[DRAFT] The Ethical Killing of Animals

[Uocati et Regni Prosperitatem]

"But there have to be formed a list of ethical methods for religious rituals which will limit this "religious priviledges". But in the same time this will need addictional councils and more bureaucracy which will have greater impact on budget."

"Bureaucracy happens. You don't like it, then maybe the WA isn't for you. Why should religious services get the opportunity to harm animals, exactly? What makes believing in a make-believe story so worthy of protection? Near as I can tell, there is no reason to allow a religious exception."

"First of i think there was misunderstanding. We are against religious expception, we think that law should be equal for all. Second off, WA isn't meant to be bureaucratic bordello. It's here to make our life simplier and regulations should be clear, easy to interpret and require as less bureaucracy as possible."

[Separatist Peoples]

"Bureaucracy happens. You don't like it, then maybe the WA isn't for you. Why should religious services get the opportunity to harm animals, exactly? What makes believing in a make-believe story so worthy of protection? Near as I can tell, there is no reason to allow a religious exception."

"First of i think there was misunderstanding. We are against religious expception, we think that law should be equal for all. Second off, WA isn't meant to be bureaucratic bordello. It's here to make our life simplier and regulations should be clear, easy to interpret and require as less bureaucracy as possible."

"That's a gross misunderstanding of the World Assembly. It has to legislate for thousands of nations. There is no conceivable way to run such an organization without bureaucracy and have it also be a functional organization. What your asking for is simply impossible given the mission of the WA."

[Imperium Anglorum]

Definitions for 'unnecessary' or other obviously self-evident terms are patently unnecessary. Exactly what they mean is already clear, further clarification is indicative more of the inability of the reader to understand rather than of the writer's obfuscation.

[Kitzerland]

Definitions for 'unnecessary' or other obviously self-evident terms is patently unnecessary. Exactly what they mean is already clear, further clarification is indicative more of the inability of the reader to understand rather than of the writer's obfuscation.

What do you mean by unnecessary? Can you explain it?

[Bears Armed]

You can't say much about Hunting, because of GAR #267 'Sensible Limits on Hunting'.

[Uocati et Regni Prosperitatem]

"First of i think there was misunderstanding. We are against religious expception, we think that law should be equal for all. Second off, WA isn't meant to be bureaucratic bordello. It's here to make our life simplier and regulations should be clear, easy to interpret and require as less bureaucracy as possible."

"That's a gross misunderstanding of the World Assembly. It has to legislate for thousands of nations. There is no conceivable way to run such an organization without bureaucracy and have it also be a functional organization. What your asking for is simply impossible given the mission of the WA."

"I haven't said 'no bureaucracy'. I said as less as possible. I mean that legislatures discussed in WA should be effective and cheap. I know it's not possible to achieve anything without beurocracy in organization like this, but our nation would like to see effective legislations which require small amounts of beurocracy rather then opposite."

[Aclion]

"Nations are bound to good faith interpretations. You can't interpret it any way, merely in a reasonable way."

"But in current state it is easy to misinterpret it and use it for own good, instead for the good of the people."

Doing so is illegal, regardless of how easy it is.

[Uocati et Regni Prosperitatem]

"But in current state it is easy to misinterpret it and use it for own good, instead for the good of the people."

Doing so is illegal, regardless of how easy it is.

"That's why religious exceptions aren't good. They're making this law holes which suppose to be illegal, but because of how the law was written, they actually are. There should be no exceptions which allows this kind of behavior."

[Bakhton]

You can't say much about Hunting, because of GAR #267 'Sensible Limits on Hunting'.

"I see, we'll limit it to farming and slaughter then."

[Kitzerland]

Doing so is illegal, regardless of how easy it is.

"That's why religious exceptions aren't good. They're making this law holes which suppose to be illegal, but because of how the law was written, they actually are. There should be no exceptions which allows this kind of behavior."

Some would argue that this promotes religious discrimination. However, I can't think of a legititmate religion that promotes painful sacrifices, except maybe Violetism

[The Second Moon Rising]

The Riser delegate taps a finger against its desk. "... The problem, this one believes, with legislation such as this lies in a certain ambiguity in what is cruelty, suffering, and physical pain. It has be argued that any form of killing an animal for the purpose of food is an act of cruelty because, until total brain death has occurred, the animal suffers and experiences pain even when stunning or other methods of rendering the animal unconscious has been employed. Or that the killing of animals for the purpose of food itself is an unnecessary act, and therefore unnecessarily cruel. Or that one method is less cruel than another, despite the actual execution of the methods in question. This sort of legislation can also run afoul of religious dietary law as some can and may argue that, for example, the daily slaughter of chickens in accordance to shechita for the dinner pot is not a religious 'sacrifice' or 'ritual'."

[Bakhton]

The Riser delegate taps a finger against its desk. "... The problem, this one believes, with legislation such as this lies in a certain ambiguity in what is cruelty, suffering, and physical pain. It has be argued that any form of killing an animal for the purpose of food is an act of cruelty because, until total brain death has occurred, the animal suffers and experiences pain even when stunning or other methods of rendering the animal unconscious has been employed. Or that the killing of animals for the purpose of food itself is an unnecessary act, and therefore unnecessarily cruel. Or that one method is less cruel than another, despite the actual execution of the methods in question. This sort of legislation can also run afoul of religious dietary law as some can and may argue that, for example, the daily slaughter of chickens in accordance to shechita for the dinner pot is not a religious 'sacrifice' or 'ritual'."

"If a nation wishes to ban meat eating, that it is still completely legal under this proposal. What this is doing is setting a minimum requirement of the physical suffering of animals to be slaughtered, as written in the usage of the words 'elongated' and 'unnecessary'. This is meant to be a flexible resolution to allow nations to decide for themselves the standard to a certain extent. As well, the religious exemption clause, as said earlier is going to have major updating along with various elements of the proposal in the second draft to respond to the more common complaints levied in previous repeals of similar legislation."

[Bakhton]

OOC: I apologize I've been late on the second draft, I kinda slept until 5pm. Will do tomorrow!

[Bakhton]

OOC: Draft II is up!

[Bakhton]

Oh wait... I guess Draft II isn't up. What the hell.
EDIT: NOW ITS UP.

[Kitzerland]

CLARIFIES that this resolution makes no comment on the killing of animals for religious or ritual purposes, animal testing, the right of a person to kill a sentient animal in self-defense, hunting practices, or the rights of microbial and plant life,

How silly. If you aren't going to make a comment, you don't have to comment that you won't comment.

[Bakhton]

CLARIFIES that this resolution makes no comment on the killing of animals for religious or ritual purposes, animal testing, the right of a person to kill a sentient animal in self-defense, hunting practices, or the rights of microbial and plant life,

How silly. If you aren't going to make a comment, you don't have to comment that you won't comment.

"Yes, but these are the many grounds in which similar legislation was repealed, so I'm being safe."

[Giant Bats]

Ikiti Tikilikrr had been outside, stretching her wings and eating lunch with her roostmate. He wasn't her preferred mate, but that wasn't really an issue outside of the breeding season, and for that she would get to go home in any case. The Liftgivers were not yet willing to risk the health of outsiders with the Tikrr's tendencies for aggressive behaviour during that part of the reproductive cycle.

However, part of her lunch wasn't cooperating. She and her roostmate had hunted a preinjured kistyr as the main course, but Ikiti's most favourite farmed food were tirisherr, so she had spared one for dessert. Unfortunately the annoying four-winged fuzzball didn't react like the ones before it had. Instead of heading out to the open sky, as soon as Ikiti took after it, the terrified critter darted down, towards an opening in the building's side, one of the fragile doors that were called "windows".

Ikiti drove herself into a steep dive to catch the tirisherr before it reached the window, her larger mass and wings giving her greater speed. The white fuzzball realized this as well and, using its one advantage over Ikiti, its agility, shot away from the vertical wall. But not quite in time; Ikiti had already started her strike, which meant inverting her position from head-first to feet first.

The claws on her hind limbs were her main lethal weapon as a predator. She tended to only use her jaws for the killing bite on smaller prey, if they didn't die fast enough after being impaled by up to ten curved blades, each about 10 cm long. On larger prey she would hold on with her jaws and slice into it with her claws. The kistyr, which Ikiti and her roostmate had devoured earlier, was right between those two sizes of prey for a single Tikrr to tackle, but for a pair it was easier with Ikiti as the larger one to hold onto it, while the male made a quick kill of the helpless animal.

The tirisherr's attempt at freedom was cut short by one of Ikiti's hind claws, which razed across its back, catching onto one of its hindwings, but it was still a miss on Ikiti's side as well, since although she managed to stop the creature, it slipped off her claw, more falling than diving, but with just enough control that it managed to aim for the open window.

Ikiti had no choice but to go after it.

Indoors: A white, four-winged fuzzball with poofy tail as long as the rest of its body, shot in through the open window, making a crashlanding on the floor near the speaker's podium. It was clearly hurt, bleeding blue and making a high-pitched whimpering noise.

The light from the open window was briefly partially blocked by Ikiti, who - rather than stop to land on the windowsill to slowly enter the room - just pulled her wing-fingers close to her wing-arms, stretching them forward to catch the window's bottom frame for just long enough with her hands on the wing knuckles to "jump" into the room in narrow enough form to not hurt herself, and gaining enough lateral momentum to be able to open her full, 6-metres wingspan to glide over the heads of the seated ambassadors. She didn't have her cybernetic headgear turned on, so she had to bathe the whole room with her sonar to make sure she didn't hit anyone or anything.

The tirisherr's trajectory Ikiti had been able to follow, and after stopping her forward speed, she came to a landing within easy reach of the wounded creature. She bowed down to pick it up with her jaws and then ended its misery with a solid crunch. She also reached up with one hand to turn on the outline mode of her cybernetic "sight". She then turned to face Bakhton's ambassador, her dessert still held tightly in her jaws and - taking advantage of the fact that the Tikrr didn't need their mouths to speak, and of the universal translator actually doing the talking anyway - said: "I am sorry for the distraction. My lunch escaped."

- Ikiti Tikilikrr, Head of the Diplomatic Wing

[Tinfect]

DEFINES for the purpose of this resolution:
[...]
b) ‘Cruelty’ as the act of exposing a sentient animal to physical pain for elongated and unnecessary lengths of time,
MANDATES that in the legal killing of sentient animals for food, all sentient animals are to be killed in a manner avoiding cruelty and unnecessarily prolonged physical pain,

"This mandatory clause may be easily condensed. The definition of cruelty easily encompasses 'prolonged physical pain."

CLARIFIES that this resolution makes no comment on the killing of animals for religious or ritual purposes, animal testing, the right of a person to kill a sentient animal in self-defense, hunting practices, or the rights of microbial and plant life,

"The Imperium wishes to note that while this clause appears to exempt religious practices from adherence to this legislation, therefore retaining the previously-mentioned loophole that allows the provisions of this legislation to be entirely ignored should a Member-State decide that primitive practices are worthy of protection. In addition, that no such exemptions are made for military, or testing purposes. So long as this legislation prevents Member-States from adequately testing Military and Medical technology, the Imperium cannot support it."

"I am sorry for the distraction. My lunch escaped."

Markhov, as per usual, appears largely unfazed by the sudden bout of absurdity that so often plagues the World Assembly, and follows his earlier criticism without hesitation, into a brief response "I must recommend against eating within the debate chambers, Ambassador. It is unsanitary, and with the drivel such chambers are often host to, I am afraid you will often find your appetite having suddenly disappeared." Almost as an afterthought, he adds, "And, of course, there is always the chance that the Weapons Nullifiers will see fit to turn ones... jaws, into some manner of foam, if, only temporarily."

[Giant Bats]

CLARIFIES that this resolution makes no comment on the killing of animals for religious or ritual purposes, animal testing, the right of a person to kill a sentient animal in self-defense, hunting practices, or the rights of microbial and plant life,

"The Imperium wishes to note that while this clause appears to exempt religious practices from adherence to this legislation, therefore retaining the previously-mentioned loophole that allows the provisions of this legislation to be entirely ignored should a Member-State decide that primitive practices are worthy of protection. In addition, that no such exemptions are made for military, or testing purposes. So long as this legislation prevents Member-States from adequately testing Military and Medical technology, the Imperium cannot support it."

Markhov, as per usual, appears largely unfazed by the sudden bout of absurdity that so often plagues the World Assembly, and follows his earlier criticism without hesitation, into a brief response "I must recommend against eating within the debate chambers, Ambassador. It is unsanitary, and with the drivel such chambers are often host to, I am afraid you will often find your appetite having suddenly disappeared." Almost as an afterthought, he adds, "And, of course, there is always the chance that the Weapons Nullifiers will see fit to turn ones... jaws, into some manner of foam, if, only temporarily."

Ikiti turned her head towards the human that was making the speaking noises, while listening to the translation via the universal translator attached to her cybernetics. Then she stood still for a moment longer while the combination of integrated hardware also got her up to speed with the debate topic.

"You are wrong, ambassador from Tinfect," she said eventually. "There is an animal testing exception. It could reasonably be read to encompass both medical and military testing."

She considered her options. If she stayed to debate, she would have to put off eating her ohh so delicious fresh kill. But at the same time the weird fantasy of being nice to your food was so absurd that it made her curious. She opted to get the best of both possibilities, exited the room via the doorway called "door" and started eating in the hallway outside, while keeping one ear turned towards the open door of the debate chamber.

"Unsanitary" was not a big concern to a carnivorous creature that was used to picking off the sickest prey animals and eating them on the wing in the wilderness of her home planet, and whose idea of good table manners was licking her claws clean afterwards so that she wouldn't leave tracks of the prey's bodily juices everywhere.

[Calladan]

Since this proposal makes no comment on the killing of animals for religious or ritual purposes, does this mean we are still free to torture animals to death if we pretend we are doing it in the name of our imaginary friend? Because that strikes me as a huge flaw in the entire purpose of this proposal.

We don't make exceptions to allow murder, rape, child abuse or anything else in the name of religion, so why would we be willing to allow torture of animals if we are going to insist we ban it in all other instances?

[Bakhton]

Since this proposal makes no comment on the killing of animals for religious or ritual purposes, does this mean we are still free to torture animals to death if we pretend we are doing it in the name of our imaginary friend? Because that strikes me as a huge flaw in the entire purpose of this proposal.

"Your nation can ban that, but to ban it internationally would be far too controversial, as resolutions have been previously repealed for infringing religious rights in this area. As well, you can create a proposal banning that if you wish to but its not the purview of this legislation."

[Bakhton]

CLARIFIES that this resolution makes no comment on the killing of animals for religious or ritual purposes, animal testing, the right of a person to kill a sentient animal in self-defense, hunting practices, or the rights of microbial and plant life,

"The Imperium wishes to note that while this clause appears to exempt religious practices from adherence to this legislation, therefore retaining the previously-mentioned loophole that allows the provisions of this legislation to be entirely ignored should a Member-State decide that primitive practices are worthy of protection. In addition, that no such exemptions are made for military, or testing purposes. So long as this legislation prevents Member-States from adequately testing Military and Medical technology, the Imperium cannot support it."

"I believe that would fall under the allowance of 'animal testing'. This proposal does not stop your nation from testing on sentient animals."

[Imperium Anglorum]

This entire proposal can be summarised as, 'Hey, please don't abuse animals ... unless you really need to'. It then attempts to coat it in universal language. If it isn't actually an universal right we ought protect and isn't something which the World Assembly is in an uniquely privileged position to solve, I don't see this as an international issue which the World Assembly ought protect.

[Bakhton]

This entire proposal can be summarised as, 'Hey, please don't abuse animals ... unless you really need to'. It then attempts to coat it in universal language. If it isn't actually an universal right we ought protect and isn't something which the World Assembly is in an uniquely privileged position to solve, I don't see this as an international issue which the World Assembly ought protect.

"No what it's saying is in the food processing industry don't abuse your livestock. I don't understand why people want this to be bigger than it is. When we've seen this gone bigger it's always been repealed. Can we not have a small victory? As well, there are multiple resolutions which address things not considered to be international issues."