[PASSED] Preventing the Execution of Innocents

[Uan aa Boa]

We believe it has been rushed to submission in a manner disrespectful to the Assembly's drafting process, leaving it visibly unpolished with punctuation issues and inconsistent capitalisation

Really? Where is it? You had opportunity to comment on it too. In fact, you had three days to do so. There are literally no comments on the proposal having anything to do with its text, except Auralia's and the recurring question of whether something should be a blocker or not. And unless you're going to tell me that the proposal is in stone when it is submitted (not really, since when it comes to votes, it's really only in stone when the campaign goes out as you can't take it back or get stamps refunded), you've had ample opportunity to review it.

Whatever I was doing in NS or real life I evidently missed whatever sized window of opportunity there was between the opening of this thread and the submission of the proposal. I'd love to think that you value my opinion sufficiently to withdraw a submitted proposal because of it, and if you're saying here that this is the case then I might comment in more detail on your submitted proposals in the future. I tend to assume that campaigns go out along with submission, but as I'm not a delegate I don't get to see when the telegrams are sent.

[Durzan]

"On behalf of the High Emperor of the Durzanian Empire, we hereby commend those who have drafted this legislation. It is a good starting point in practice, but in effect, this Resolution may prove to cause more harm than good in the long run. Thus we hesitantly disapprove of it, pending the final decision of our Emperor. If it should be amended to provide additional flexibility, than we may consider supporting it in the future."

[Old Hope]

any national jurisdiction shall submit no more than than one capital case per million inhabitants per year.

Against. It is the nature of capital cases that deserve to be capital cases that they are reasonable to occur at the same time(in a related way).
If there is a group of fanatical people trying to release an extremely dangerous biological agent/to start a nuclear war/do whatever else that could result in mass extinction...
If there is a group of people who threaten the stability of the nation while committing atrocious acts, disregarding any laws while in prison or outside, who need to be killed because all other remedies are ineffective...
then you do indeed need more than a capital case per million inhabitants.
This does not just prevent the execution of innocents, but also harms the safety of people.

[Bears Armed]

We object to everything except the fair trial guarntees outlined in clause 4. We believe that the remainder of this resolution arrogates to the World Assembly such powers as are inapppropriate and unnecessary for it to exercise. We say that the provisions of Article 2 of GAR 2

Every WA Member State has the right to exercise jurisdiction over its territory and over all persons and things therein, subject to the immunities recognized by international law

precludes such interference by the WA as is envisaged here.

OOC: I also think that clause 1 is effectively a blocker on any future proposals that may attempt to prohibit capital punishment.

OOC: The Mods have always said, and GenSec upheld, that that "subject to the immunities recognized by international law" means "subject to any limits set by UN WA resolutions".
And proposals are allowed to have some blocking effect as long as they also do enough more than that to justify their Category & Strength/A-o-E.

[Arasi Luvasa]

We object to everything except the fair trial guarntees outlined in clause 4. We believe that the remainder of this resolution arrogates to the World Assembly such powers as are inapppropriate and unnecessary for it to exercise. We say that the provisions of Article 2 of GAR 2

Every WA Member State has the right to exercise jurisdiction over its territory and over all persons and things therein, subject to the immunities recognized by international law

precludes such interference by the WA as is envisaged here.

OOC: I also think that clause 1 is effectively a blocker on any future proposals that may attempt to prohibit capital punishment.

"I believe clause 1 exists for the primary purpose of not blocking future proposals, thus removing some of the attempts to repeal this resolution."

---

any national jurisdiction shall submit no more than than one capital case per million inhabitants per year.

Against. It is the nature of capital cases that deserve to be capital cases that they are reasonable to occur at the same time(in a related way).
If there is a group of fanatical people trying to release an extremely dangerous biological agent/to start a nuclear war/do whatever else that could result in mass extinction...
If there is a group of people who threaten the stability of the nation while committing atrocious acts, disregarding any laws while in prison or outside, who need to be killed because all other remedies are ineffective...
then you do indeed need more than a capital case per million inhabitants.
This does not just prevent the execution of innocents, but also harms the safety of people.

"Are you saying that you have an over-abundance of incidents that require a capital case? I am sorry but your nation seems far to dangerous to be visited by anyone."

OOC: based on your nations stats, assuming you are using that population, you would be able to submit over 8 000 capital cases a year. If that is not enough, I really don't know what is. I for the record have access to 36 cases.

[Auralia]

Following up from my initial comments, I have now had the opportunity to read the proposal in detail and I have the following comments:

I will start by noting that in general, I am opposed to international criminal courts. They demonstrate a fundamental lack of respect for the judicial systems of member states and are an unacceptable violation of national sovereignty. This is no less true for the court of appeals for capital cases established by this proposal ("the Division").

1. Subject to World Assembly legislation, member nations are permitted to sentence and carry out capital punishment within their jurisdictions.

As IA has made clear, s.1 is intentionally not a blocker. This proposal leaves open the possibility of the World Assembly banning capital punishment in future. In what sense, then, is this proposal a "compromise"? Why should any member state who supports the use of capital punishment vote in favour? What do we gain?

2. There shall be created a Capital Cases division in the Judicial Committee of the Compliance Commission, here referred to as the Division, staffed with competent jurists and forensic scientists, to review submitted cases. To prevent the Division from being overwhelmed by requests for review, any national jurisdiction shall submit no more than than one capital case per million inhabitants per year. For the purposes of avoiding confirmation bias in assessments, the Division shall not keep records of capital punishment procedures.

s.2 requires that member states not submit "more than than one capital case per million inhabitants per year". As I mentioned earlier, this effectively prohibits smaller nations of less than one million people from using capital punishment. This constitutes unjust discrimination on the basis of member state population and is absolutely unacceptable. I have already pointed this out to IA but he does not seem to have addressed this issue.

Moreover, this limit is arbitrary. There could be legitimate reasons why a member state may need to exceed this limit. At the very least member states should be permitted to pay for the costs of handling the additional applications, rather than prohibiting them outright.

3. Member nations shall not attempt to pervert justice by unduly influencing the defendant or defence counsel. Nor shall member nations require or coerce the defendant or defence counsel to make decisions which may damage their defence or, in the case of counsel, the welfare of their client.

s.3 requires that member states not "require or coerce the defendant or defence counsel to make decisions which may damage their defence or, in the case of counsel, the welfare of their client." While I can understand the intent of this clause, it certainly needs to be clarified. As written it would likely prohibit law enforcement officials from demanding that the defendant comply with a legal search warrant or subpoena, if doing so would permit the government to acquire evidence which would compromise the defendant's defense.

4. Member nations, when prosecuting capital cases, shall:
a. establish an office of a solicitor, specialised in the prosecution of capital cases, who shall conduct the prosecution of all capital cases within their jurisdiction,

s.4(a) requires the establishment of a single office for prosecuting capital cases. Why the micromanagement? The Division will have to review everything anyways.

c. provide the defence with all evidence collected in the process of investigation,

s.4(c) requires that the defense be provided with "all evidence collected in the process of investigation". But there are valid limits to discovery, such as personally identifying information that is not material to the case. Such limits would be barred by this clause.

d. provide the defence ample time, no less than one year, to review and examine that evidence,

s.4(d) requires that defendants have at minimum 1 year to review evidence against them. This is not ideal; these kinds of limits should be specific to the circumstances of the case, and one year might be much too long in some cases.

e. prohibit evidentiary barriers from barring the defence admission of evidence,

s.4(e) requires member states to "prohibit evidentiary barriers from barring the defence admission of evidence". This is absurd. What if the evidence is judged to have been fabricated? It still has to be admitted and shown to a jury?

f. prove, such that there could not arise evidence (foreseeable at the time of trial) that would cast doubt on the guilt of the defendant for any charge which could carry a capital sentence,

s.4(f) uses a standard of "doubt" rather than "reasonable doubt", which is impossible to reach. I have already pointed this out to IA but he did not address it.

Moreover, s.4(f) does not require member states to prove guilt; it instead requires them to provide that "there could not arise evidence (foreseeable at the time of trial) that would cast doubt" on guilt. I'm not sure whether this is an equivalent or higher standard. Either way the wording is problematic and should be changed.

5. In all cases where a capital sentence is issued, before it is carried out,
a. member nations shall serially provide the Division and all counsel assigned or associated with a case, six months to discover, examine, and verify exculpatory evidence which could exonerate the defendant,

s.5(a) seems to require an additional post-trial discovery period of up to 18 months: six months for the Division, prosecution, and defense each. What on earth is the point of this delay? Why isn't pre-trial discovery adequate? Why can't the evidence be examined concurrently?

6. Member nations shall not issue a capital sentence on any mentally incompetent person, as punishment for any non-violent crime, or as punishment for any crime not directly affecting more than one person. All capital sentences shall be carried out via a method which is, upon review demanded by any party to a capital case, proven beyond any reasonable doubt not to cause pain or suffering.

s.6 would in some cases prohibit execution as a punishment for treason or similar crimes against the state, since these are not necessarily violent crimes. It would also prohibit execution of those who have only violently tortured and killed one person, as opposed to several. These are unacceptable limitations.

s.6 also requires the use of execution methods "proven beyond any reasonable doubt not to cause pain or suffering". IA gave as an example sedation followed by lethal injection. The problems with this approach are numerous. Some criminals want to be killed awake. Some states do not have access to the drugs used to perform lethal injections. And punishment in general need not and should not be painless. Unnecessary pain should be avoided, but it seems appropriate that a defendant should be awake for a sentence of death, which will necessarily involve some pain.

I think lethal injection in particular is also problematic insofar as it tends to medicalize and sanitize capital punishment. Capital punishment is not a medical treatment. It is an act of state violence, and the method should reflect this fact.

7. Member nations shall not extradite, except to World Assembly judicial institutions or jurisdictions without capital punishment, any person charged or likely to be charged with a capital offence. Nor shall any person be extradited to a place likely to commence judicial proceedings, which would contravene World Assembly legislation, against that person.

s.7 arbitrarily prohibits member states from extraditing criminals to nations with capital punishment. Why this arbitrary limitation? Shouldn't it be enough that both nations respect the protections of this legislation?

8. No member nation shall carry out a capital sentence on any person which has not had their case record certified by the Division within the last year. Nor shall member nations carry out such a sentence before the Division has certified that there exist no irregularities in the case record, the defendant has exhausted all available appeals, or the Division has certified that all procedures involved with carrying out that capital sentence comply with provisions set forth in World Assembly legislation.

s.8 would permit a defendant to avoid capital punishment by simply not exhausting all available appeals, because then the Division could not certify the case.

The certification provisions in s.8 also differ from the certification provisions in s.4(g). What does this mean, exactly? Is a member state permitted to request certification for the requirements in s.4(g), but not for the ones in s.8?

Does the expiry of certification after all year apply to all certification provisions, or just a subset? Why does certification expire in the first place, and why only after one year, given all of the opportunities for delay in this process? Can certification be renewed?

Is the Division even required to certify even if all conditions are met? Can it simply always decline certification, effectively banning capital punishment?

---

In summary, this is an awful proposal. It is absurdly long, needlessly complex, full of ambiguities, and seems designed to ban capital punishment in all but name. While I opposed UM's proposed ban on capital punishment, at least it was honest about its intent. That's more than I can say for this proposal.

We oppose.

Martin Russell
Chief Ambassador, Auralian Mission to the World Assembly

[Greater vakolicci haven]

"The honourable representative from Imperium Anglorum appears to be acting in ignorance of a quite obvious fact, from where I am sitting.
Havenic judges, and the majority of Havenic lawyers are quite competent in such matters as...you know, Havenic law. Our supreme court is likewise very competent in the laws of the 36 completely different provinces which make up the Haven.
Different provinces, and different countries, have different descriptions as to what constitutes murder, high treason, and the like. Which description will your new committee be following?"

[Nunavutialand]

"I would expect Imperial Anglorum to have understood that this Assembly did not wish to implement a ban on capital punishment.
This draft resolution does just that in all but name, just hours after the previous resolution was defeated in a clear loss. Nunavutialand has read over this resolution and will oppose it staunchly, not agreeing with its contents and seeing it as a ban on execution in all but name.
We are open to restriction on the death penalty that is reasonable. But this is not restriction, this is prevention."

[Hobbesistan]

So this bans capital punishment on any case of singular homicide while titling itself as protection of "Innocents."

Also, this never defines who's entitled to a case at all, so as long as I designate the people I don't like as for whatever legal reason not entitled to a trial or prosecution this resolution is without teeth anyway.

Against, as with the original bill.

[Kenmoria]

Also, this never defines who's entitled to a case at all, so as long as I designate the people I don't like as for whatever legal reason not entitled to a trial or prosecution this resolution is without teeth anyway.

See GA 37 - Fairness in Criminal Trials.

[Xanthal]

This is all awfully messy for no clearly defined benefit, and still makes sentencing contingent upon the nature of the offense which makes it a non-starter for my government. I must stand opposed: arbitrary limits like this make no sense in the context of the Xanthalian system of justice, or in fact to any where executions are undertaken as a pragmatic measure rather than a punitive one.

[Cosmopolitan borovan]

Since this is gonna be at vote soon I'm gonna skim it and read if this is a good

[Sacara]

Following up from my initial comments, I have now had the opportunity to read the proposal in detail and I have the following comments:

I will start by noting that in general, I am opposed to international criminal courts. They demonstrate a fundamental lack of respect for the judicial systems of member states and are an unacceptable violation of national sovereignty. This is no less true for the court of appeals for capital cases established by this proposal ("the Division").

1. Subject to World Assembly legislation, member nations are permitted to sentence and carry out capital punishment within their jurisdictions.

As IA has made clear, s.1 is intentionally not a blocker. This proposal leaves open the possibility of the World Assembly banning capital punishment in future. In what sense, then, is this proposal a "compromise"? Why should any member state who supports the use of capital punishment vote in favour? What do we gain?

2. There shall be created a Capital Cases division in the Judicial Committee of the Compliance Commission, here referred to as the Division, staffed with competent jurists and forensic scientists, to review submitted cases. To prevent the Division from being overwhelmed by requests for review, any national jurisdiction shall submit no more than than one capital case per million inhabitants per year. For the purposes of avoiding confirmation bias in assessments, the Division shall not keep records of capital punishment procedures.

s.2 requires that member states not submit "more than than one capital case per million inhabitants per year". As I mentioned earlier, this effectively prohibits smaller nations of less than one million people from using capital punishment. This constitutes unjust discrimination on the basis of member state population and is absolutely unacceptable. I have already pointed this out to IA but he does not seem to have addressed this issue.

Moreover, this limit is arbitrary. There could be legitimate reasons why a member state may need to exceed this limit. At the very least member states should be permitted to pay for the costs of handling the additional applications, rather than prohibiting them outright.

3. Member nations shall not attempt to pervert justice by unduly influencing the defendant or defence counsel. Nor shall member nations require or coerce the defendant or defence counsel to make decisions which may damage their defence or, in the case of counsel, the welfare of their client.

s.3 requires that member states not "require or coerce the defendant or defence counsel to make decisions which may damage their defence or, in the case of counsel, the welfare of their client." While I can understand the intent of this clause, it certainly needs to be clarified. As written it would likely prohibit law enforcement officials from demanding that the defendant comply with a legal search warrant or subpoena, if doing so would permit the government to acquire evidence which would compromise the defendant's defense.

4. Member nations, when prosecuting capital cases, shall:
a. establish an office of a solicitor, specialised in the prosecution of capital cases, who shall conduct the prosecution of all capital cases within their jurisdiction,

s.4(a) requires the establishment of a single office for prosecuting capital cases. Why the micromanagement? The Division will have to review everything anyways.

c. provide the defence with all evidence collected in the process of investigation,

s.4(c) requires that the defense be provided with "all evidence collected in the process of investigation". But there are valid limits to discovery, such as personally identifying information that is not material to the case. Such limits would be barred by this clause.

d. provide the defence ample time, no less than one year, to review and examine that evidence,

s.4(d) requires that defendants have at minimum 1 year to review evidence against them. This is not ideal; these kinds of limits should be specific to the circumstances of the case, and one year might be much too long in some cases.

e. prohibit evidentiary barriers from barring the defence admission of evidence,

s.4(e) requires member states to "prohibit evidentiary barriers from barring the defence admission of evidence". This is absurd. What if the evidence is judged to have been fabricated? It still has to be admitted and shown to a jury?

f. prove, such that there could not arise evidence (foreseeable at the time of trial) that would cast doubt on the guilt of the defendant for any charge which could carry a capital sentence,

s.4(f) uses a standard of "doubt" rather than "reasonable doubt", which is impossible to reach. I have already pointed this out to IA but he did not address it.

Moreover, s.4(f) does not require member states to prove guilt; it instead requires them to provide that "there could not arise evidence (foreseeable at the time of trial) that would cast doubt" on guilt. I'm not sure whether this is an equivalent or higher standard. Either way the wording is problematic and should be changed.

5. In all cases where a capital sentence is issued, before it is carried out,
a. member nations shall serially provide the Division and all counsel assigned or associated with a case, six months to discover, examine, and verify exculpatory evidence which could exonerate the defendant,

s.5(a) seems to require an additional post-trial discovery period of up to 18 months: six months for the Division, prosecution, and defense each. What on earth is the point of this delay? Why isn't pre-trial discovery adequate? Why can't the evidence be examined concurrently?

6. Member nations shall not issue a capital sentence on any mentally incompetent person, as punishment for any non-violent crime, or as punishment for any crime not directly affecting more than one person. All capital sentences shall be carried out via a method which is, upon review demanded by any party to a capital case, proven beyond any reasonable doubt not to cause pain or suffering.

s.6 would in some cases prohibit execution as a punishment for treason or similar crimes against the state, since these are not necessarily violent crimes. It would also prohibit execution of those who have only violently tortured and killed one person, as opposed to several. These are unacceptable limitations.

s.6 also requires the use of execution methods "proven beyond any reasonable doubt not to cause pain or suffering". IA gave as an example sedation followed by lethal injection. The problems with this approach are numerous. Some criminals want to be killed awake. Some states do not have access to the drugs used to perform lethal injections. And punishment in general need not and should not be painless. Unnecessary pain should be avoided, but it seems appropriate that a defendant should be awake for a sentence of death, which will necessarily involve some pain.

I think lethal injection in particular is also problematic insofar as it tends to medicalize and sanitize capital punishment. Capital punishment is not a medical treatment. It is an act of state violence, and the method should reflect this fact.

7. Member nations shall not extradite, except to World Assembly judicial institutions or jurisdictions without capital punishment, any person charged or likely to be charged with a capital offence. Nor shall any person be extradited to a place likely to commence judicial proceedings, which would contravene World Assembly legislation, against that person.

s.7 arbitrarily prohibits member states from extraditing criminals to nations with capital punishment. Why this arbitrary limitation? Shouldn't it be enough that both nations respect the protections of this legislation?

8. No member nation shall carry out a capital sentence on any person which has not had their case record certified by the Division within the last year. Nor shall member nations carry out such a sentence before the Division has certified that there exist no irregularities in the case record, the defendant has exhausted all available appeals, or the Division has certified that all procedures involved with carrying out that capital sentence comply with provisions set forth in World Assembly legislation.

s.8 would permit a defendant to avoid capital punishment by simply not exhausting all available appeals, because then the Division could not certify the case.

The certification provisions in s.8 also differ from the certification provisions in s.4(g). What does this mean, exactly? Is a member state permitted to request certification for the requirements in s.4(g), but not for the ones in s.8?

Does the expiry of certification after all year apply to all certification provisions, or just a subset? Why does certification expire in the first place, and why only after one year, given all of the opportunities for delay in this process? Can certification be renewed?

Is the Division even required to certify even if all conditions are met? Can it simply always decline certification, effectively banning capital punishment?

---

In summary, this is an awful proposal. It is absurdly long, needlessly complex, full of ambiguities, and seems designed to ban capital punishment in all but name. While I opposed UM's proposed ban on capital punishment, at least it was honest about its intent. That's more than I can say for this proposal.

We oppose.

Martin Russell
Chief Ambassador, Auralian Mission to the World Assembly

Entirely agree with everything laid out here. (Not snipping it because more people should read it)

[Ru-]

OOC: dunno how i missed this, well here are my thoughts, from the other thread:

An alternative death penalty resolution is up for vote. There doesn't seem to have been much discussion, but we are tentatively in favor of it. Our one and only complaint would be that the term "nonviolent" interferes with executions for particularly egregious cases of high treason.

but this is an acceptable sacrifice to make in the face of the scores of nations implementing capital punishment for just any old crime. This is something we can discuss with the compliance comittee or perhaps this proposed "Division" at a later time. Or perhaps we can argue our way around this particular article.

we will support in any event.

in spite of our fierce objections to the previous legislation. We feel this is a good compromise, with only one small flaw. It shall allow nations to execute only the very worst, while protecting the values of justice for all.

[Lamoni]

EDIT: Pic Spam Mod Spoilered

[Lamoni]

(Image)

Unofficial warning for picspam. You can frame your argument in a more constructive way.

[Gawdzendia]

We are in complete agreement with Mr. Russel, ambassador of Auralia. As it appears to us, this will just give one office of the WA the ability to filibuster any 'applications' for capital punishment till the one year limit has expired, as section 8 states 'within the last year'.

There are just too many ways for the entire process to be shut down due to creative interpretation on the part of this Division, for that we continue to oppose this.

[Luna Suena]

Death will always cause pain and suffering. Section 6 stipulates that "All capital sentences shall be carried out via a method which is, upon review demanded by any party to a capital case, proven beyond any reasonable doubt not to cause pain or suffering." This is effectively still a ban on capital punishment.

[Fractalnavel]

Oh, seriously, again?!

"You inform the World Assembly that The Grand figment of Fractalnavel will no longer participate in its corrupt, hollow debates. From this moment forward, your nation is on its own."

How appropriate.

Will be back after the vote is over.

[Thebomee]

This would massively disrupt my county seeing as government influenced disappearance is the 1st cause of death on the whole this would just make my nation disrupt its natural flow as such I hope to endeavor the down fall of this.

[The Sect Meces]

Ambassador Leman sighs and leans back into his chair, stairing up at the ceiling.

"This honestly just seems like a fallback for the previous proposal, but maybe that's just my perspective. Sector 18 shall abstain from this vote, although we may soon change our opinion, for this ongoing debate."

"However, our main concern is what the Department, that would be created should this come to pass, define as 'humane'?"

[Imperium Anglorum]

This would massively disrupt my county seeing as government influenced disappearance is the 1st cause of death on the whole this would just make my nation disrupt its natural flow as such I hope to endeavor the down fall of this.

Forced disappearances are illegal. Look it up.

[Jocospor]

There shall be created a Capital Cases division in the Judicial Committee of the Compliance Commission, here referred to as the Division, staffed with competent jurists and forensic scientists, to review submitted cases. To prevent the Division from being overwhelmed by requests for review, any national jurisdiction shall submit no more than than one capital case per million inhabitants per year. For the purposes of avoiding confirmation bias in assessments, the Division shall not keep records of capital punishment procedures.

We're pleased to announce all WA nations will just have received a counter-campaign telegram from us.

We can very easily summarise the main issue with this proposal, other than it falls into Imperium Anglorum's great scheme to dominate the World Assembly - but that's for another time. Alright, here it is:

Punishment should not be proportional to population.

[Wallenburg]

viewtopic.php?f=9&t=449946

[Poopisiya]

Ever so slightly irritated leader of Poopisiya asks: Are we doing it again? How many times should we vote *NO* on this nonsense?