Draft: Sanctions on Condemned Nations

[Killerustan]

Sanctions on Condemned Nations

Council: General Assembly
Category: Global Disarmament
Effect: Significant

Recognising that the WA has from time to time the need to condemn especially onerous activities of nations.

Deeming that condemned nations should suffer consequences for the actions leading to a condemnation resolution.

Consequently move to require WA member states to enact strong sanctions on all condemned nations.

Declares:

1. ‘Condemned Nations’ is defined as any nation that is explicitly condemned in a currently active World Assembly Security Council resolution.

Requires:

1.WA member states shall impose each of the following military sanctions on all condemned nations:
-All WA member states shall immediately cease the sale and supply of weaponry, spare parts and munitions to all condemned nations
-All WA member states shall immediately cease military cooperation, assistance, protection or defense of all condemned nations

2. WA member states shall impose each of the following additional sanctions on all condemned nations due to the prevalence of duel use technology in the world:
-All WA member states shall immediately cease all businesses, individuals and government entities from conducting any form of trade, economic aid or economic assistance with all condemned nations.

[Ilharessa]

"Illegal. Wrong category," Velnayanis said. "This isn't global disarmament. Global disarmament is when you take guns away from everybody. And, frankly, I do not see any need for this proposal."

[Killerustan]

"Illegal. Wrong category," Velnayanis said. "This isn't global disarmament. Global disarmament is when you take guns away from everybody. And, frankly, I do not see any need for this proposal."

Actually Global Disarmament is for

A resolution to slash worldwide military spending

Which this resolution does by cutting off arms sales and military activities in support of condemned nations. It applies equally to every WA member state. It will cut military spending worldwide.

[Ilharessa]

"Maybe your nation is in need of cutting military spending. We would advise redirecting the saved funds into education, specifically language courses," Velnayanis said. "And second, you obviously have no idea how international law works. For one thing, you're talking to the entirely wrong part of the World Assembly. Condemnations is the jurisdiction of the Security Council and, thus, they are the people you should be talking to about this. However, at the same time, this still is not a global disarmament proposal. I would suggest you read over the handy rules document provided upon joining this organization before you continue. Finally, you might want to note that this does not affect all nations equally when you consider that some of those nations could easily be World Assembly members and this forces them to stop all internal market action or leave the World Assembly.

"I will also say you have only convinced me further that this is not needed and likely will never be."

[Komi Saki]

Although this is likely unenforceable, I agree with the sentiment. The possibility of the strictest of sanctions may be a deterrent to nations considering actions that may lead to condemnation.

[Charlotte Ryberg]

I don't know, honoured ambassador to Killerustan, but I don't think imposing sanctions against condemned nations is going to improve the world and the civilians living under the country being condemned.

The category is wrong as well. I cannot guarantee whether this draft can in practice, promote world peace by slashing budgets to stop supplying arms to condemned nations.

[Krioval]

Illegal for several reasons, the most compelling of which is that the WA cannot enforce penalties other than a condemnation against a non-WA state; even if the condemned is a WA state, however, it is illegal to legislate against individual nations in the General Assembly.

[Lord] Ambassador Darvek Tyvok
Imperial Chiefdom of Krioval

[Grays Harbor]

This could also lead to nations in the WA and SC to use the "condemn" option as a weapon to coerce or blackmail other nations. "Give me what I want or I'll condemn you and force sanctions".

This is not something we could ever endorse.

[Killerustan]

Illegal for several reasons, the most compelling of which is that the WA cannot enforce penalties other than a condemnation against a non-WA state; even if the condemned is a WA state, however, it is illegal to legislate against individual nations in the General Assembly.

[Lord] Ambassador Darvek Tyvok
Imperial Chiefdom of Krioval

You miss the point. First Honorable Ambassador Tyvok the resolution does not seek to enforce anything on non-wa countries. The resolution as written simply regulates WA member states to certain behavior regarding states condemned by the security council.

Do we not now regulate biological weaponry and tell member states that they can't own such weapons Ambassador Tyvok? We certainly have authority to regulate behavior of member states as this resolution does. This simply says that members of the WA shall not sale weapons to regimes that the Security Council have condemned. there is nothing illegal to that at all.

Further Ambassador this resolution does not directly regulate against any individual state. Its simply stating that member states shall not behave with regards to nations of a particular class. This is identical to existing resolutions against torture and genocide where we have noted that a certain class of nations and their behavior require our member states to conduct certain activities in response to those classes and nations.

[Killerustan]

This could also lead to nations in the WA and SC to use the "condemn" option as a weapon to coerce or blackmail other nations. "Give me what I want or I'll condemn you and force sanctions".

This is not something we could ever endorse.

Honorable Ambassador from Grays Harbor we recognize that right now there are attempts to use the Condemn function of the security council for nefarious purposes. But I believe we all understand that there are in fact nations whose activities are so vile that they do in fact deserve condemnation at a minimum. We would all agree with that.

All this resolution is saying is look if you are condemned by proper legal process of the security council and this condemnation passes the appropriate vote then this will be the behavior of our member states towards your rogue regime.

And the reason I have placed it under global disarmament is because it is primarily an arms and military assistance ban. Look at it this way we condemn state X for genocide. yet, every WA nation continues to sell weapons to country X so country X can keep committing genocide.

Does that make sense to you? This is simply saying where your actions lead us to condemn you we will also wash our hands of involvement in your activities. We have the power to determine our actions respecting other nations and we regulate such actions in every GA resolution passed by this body.

[Philimbesi]

Well... for a few lines in there it is a global disarmament proposal, only if you squint up your eyes and look at it in just the right light but there is a little bit there, however after those few lines it becomes a trade proposal, and possibly a few other categories all wrapped into one making it an illegal mess.

Then there's the problem that C&C's aren't restricted to non member nations as has been pointed out. Also I don't know if you've strolled out in to the courtyard and climbed up the SC tree lately but there are several nations on the that thing I don't want dictating my international trade policies.

Also (being capitalist) if my nation is doing business with a non government run business in a condemned state why should I stop when they have nothing to do with they actions of their government.

Lastly there is the question as to if we should make it international law to withhold aid to the people of condemned nations. Especially when with the possible exception of one Condemnation so far all of them have been about what amount to petty soap opera like driviel.
There's just something about international law forcing us to say to poor people... "Sorry, love to help you but we don't like your government... but it's ok just wait a week the SC will change it's mind and we can help, till it changes it's mind again, that doesn't sit well with me.

[Omigodtheykilledkenny]

Mentions of "Condemnations" and "Security Council" (or anything related to gameplay) are metagaming; there's also the sticky little rule that GA resolutions apply to all member nations equally, not just those with badges on their profiles. Besides, the SC hasn't even condemned a nation yet.

EDIT: Actually, this does apply to all nations equally. My bad. Still illegal though.

[Killerustan]

Well... for a few lines in there it is a global disarmament proposal, only if you squint up your eyes and look at it in just the right light but there is a little bit there, however after those few lines it becomes a trade proposal, and possibly a few other categories all wrapped into one making it an illegal mess.

Then there's the problem that C&C's aren't restricted to non member nations as has been pointed out. Also I don't know if you've strolled out in to the courtyard and climbed up the SC tree lately but there are several nations on the that thing I don't want dictating my international trade policies.

Also (being capitalist) if my nation is doing business with a non government run business in a condemned state why should I stop when they have nothing to do with they actions of their government.

Lastly there is the question as to if we should make it international law to withhold aid to the people of condemned nations. Especially when with the possible exception of one Condemnation so far all of them have been about what amount to petty soap opera like driviel.
There's just something about international law forcing us to say to poor people... "Sorry, love to help you but we don't like your government... but it's ok just wait a week the SC will change it's mind and we can help, till it changes it's mind again, that doesn't sit well with me.

The Ambassador must understand that the nature of trade necessarily means that brass can go to make pipes or it could go to make shell casings, that chemicals could go to pesticides or they could go to the manufacture of VX gas. So yes indeed we do require the severing and isolation of condemned regimes. Best way to stop duel use technology from finding its way into rogue regimes is to ban trade in its entirety.

We are a capitalist country too but we certainly wouldn't want to sale weaponry to a regime that were for example gassing Jews in their nation. I don't have a problem with not trading with such a state....why would you?

[Grays Harbor]

This could also lead to nations in the WA and SC to use the "condemn" option as a weapon to coerce or blackmail other nations. "Give me what I want or I'll condemn you and force sanctions".

This is not something we could ever endorse.

Honorable Ambassador from Grays Harbor we recognize that right now there are attempts to use the Condemn function of the security council for nefarious purposes. But I believe we all understand that there are in fact nations whose activities are so vile that they do in fact deserve condemnation at a minimum. We would all agree with that.

All this resolution is saying is look if you are condemned by proper legal process of the security council and this condemnation passes the appropriate vote then this will be the behavior of our member states towards your rogue regime.

And the reason I have placed it under global disarmament is because it is primarily an arms and military assistance ban. Look at it this way we condemn state X for genocide. yet, every WA nation continues to sell weapons to country X so country X can keep committing genocide.

Does that make sense to you? This is simply saying where your actions lead us to condemn you we will also wash our hands of involvement in your activities. We have the power to determine our actions respecting other nations and we regulate such actions in every GA resolution passed by this body.

The fact remains, that this is not a desireable proposal. And as has been mentioned, proposals do not single individual nations out, they apply equally across the board to all WA members, so, sanctions on 1 is sanctions on all.

And no, your explanation does not make sense. Calling it disarmament is disingenuous.

[Philimbesi]

The Ambassador must understand that the nature of trade necessarily means that brass can go to make pipes or it could go to make shell casings, that chemicals could go to pesticides or they could go to the manufacture of VX gas. So yes indeed we do require the severing and isolation of condemned regimes. Best way to stop duel use technology from finding its way into rogue regimes is to ban trade in its entirety.

We are a capitalist country too but we certainly wouldn't want to sale weaponry to a regime that were for example gassing Jews in their nation. I don't have a problem with not trading with such a state....why would you?

I agree and the ambassador must understand that banning the trade of brass, or chemicals, or pesticides doesn't constitute a global disarmament resolution, banning of guns, tanks, and warplanes does. What they do with the material after it is traded can't be known at the time of the trade, and if there is a suspicion that it is being used for purposes other than pipes, or plants it shouldn't be sent in the first place.

Further of course if a nation I was doing trade with was gassing any sub-culture of theirs I would stop trade with that nation and more than likely with it's allies, I don't trade with several nations in this body over the subject of torture. I stood up in this chamber early into the USSI debate and voiced my displeasure with them, I had no trade at the time with them and won't trade with them since. All of these are good reasons for sanctions... However the majority of condemnations are not over gassing of people or torturing peoples they are about things such as...

BELIEVING the bold orange text with blue accents on every colony's world factbook entry is distasteful and grotesque, furthermore removing the nation-region's right to support their own colors on the world factbook entry.

Doe the ambassador really believe that this is a reason to stop the sale of anything to a nation or in this case a region?

[Killerustan]

The fact remains, that this is not a desireable proposal. And as has been mentioned, proposals do not single individual nations out, they apply equally across the board to all WA members, so, sanctions on 1 is sanctions on all.

And no, your explanation does not make sense. Calling it disarmament is disingenuous.

I would urge the Ambassador to seek legal clarification from moderation.

I agree and the ambassador must understand that banning the trade of brass, or chemicals, or pesticides doesn't constitute a global disarmament resolution, banning of guns, tanks, and warplanes does. What they do with the material after it is traded can't be known at the time of the trade, and if there is a suspicion that it is being used for purposes other than pipes, or plants it shouldn't be sent in the first place.

Further of course if a nation I was doing trade with was gassing any sub-culture of theirs I would stop trade with that nation and more than likely with it's allies, I don't trade with several nations in this body over the subject of torture. I stood up in this chamber early into the USSI debate and voiced my displeasure with them, I had no trade at the time with them and won't trade with them since. All of these are good reasons for sanctions... However the majority of condemnations are not over gassing of people or torturing peoples they are about things such as...

BELIEVING the bold orange text with blue accents on every colony's world factbook entry is distasteful and grotesque, furthermore removing the nation-region's right to support their own colors on the world factbook entry.

Doe the ambassador really believe that this is a reason to stop the sale of anything to a nation or in this case a region?

The resolution is narrowly targeted to those nations explicitly condemned so it isn't targeted to all nations in a region. This is intentional as most abuse of condemn motions are those targeting region related issues. Second, the severing of trade relations is solely for the purpose of preventing armament supplies. It is a necessary part of the resolution to support the ban on military materials and assistance. I admit it is a secondary consideration but its there to prevent armament related products and money to buy armaments from getting to these nations.

Yes I do.

[Grays Harbor]

The fact remains, that this is not a desireable proposal. And as has been mentioned, proposals do not single individual nations out, they apply equally across the board to all WA members, so, sanctions on 1 is sanctions on all.

And no, your explanation does not make sense. Calling it disarmament is disingenuous.

I would urge the Ambassador to seek legal clarification from moderation.

OOC - excuse me?

A resolution does not effect only one targetted anything, regardless of what the body of the proposal says. A resolution is only as good as the category and strength, that is all. Nothing else. I could submit a proposal saying it is for Global Disarmament will a strength of "strong", then have the body of the text quote Ramones songs. The only thing that will effect any WA nation is the category and strength. There is no way, not in any form, that a resolution will effect on those condemned or anything. It will effect all WA member nations, equally.

You are new here. I am not. I would recommend that you read the rules of what a proposal can and cannot do before proposing anything.

Simply put, you cannot propose a resolution to alter the game mechanics, which is exactly what you are doing by targetting only those nations which have been condemned by SC resolutions.

[Killerustan]

OOC - excuse me?

A resolution does not effect only one targetted anything, regardless of what the body of the proposal says. A resolution is only as good as the category and strength, that is all. Nothing else. I could submit a proposal saying it is for Global Disarmament will a strength of "strong", then have the body of the text quote Ramones songs. The only thing that will effect any WA nation is the category and strength. There is no way, not in any form, that a resolution will effect on those condemned or anything. It will effect all WA member nations, equally.

You are new here. I am not. I would recommend that you read the rules of what a proposal can and cannot do before proposing anything.

Simply put, you cannot propose a resolution to alter the game mechanics, which is exactly what you are doing by targetting only those nations which have been condemned by SC resolutions.

I been completely respectful to you and everyone else here in character but don't mouth off to me like you are some damn genius. First off I have read the rules and went further than reading them I went and asked several experienced people what I should do. I am putting in action their advice. I have further TG a number of experienced nations and asked them to review this as I have asked everyone else to review this by posting a draft first.

Now the rules you speak of state that when you have a disagreement on legality you refer it to moderation for a ruling.

[Flibbleites]

The fact remains, that this is not a desireable proposal. And as has been mentioned, proposals do not single individual nations out, they apply equally across the board to all WA members, so, sanctions on 1 is sanctions on all.

And no, your explanation does not make sense. Calling it disarmament is disingenuous.

I would urge the Ambassador to seek legal clarification from moderation.

OK then, time to put on my mod hat.

I agree and the ambassador must understand that banning the trade of brass, or chemicals, or pesticides doesn't constitute a global disarmament resolution, banning of guns, tanks, and warplanes does. What they do with the material after it is traded can't be known at the time of the trade, and if there is a suspicion that it is being used for purposes other than pipes, or plants it shouldn't be sent in the first place.

Further of course if a nation I was doing trade with was gassing any sub-culture of theirs I would stop trade with that nation and more than likely with it's allies, I don't trade with several nations in this body over the subject of torture. I stood up in this chamber early into the USSI debate and voiced my displeasure with them, I had no trade at the time with them and won't trade with them since. All of these are good reasons for sanctions... However the majority of condemnations are not over gassing of people or torturing peoples they are about things such as...

BELIEVING the bold orange text with blue accents on every colony's world factbook entry is distasteful and grotesque, furthermore removing the nation-region's right to support their own colors on the world factbook entry.

Doe the ambassador really believe that this is a reason to stop the sale of anything to a nation or in this case a region?

The resolution is narrowly targeted to those nations explicitly condemned so it isn't targeted to all nations in a region. This is intentional as most abuse of condemn motions are those targeting region related issues. Second, the severing of trade relations is solely for the purpose of preventing armament supplies. It is a necessary part of the resolution to support the ban on military materials and assistance. I admit it is a secondary consideration but its there to prevent armament related products and money to buy armaments from getting to these nations.

Yes I do.

OK, you're trying to target specific nations, that is illegal. Proposals must affect all WA member nations equally, this proposal does not do that (ignoring the fact that currently there aren't any condemned nations).

[Allemande]

Meh. Killerustan asked me to look at this proposal even though I'm no longer a WA member, and I agreed to look. I was going to RP this, but I've got too much on my plate, so I'll just be direct.

Flibbleites (can I call you Bob? I mean, it's not like we're strangers or anything), I think you should take another look at the proposal, because I actually think it's legal.

The key is in understanding that the action clauses specify things that all member nations must do, rather than speaking to what particular nations must do; as Kenny indicated, this affects everyone equally. The target of the sanctions is irrelevant - indeed, it could be a nation outside of the WA, which means that (technically), the sanctions would have no impact on the target nation at all; alternately, it could be a member nation, but even if it is the in-game effect of being sanctioned will still be non-existent.

Now, as to strength and category:

• "All WA member states shall immediately cease the sale and supply of weaponry, spare parts and munitions to all condemned nations." - Looks like a reduction in defence expenditures to me - or at least half of one, since "supply" includes military aid furnished gratis.
  
  
• "All WA member states shall immediately cease military cooperation, assistance, protection or defense of all condemned nations."
  - Looks like a reduction in defence expenditures to me, as you won't need to pay for those troops you'd have sent to aid that condemned ally of yours.
  
  
• "All WA member states shall immediately cease all businesses, individuals and government entities from conducting any form of trade, economic aid or economic assistance with all condemned nations."
  - That's a trade sanction, but there's no category for trade sanctions, which makes it a "ham sandwich" (more on that below).

So of the action clauses, two require member nations to stop furnishing arms, equipment, and/or personnel to other nations, which effectively means those arms, equipment, and/or personnel are no longer needed. What we no longer need, we cut.

Defense cuts imply that this proposal is - properly - a Global Disarmament proposal. The only question is strength, and that comes down to whether you believe that aid that would ordinarily go to a sanctioned nation will be used for some other military purpose (we send it to a different ally, or we beef up our military because we can no longer help that ally), in which case "Mild" is the right strength, or whether it gets trimmed from the defence budget more often than not, in which case "Significant" would be the call.

Does this resolution target specific nations? No, it does not. As the author indicates, it targets a class of nations ("Those nations the WA has condemned"); that's not at all the same thing. Essentially, it targets a group that might or might not have members (as of now, it does not).

Let me ask this question: Can WA C&C proposals target individual nations? Yes, they can. I don't know if the designers realise it, but in many ways they changed the rules of the game in a very big way when they added C&Cs. There's no reason why a GA resolution can't tell us all to be nasty to condemned nations - or be nice to commended ones (for example, in a resolution that says we should relax all trade restrictions towards commended nations and automatically extended tariff-free trade their way); the only restriction is on naming nations in a GA proposal.

Now, I would be somewhat more explicit in the wording on which nations are affected by this resolution. "Explicitly condemned" is fairly clear, but not clear enough. I think it would be best to do something like this:

DEFINES a Sanctioned Nation as any nation that has been specifically condemned in a resolution directed
at that nation and that nation alone.

MANDATES that all member nations will refrain from doing any of the following vis-a-vis a Sanctioned
Nation...

Moving on to the issue of trade restrictions in a Global Disarmament resolution... It's not like we haven't mixed actions before: What would you call a resolution that makes it illegal to sell nuclear materials to nations without nuclear technology? Such a resolution would clearly be a Global Disarmament resolution, yet it would also proscribe certain kinds of trade. In the old days, when we were the U.N., we had lots of those, and - while I haven't looked at what's out there today, I'd be shocked if we didn't have trade bans buried inside non-trade proposals.

This sort of thing is what I call a "ham sandwich" (a reference to a remark by an IBM official, vis-a-vis the Microsoft anti-trust case, in which the executive said that "Microsoft could put a ham sandwich in Windows and call it part of the OS if they wanted"); it's something that gets thrown in there and has absolutely no game effect whatsoever, but it's there to make the proposal "feel" like something you'd see in real life. Lots of our proposals have "ham sandwiches" in them; in fact, any time someone wants to write a proposal that doesn't cleanly fit into one category or another, you'll see "ham sandwiches".

Traditionally, we don't reject proposals because of these things; we simply accept that there are limits on the system due to the need for categories and we go ahead and ignore whatever doesn't fit in the category as having "minimal" impact. That's what the trade sanction is here.

Now, if you want to argue that the trade sanction will have a bigger impact that the aid cutback, that's fine. But then you run into a fundamental problem: There's no category that allows you to impede trade for any reason other than social welfare, yet many proposals do exactly that (a worldwide ban on the sale of handguns would be a great example). Are all of those possible proposals illegal?

EDIT: Kenny, why can't a GA proposal acknowledge the existence of the SC or the fact that the SC passes C&C and Liberation proposals? Are you saying that the GA doesn't know that the SC exists?!?

[Ilharessa]

Meh. Killerustan asked me to look at this proposal even though I'm no longer a WA member, and I agreed to look. I was going to RP this, but I've got too much on my plate, so I'll just be direct.

Since you have dropped ICness, I shall as well. I know I am not the person you were talking to, but I believe I can provide an argument that shows the problems with what you are arguing. I am sorry for my presumption, but this provides a useful distraction while I await the headache meds to kick in and the throbbing within my forehead to fade.

The key is in understanding that the action clauses specify things that all member nations must do, rather than speaking to what particular nations must do; as Kenny indicated, this affects everyone equally. The target of the sanctions is irrelevant - indeed, it could be a nation outside of the WA, which means that (technically), the sanctions would have no impact on the target nation at all; alternately, it could be a member nation, but even if it is the in-game effect of being sanctioned will still be non-existent.

You've already highlighted one problem there: This can affect nations outside of the World Assembly. Like it or not, the General Assembly may not pass laws that affect nonmembers of the World Assembly regardless of what the Security Council does. The two different organizations use independent rulesets and are effectively separate from each other in every single way except that the proposals each generates may be voted on by frequenters of either. As such, this is automatically illegal as a game mechanics violation just from your own argument.

It doesn't matter if there is no in-game effect; a lot of the proposals which pass have no realistic in-game effect beyond the occasional manipulation of a few stats that can easily be corrected by anyone paying attention. That it has no realistic in-game effect is no excuse. The fact it has a roleplaying effect is what counts with the General Assembly, as that is what the General Assembly is ultimately about.

Now, as to strength and category:

• "All WA member states shall immediately cease the sale and supply of weaponry, spare parts and munitions to all condemned nations." - Looks like a reduction in defence expenditures to me - or at least half of one, since "supply" includes military aid furnished gratis.
  
  
• "All WA member states shall immediately cease military cooperation, assistance, protection or defense of all condemned nations."
  - Looks like a reduction in defence expenditures to me, as you won't need to pay for those troops you'd have sent to aid that condemned ally of yours.

Neither of those actually decrease defensive budgets of the nations affected. What they do is affect where those items are being sent. As such, nothing actually presented within the proposal itself fits the category chosen.

"All WA member states shall immediately cease all businesses, individuals and government entities from conducting any form of trade, economic aid or economic assistance with all condemned nations."
- That's a trade sanction, but there's no category for trade sanctions, which makes it a "ham sandwich" (more on that below).

So of the action clauses, two require member nations to stop furnishing arms, equipment, and/or personnel to other nations, which effectively means those arms, equipment, and/or personnel are no longer needed. What we no longer need, we cut.

That is probably Social Justice item, not a "ham sandwich" item. In this particular case, you are restricting the ability of business to interact with a nation because of items it has taken that annoyed the Security Council. As such, you are forcing businesses not to do something in order to deal with what could be argued as increasing the basic welfare of an entire nation. It probably doesn't fit there either, which leaves the very real possibility that this entire proposal has no category into which it actually fits.

Defense cuts imply that this proposal is - properly - a Global Disarmament proposal. The only question is strength, and that comes down to whether you believe that aid that would ordinarily go to a sanctioned nation will be used for some other military purpose (we send it to a different ally, or we beef up our military because we can no longer help that ally), in which case "Mild" is the right strength, or whether it gets trimmed from the defence budget more often than not, in which case "Significant" would be the call.

See above on the issue with the category. On strength, I would argue this as only a mild, as it only has massive economic effects on a minute number of nations.

Does this resolution target specific nations? No, it does not. As the author indicates, it targets a class of nations ("Those nations the WA has condemned"); that's not at all the same thing. Essentially, it targets a group that might or might not have members (as of now, it does not).

Targetting a specific class of nations has usually been illegal, though usually because the issue was targetting specific ideologies. I would say that it's probably always going to be illegal to target a specific class of nations. And, because it does target that class of nations, it does not affect every nation within the World Assembly equally, specifically in that some nations get different effects that others from it and the proposal itself is specifically designed to cause that.

I apologize for this, but you did just refute your earlier claim that it affects all WA nations equally.

Let me ask this question: Can WA C&C proposals target individual nations? Yes, they can. I don't know if the designers realise it, but in many ways they changed the rules of the game in a very big way when they added C&Cs. There's no reason why a GA resolution can't tell us all to be nasty to condemned nations - or be nice to commended ones (for example, in a resolution that says we should relax all trade restrictions towards commended nations and automatically extended tariff-free trade their way); the only restriction is on naming nations in a GA proposal.

There are plenty of reasons. For one thing, the C&C resolutions are a product of the Security Council, which itself operates under an entirely different ruleset than the General Assembly and is currently mainly an OOC institution. Since the General Assembly is an IC institution, the two are currently mostly incompatible for interacting. Look at how many C&C resolutions have been passed for OOC reasons.

Finally, and I an curious that I have to say this to a former member of your obvious age, stop and read the rules posted at the top of the forum. The Security Council and it's C&C proposals did not magically change the entire game into something new and different. I can still look back at the Jolt forums (found them with a Google search) and see how many of the rules are the same now as they were then. The game itself has not been vastly changed. It just had an OOC aspected added to the WA.

This sort of thing is what I call a "ham sandwich" (a reference to a remark by an IBM official, vis-a-vis the Microsoft anti-trust case, in which the executive said that "Microsoft could put a ham sandwich in Windows and call it part of the OS if they wanted"); it's something that gets thrown in there and has absolutely no game effect whatsoever, but it's there to make the proposal "feel" like something you'd see in real life. Lots of our proposals have "ham sandwiches" in them; in fact, any time someone wants to write a proposal that doesn't cleanly fit into one category or another, you'll see "ham sandwiches".

And most of the "ham sandwiches" are illegal. For good reason, given how many examples I've seen of ones that simply combine together different categories into Constitution-style legal documents. The occasional one with a bit of fluff that appears to be from a separate category is usually suggested to be broken up into multiple proposals or covers something already covered.

Traditionally, we don't reject proposals because of these things; we simply accept that there are limits on the system due to the need for categories and we go ahead and ignore whatever doesn't fit in the category as having "minimal" impact. That's what the trade sanction is here.

Traditionally, we also accept mod rulings about something being illegal. Why do you honor only part of tradition and not all of it? I mean, if you wish to argue tradition, it leaves open the grounds for you to be challenged on your own selective adherence to said tradition.

Now, if you want to argue that the trade sanction will have a bigger impact that the aid cutback, that's fine. But then you run into a fundamental problem: There's no category that allows you to impede trade for any reason other than social welfare, yet many proposals do exactly that (a worldwide ban on the sale of handguns would be a great example). Are all of those possible proposals illegal?

A world-wide ban on the sale of handguns can be argued to be social welfare, in that they can argue it would reduce the number of people killed by handguns and that it drives down national medical expenditures and a number of other items. They could also submit it under the gun control category, which is probably a lot more of a proper category for it, and make the same argument.

EDIT: Kenny, why can't a GA proposal acknowledge the existence of the SC or the fact that the SC passes C&C and Liberation proposals? Are you saying that the GA doesn't know that the SC exists?!?

I am not Kenny, but I can answer this: The SC is primarily OOC, along with pretty much all of the resolutions it produces, while the GA is IC. From a roleplay standpoint, maybe one or two SC-produced resolutions actually exist. Quite possibly, none of them do. That is why it is that the GA realistically cannot legislate based on the actions of the SC and vice-versa.

[Allbeama]

This is asking for vindictive condemnations designed to strip nations of the right to defend themselves. I am opposed to this on that principle.

[Tanaara]

I am also going to speak OO:

I feel that this poetential resolution is not just illegal, but wrong in that it allows the WA to breach the 4th wall - as the SC hsa unfortunateoly been allowed to do-

How does this breach the 4th wall - because it 'honors'/ acts on SC resolutions that have been ( potenitally ) made up of breaches of the 4th wall.

I also agree with this:

The key is in understanding that the action clauses specify things that all member nations must do, rather than speaking to what particular nations must do; as Kenny indicated, this affects everyone equally. The target of the sanctions is irrelevant - indeed, it could be a nation outside of the WA, which means that (technically), the sanctions would have no impact on the target nation at all; alternately, it could be a member nation, but even if it is the in-game effect of being sanctioned will still be non-existent.

You've already highlighted one problem there: This can affect nations outside of the World Assembly. Like it or not, the General Assembly may not pass laws that affect nonmembers of the World Assembly regardless of what the Security Council does. The two different organizations use independent rulesets and are effectively separate from each other in every single way except that the proposals each generates may be voted on by frequenters of either. As such, this is automatically illegal as a game mechanics violation just from your own argument

bolding mine

My nation is NOT a WA member, but this resolution would require WA nations to treat my nation as if my nation were - granted it comes with the burden of 'if my nation gets condemned by the SC' but still, should it happen, my nation then must be treated as if my nation were a WA member ( and on a very personal level, I would not appreciate that at all.)

[Killerustan]

You've already highlighted one problem there: This can affect nations outside of the World Assembly. Like it or not, the General Assembly may not pass laws that affect nonmembers of the World Assembly regardless of what the Security Council does. The two different organizations use independent rulesets and are effectively separate from each other in every single way except that the proposals each generates may be voted on by frequenters of either. As such, this is automatically illegal as a game mechanics violation just from your own argument.

World Assembly Resolution #23

Section 10. Goods produced, in whole or in part, through servitude shall be permanently embargoed, and all investment and material support to nations, legal entities and persons practicing servitude immediately ended, except as transition assistance or compensated manumission to free people from such conditions;\

Now if this resolution is allowed to embargo trade of slave countries which by the way are usually not WA member states then it is certainly legal for my motion to do the same. There is no violation of any rule by this proposal. This argument that you can not force by GA resolution member states to conduct an embargo against a class of nations is a fiction. Its been done!

World Assembly Resolution #23 proves all your arguments against this resolution invalid. Certainly section 10 is a trade sanction the same thing my resolution does and it is not directed at every country equally but at a class of countries and only affects countries that would in fact practice slavery. Whether those countries are WA members or not.

[Grays Harbor]

I believe you will find support for this to be scant.