omnibus protection against discrimination for all minority groups, as established in GA #35, unnecessary."

~Robert Desak,
World Assembly Ambassador,
The Eternal Union of Devonia and the Ice States.

[Juansonia]

"I will admit, my eyes must have glossed over the 'or advocacy of' portion of the original's text. However, the prohibition of hate speech has no place in a replacement for GA#35, and I doubt that it belongs elsewhere in the World Assembly's active resolution list. Furthermore, this is not a sufficient replacement for GA#35, as it fails to reinstate any of GA#35's protections other than those in clause 2-Bravo."
- Maria-Fernanda Novo, WA Ambassador for the Armed Republic of Juansonia

"It is not meant to replace every provision of GA #35. We intend to also introduce a resolution preventing discrimination against other arbitrary categorisations which would reinstate the rest of GA #35 for those categorisations without the flaws of the original resolution's wording. However, as noted in our repeal draft, Ambassador, the vast majority of groups protected by GA #35 are already protected by other resolutions -- Freedom of Travel for non-sedentary groups, Defending the Rights of Sexual and Gender Minorities for LGBT groups, Supporting People with Disabilities for disabled individuals, and so on. This renders an omnibus protection against discrimination for all minority groups, as established in GA #35, unnecessary."

~Robert Desak,
World Assembly Ambassador,
The Eternal Union of Devonia and the Ice States.

"Do keep in mind that ethnicity, 'race', nationality, skin color, language, economic background, and cultural background are only protected wholesale due to GA#35. Calling omnibus protection unnecessary cannot indicate much other than indifference to or support of discrimination and state violence on some of those characteristics, although Hanlon's Razor applies."
- LTC Maria-Fernanda Novo, WA Ambassador for the Armed Republic of Juansonia

[The Ice States]

"It is not meant to replace every provision of GA #35. We intend to also introduce a resolution preventing discrimination against other arbitrary categorisations which would reinstate the rest of GA #35 for those categorisations without the flaws of the original resolution's wording. However, as noted in our repeal draft, Ambassador, the vast majority of groups protected by GA #35 are already protected by other resolutions -- Freedom of Travel for non-sedentary groups, Defending the Rights of Sexual and Gender Minorities for LGBT groups, Supporting People with Disabilities for disabled individuals, and so on. This renders an omnibus protection against discrimination for all minority groups, as established in GA #35, unnecessary."

~Robert Desak,
World Assembly Ambassador,
The Eternal Union of Devonia and the Ice States.

"Do keep in mind that ethnicity, 'race', nationality, skin color, language, economic background, and cultural background are only protected wholesale due to GA#35. Calling omnibus protection unnecessary cannot indicate much other than indifference to or support of discrimination and state violence on some of those characteristics, although Hanlon's Razor applies."
- LTC Maria-Fernanda Novo, WA Ambassador for the Armed Republic of Juansonia

"I am a diplomat, but sometimes it seems that I am the only one adhering to common courtesy as a result of us being here as formal representatives. I take offence at your insulting my intelligence, as implied by your invocation of Hanlon's razor. If anything, your assumption of either stupidity or malice instead of simply seeking clarification reflects poorly on the Juansonian mission more than mine. I would add that the days of the Ice government actively discriminating against minorities, as during the Empire of the Ice States, are long gone and are not coming back; I am not a Devonian, but from my own observation there is similarly a reasonably strong protection for all forms of discrimination there, and generally throughout the Eternal Union. The situation, here, is that the core assumption of your comment is incorrect. A protection specifically for race and related characteristics, such as skin colour and ethnicity, is not an 'omnibus protection against discrimination for all minority groups'. You have, in fact, provided the rationale for the other replacement we intend to propose, which is a prohibition on discrimination based on race and related characteristics."

~Robert Desak,
World Assembly Ambassador,
The Eternal Union of Devonia and the Ice States.

[The Ice States]

Bump.

[Kenmoria]

Ambassador Fortier stands to speak. “The People’s Republic of Kenmoria opposes to a great extent the odious prejudice that causes one person to hate another from that other’s immutable characteristics. Likewise, the ire of the People’s Republic of Kenmoria encompasses all those crimes which are motivated by this irrational bigotry. However, at present, I find myself sadly unable to support this measure. I will provide verbal commentary as to the cause of this as your Excellencies request, but, for the moment, I have some written notes to provide.”

Whereas hate crime is a malum in se which member nations have a duty to protect their citizens against; and

Whereas the repeal of "The Charter of Civil Rights" has left an ominous silence regarding protections against hate crime;

The World Assembly enacts as follows.

1. Violence or other criminal acts against individuals motivated by their holding or lack of a characteristic protected by World Assembly or other applicable law as arbitrary and reductive are prohibited in every member nation. Prohibition is not sufficiently strong, and I recommend that your Excellency mandate criminalisation instead. It is not enough for these crimes to be prohibited merely through the law of tort, for example, since that does not carry the level of penalisation that is appropriate here.
   
   Also, though your Excellency’s intent is clear, “a characteristic protected […] as arbitrary and reductive” would be a characteristic where the arbitrariness and reductiveness of that characteristic are protected. This does not follow the legal system of the General Assembly or, indeed, of any jurisdictions with which I am familiar. There are two ways to remedy this. First, the alteration of “protected” to “regarded” clarifies that the arbitrariness and reductiveness of these characteristics is something acknowledged, rather than maintained, by the applicable law. Second, there is the rewording of the clause as follows: “…their holding or lack of an arbitrary and reductive characteristic protected by World Assembly or other applicable law are prohibited in…”.
   
   
2. Any act criminalised under Section 1 is to be classified for enforcement purposes as a hate crime, and therefore treated with greater severity than it would be but for said act being motivated by the victim's holding or lack of a protected characteristic. Member nations must prohibit advocacy of violence contravening Section 1. With the change that I suggested to the first clause, this clause makes more sense, since the first clause would actually mandate criminalisation. There is ambiguity in this mandate, as to what it means to treat something with greater severity. For example, within the People’s Republic of Kenmoria, there is a mandatory minimal sentence for murder of a whole-life order. Though there is potential for capital punishment as far as theory is concerned, the supervenience of the General Assembly has imposed a moratorium on that. Therefore, it is impossible for a murder motivated by specific prejudice to receive a stronger sentence, given other prohibitions of this Assembly on torture and exile. It is thus unclear as to how the People’s Republic of Kenmoria would treat such crimes as being more severe.
   
   I wish to note here my support for the decision of your Excellency to prohibit advocacy of violence contravening the first clause of this proposal. Though it to already be the case through various inchoate offences, explicit declaration and mandate of this is a sensible mandate to impose on member-nations.
   
   
3. A member nation may delegate the duty of enforcing Sections 1 and 2 to its administrative or political subdivisions, so long as full coverage of that member nation's jurisdiction is achieved. It is intuitively clear what is meant by “full coverage”. Nonetheless, for the avoidance of doubt, more direct wording would be helpful. I recommend the following: “so long as these Sections are fully enforced across the entirety of that member nation’s jurisdictions.”

[The Ice States]

Ambassador Fortier stands to speak. “The People’s Republic of Kenmoria opposes to a great extent the odious prejudice that causes one person to hate another from that other’s immutable characteristics. Likewise, the ire of the People’s Republic of Kenmoria encompasses all those crimes which are motivated by this irrational bigotry. However, at present, I find myself sadly unable to support this measure. I will provide verbal commentary as to the cause of this as your Excellencies request, but, for the moment, I have some written notes to provide.”

Whereas hate crime is a malum in se which member nations have a duty to protect their citizens against; and

Whereas the repeal of "The Charter of Civil Rights" has left an ominous silence regarding protections against hate crime;

The World Assembly enacts as follows.

1. Violence or other criminal acts against individuals motivated by their holding or lack of a characteristic protected by World Assembly or other applicable law as arbitrary and reductive are prohibited in every member nation. Prohibition is not sufficiently strong, and I recommend that your Excellency mandate criminalisation instead. It is not enough for these crimes to be prohibited merely through the law of tort, for example, since that does not carry the level of penalisation that is appropriate here.
   
   Also, though your Excellency’s intent is clear, “a characteristic protected […] as arbitrary and reductive” would be a characteristic where the arbitrariness and reductiveness of that characteristic are protected. This does not follow the legal system of the General Assembly or, indeed, of any jurisdictions with which I am familiar. There are two ways to remedy this. First, the alteration of “protected” to “regarded” clarifies that the arbitrariness and reductiveness of these characteristics is something acknowledged, rather than maintained, by the applicable law. Second, there is the rewording of the clause as follows: “…their holding or lack of an arbitrary and reductive characteristic protected by World Assembly or other applicable law are prohibited in…”.
   
   
2. Any act criminalised under Section 1 is to be classified for enforcement purposes as a hate crime, and therefore treated with greater severity than it would be but for said act being motivated by the victim's holding or lack of a protected characteristic. Member nations must prohibit advocacy of violence contravening Section 1. With the change that I suggested to the first clause, this clause makes more sense, since the first clause would actually mandate criminalisation. There is ambiguity in this mandate, as to what it means to treat something with greater severity. For example, within the People’s Republic of Kenmoria, there is a mandatory minimal sentence for murder of a whole-life order. Though there is potential for capital punishment as far as theory is concerned, the supervenience of the General Assembly has imposed a moratorium on that. Therefore, it is impossible for a murder motivated by specific prejudice to receive a stronger sentence, given other prohibitions of this Assembly on torture and exile. It is thus unclear as to how the People’s Republic of Kenmoria would treat such crimes as being more severe.
   
   I wish to note here my support for the decision of your Excellency to prohibit advocacy of violence contravening the first clause of this proposal. Though it to already be the case through various inchoate offences, explicit declaration and mandate of this is a sensible mandate to impose on member-nations.
   
   
3. A member nation may delegate the duty of enforcing Sections 1 and 2 to its administrative or political subdivisions, so long as full coverage of that member nation's jurisdiction is achieved. It is intuitively clear what is meant by “full coverage”. Nonetheless, for the avoidance of doubt, more direct wording would be helpful. I recommend the following: “so long as these Sections are fully enforced across the entirety of that member nation’s jurisdictions.”

"Thank you for the comments, Ambassador. Our mission will be producing a new draft shortly to address these concerns, and they should be distributed throughout this drafting chamber shortly."

~Robert Desak,
World Assembly Ambassador,
The Eternal Union of Devonia and the Ice States.

[The Ice States]

Bump.

[Waffia]

Ooc: Part 1 of a CoCR replacement. See here for associated repeal.

Whereas hate crime is a malum in se which member nations have a duty to protect their citizens against; and

Whereas the repeal of "The Charter of Civil Rights" has left an ominous silence regarding protections against hate crime;

The World Assembly enacts as follows.

1. Violence, advocacy thereof, or criminal acts against individuals motivated by their holding or lack of an arbitrary and reductive characteristic accordingly protected by World Assembly or other applicable law shall be classified as hate crimes, and therefore criminal violations, in every member nation. That an otherwise-criminal act was of the nature criminalised by this Section must be treated as an aggravating factor in sentencing or other enforcement of the criminalisation of said act.
   
   
2. A member nation may delegate the duty of enforcing the criminalisation of hate crimes under Section 1 to its administrative or political subdivisions, so long as that Section is fully enforced across the entirety of that member nation's jurisdiction.

I don't have any remarks beyond my support for this resolution as written.

I'm curious: What is the point of the second article? (My IC ambassador knows the answer, but OOC me can't ask him unfortunately )

[The Ice States]

I don't have any remarks beyond my support for this resolution as written.

I'm curious: What is the point of the second article? (My IC ambassador knows the answer, but OOC me can't ask him unfortunately )

Ooc: The purpose of that provision is to make it clear that if a nation is a federation, it is fine that enforcement of the clause occur at a subnational level as long as a subdivision doesn't go "naw fuck it" and decide not to enforce the provision.

On another note, I have added Section 3 as an omnibus statement against all unjust discrimination. While per the discourse above I do not believe that it is particularly necessary from a policy perspective, I have left it in as an olive branch to the people who oppose repeal without an omnibus replacement, as well as In-character as a stated position against such discrimination.

[Imperium Anglorum]

Please stop italicising everything.

[The Ice States]

Bump.

[Barfleur]

"To my Kenmorian colleague, I am genuinely curious: seeing the uniform and uncompromising mandatory sentence for murder in your country, how broadly is murder defined? In Barfleur, unlike some other countries, murder only covers killings where the actor intends to cause death or intentionally endangers the life of another knowing death to be a likely result. Even with this narrow reading, our life sentences for murder--which are also mandatory--carry minimum terms which can be as short as twelve years."

OOC: I certainly don't mean to force Kenmoria, or any other player, to come up with a comprehensive criminal code in order to answer this curiosity of mine. And in the interest of avoiding threadjacking, I will say full support, except that I support changing "advocacy" to "incitement."

[The Ice States]

The use of "advocacy" is deliberate to prohibit hate speech.