[DRAFT] Preventing Natural Resource Theft

[Ransium]

I think this should be a relatively non-controversial and straightforward little resolution. I haven't drafted it anywhere else first so it might need a bit of work still. Draft 2

Title: Preventing Natural Resource Theft

Category: International Security, Strength: Significant

The World Assembly,

Knowing that when resources are harvested illegally, core concepts of national sovereignty and property rights are undermined and local resource management becomes challenging,

Concerned that rogue states may use resource theft as a tactic to undermine other nations, as an underhanded means to obtain resources inexpensively, or as a way of extracting a resource without concern for the local environmental consequences,

Wishing to take away the ability for resource thieves to use international boundaries and jurisdictions to shield themselves from the legal consequences of their action,

Hereby;

1. Defines a resource, for the purposes of this resolution, as any naturally occurring deposits of a material that are located entirely within a nation's sovereign territory and is either,
   1. non-living material located beneath or at the surface of the earth, that will stay where it is, unless disturbed by sapient activity, or
   2. living organisms, or material derived from living organisms, that are extremely unlikely to leave a nation's sovereign territory in their life without sapient intervention;
2. Defines resource theft, for the purposes of this resolution, as the removal of a resource without the knowledge or permission of the person(s) or governing body with the rights to the resource, or the removal of the resource in a manner that wholly disregards the will of person(s) with the rights to the resource or the relevant governing body's regulations regarding resource removal (excluding a nation lawfully obtaining land or rights from its citizens against their will);
   
   
3. Bans resource theft, either directly or through contracting or subcontracting;
   
   
4. Bans the direct or indirect purchasing of resources for which there is reasonable suspicion that the resources have been stolen;
   
   
5. When there is reasonable suspicion of a suspect participating in, funding, or directly profiting from stealing a resource from another nation, requires a minimum action to be taken against the suspect as follows:
   
   1. If the suspect is an individual, extradite the individual to the relevant foreign jurisdiction where permitted by World Assembly or local legislation;
   2. If the suspect is an organization or legal person, extradite directors, employees or members responsible for the suspected offense to the relevant foreign jurisdiction where permitted by World Assembly or local legislation;
   3. If extradition is not possible, prosecute suspected individuals or directors, employees or members of suspected organizations;
   4. If guilt is proven locally seize the stolen resources and profits from the stolen resources, and where legally possible and practical return the seized items to the nation of origin, and enact additional punitive action against individuals or organizations;
6. Clarifies that the prohibitions and mandates in this resolution and only this resolution do not apply when two countries are at war with each other;
   
   
7. Further clarifies only resources stolen after this resolution is passed will be subject to this resolution's regulations;
   
   
8. Noting the difficulty of assigning whole or partial sovereignty in situations where resource deposits are shared between nations or resources are mobile, and urges the passage of specifically targeted resolutions to address each of these situations where they have not already been addressed.

[Ransium]

Title: Preventing International Natural Resource Theft

Category: International Security, Strength: Medium

Text:

The World Assembly.

Knowing that when resources are harvested illegally by persons not vested in local resource management, core concepts of national sovereignty and property rights are undermined and local resource management becomes challenging,

Concerned rogue states may use resource theft as a tactic to undermine other nations, an underhanded means to obtain resources inexpensively, or a way of extracting a resource without concern for the local environmental consequences,

Aware that thieves can use international boundaries and jurisdictions to shield themselves from the legal consequences of resource theft,

Notes the difficulty of assigning whole or partial sovereignty in situations where resources are shared between nations or resources highly mobile, and urges the passage of specifically targeted resolutions to address each of these situations where they have not already been addressed,

Hereby;

1. Defines a sovereign national resource, for the purposes of this resolution, as any deposit of a naturally occurring resource that is located entirely within a nation's sovereign territory and is either: a non-living material located beneath the surface or at the surface of the earth and unlikely to naturally leave it's location in the geologic near-term, or living material that is extremely unlikely to leave a nation's sovereign territory over the course of its life without non-natural intervention;
2. Defines resource theft, for the purposes of this resolution, as the removal of a sovereign natural resource without the knowledge or permission of the person(s) or nation with the rights to the resource, or the removal of the resource in a manner that wholly disregards the will of person(s) with the rights to the resource or local regulations regarding resource removal;
3. Bans member nations from participating in the theft of resources from other nations, either directly or through contracting/subcontracting;
4. Bans member nations from directly purchasing resources for which there is reasonable suspicion that the resource has been stolen; or indirectly purchasing a stolen resource, for example, by employing contractors who are likely to use a stolen resource to complete a project;
5. Requires member nations to take one of the following actions against its citizens or registered corporations when there is reasonable suspicion that they are participating in, funding, or directly profiting from stealing a resource from another nation:
   
   1. Extradite the party or parties to the relevant foreign jurisdiction, or;
   2. Initiate local criminal proceedings where, if the party or parties are found guilty, they will, at minimum, receive a fine of greater value than the amount of material they've stolen;
6. Clarifies that the prohibitions in this resolution do not apply when two countries are at war with each other, and urges the passage of other legislation to adequately address war time resource looting in detail.

[Araraukar]

OOC post.

Strength: Medium

I think you mean "Significant".

Text:

Unnecessary.

The World Assembly.

I suggest ending in comma, not period, like you do for the rest of the preamble.

Knowing that when resources are harvested illegally by persons not vested in local resource management, core concepts of national sovereignty and property rights are undermined and local resource management becomes challenging,

Suggested edit. No need for repetition, or specifying persons when you're banning entire nations from doing so, later on.

Concerned that rogue states may use resource theft as a tactic to undermine other nations, as an underhanded means to obtain resources inexpensively, or as a way of extracting a resource without concern for the local environmental consequences,

Edit suggestions. Otherwise the rogue states are the concerned ones.

Aware that thieves can may use international boundaries and jurisdictions to shield themselves from the legal consequences of resource theft,

May instead of can, because especially with WA nations, it's not a given that they'll get away with crimes that easily, and there's no need to tag on this particular type of theft there to make it work.

Alternatively you might want to change this clause in its entirety to read "Wishing to take away the ability for resource thieves to use international boundaries and jurisdictions to shield themselves from the legal consequences of their actions".

Notes

Should be "noting".

the difficulty of assigning whole or partial sovereignty in situations where the resources are shared between nations, or the resources are highly mobile,

Just minor grammar changes.

and urges the passage of specifically targeted resolutions to address each of these situations where they have not already been addressed,

That's what this proposal is about, isn't it? So you don't need to say that. And also it shouldn't be an active clause ("urges") when it's in the preamble.

Defines a sovereign national resource

You don't actually use this wording in the text. I think you're wanting to define "resource", since you use that.

for the purposes of this resolution, as any deposit of a naturally occurring resource that is located entirely within a nation's sovereign territory and is either: a non-living material located beneath the surface or at the surface of the earth and unlikely to naturally leave it's location in the geologic near-term, or living material that is extremely unlikely to leave a nation's sovereign territory over the course of its life without non-natural intervention;

This looks as impenetrable as law text usually does, and just because I understand it (because natural sciences are kinda my thing), doesn't mean the random layman does. I would suggest breaking it into subclauses:

Defines, for the purposes of this resolution, a "resource" as any naturally occurring deposits of a resource that is located entirely within a nation's sovereign territory and is either,

1. non-living material located beneath the surface of the earth that will stay where it is, unless disturbed by sapient activity, or
2. living material that will not leave the nation's sovereign territory in its lifetime without sapient intervention;

That would break it down a bit into two separate categories of things, and specify you're not talking about migrating animals or groundwater.

Defines resource theft, for the purposes of this resolution, as the removal of a sovereign natural resource without the knowledge or permission of the person(s) or nation with the rights to the resource, or the removal of the resource in a manner that wholly disregards the will of person(s) with the rights to the resource or local regulations regarding resource removal;

This needs a rewrittal, especially if you're intending to (even more so if you're not!) ban the use of eminent domain with this definition.

Bans member nations from participating in the theft of resources from resource theft in other nations, either directly or through contracting or subcontracting;

Let's use the terms you define, okay?

Bans member nations from directly or indirectly purchasing resources for which there is reasonable suspicion that the resource has been stolen; or indirectly purchasing a stolen resource, for example, by employing contractors who are likely to use a stolen resource to complete a project;

No need to complicate it.

Requires member nations to take one of the following actions against its citizens or registered corporations when there is reasonable suspicion that they are participating in, funding, or directly profiting from stealing a resource from another nation:

This needs some "in accordance to extant resolutions" kind of thing for reasons given below...

Extradite the party or parties to the relevant foreign jurisdiction, or;

You're not allowed to extradite to countries where the person would likely be put to death or tortured or whatnot - several resolutions in total ban several conditions of extradition. I mean, you make no difference between WA and non-WA nations, so you might be wanting a WA nation to extradite to a non-WA nation with this clause.

Initiate local criminal proceedings where, if the party or parties are found guilty, they will, at minimum, receive a fine of greater value than the amount of material they've stolen;

There's a fancier word for this that I can't remember right now, but weren't they banned by some previous resolution? (Or am I misremembering and it didn't actually pass?) And also, if the party found guilty was merely one of the funders of the criminal activity, they shouldn't get a fine that's more than the total of what was stolen. At the very least there's that resolution about seizing property to do with crime something something. Check the passed resolutions thread with keywords.

Clarifies that the prohibitions in this resolution do not apply when two countries are at war with each other, and urges the passage of other legislation to adequately address war time resource looting in detail.

Didn't SP already pass one?

[Ransium]

Thanks for your comments, I made changes to address them.

[Araraukar]

OOC: You have a missing [/list] tag after 1.b., so all the others now became subclauses of clause 1.

[The Great Boom]

In 1.f.b., you say "poses" but I'm certain you mean "possess."

Edit: After your edits, it's now in 5.b

[The Great Boom]

OOC: Also, this is a policy criticism mostly, but I think you should be harsher on exploitative relationships between governments and corporations. Relationships like that don't always constitute theft from the people of the country, but they could. Your resolution feels vague without any solution to this. Maybe it would widen the scope too much to address corporate "theft" that is technically contracted sale.

[Araraukar]

*snip*

*snip*

OOC: Please learn to edit your posts; posting several times in a row is considered spamming.

[Ransium]

OOC: Also, this is a policy criticism mostly, but I think you should be harsher on exploitative relationships between governments and corporations. Relationships like that don't always constitute theft from the people of the country, but they could. Your resolution feels vague without any solution to this. Maybe it would widen the scope too much to address corporate "theft" that is technically contracted sale.

I think addressing this would need to happen in an entirely separate resolution.

[The Great Boom]

OOC: Also, this is a policy criticism mostly, but I think you should be harsher on exploitative relationships between governments and corporations. Relationships like that don't always constitute theft from the people of the country, but they could. Your resolution feels vague without any solution to this. Maybe it would widen the scope too much to address corporate "theft" that is technically contracted sale.

I think addressing this would need to happen in an entirely separate resolution.

I could see that. It's up to you of course, but it feels like this should address both. Voters might read this and be disappointed that it doesn't.

[Liberimery]

I’m also concerned with the extradition part as well as those are treaties between two nations and only for the crimes negotiated which are usually for crimes both nations recognize as crimes in their respective jurisdictions.

[Araraukar]

I’m also concerned with the extradition part as well as those are treaties between two nations and only for the crimes negotiated which are usually for crimes both nations recognize as crimes in their respective jurisdictions.

OOC: Actually WA has legislated on extradition before, banning or allowing it for certain purposes, so it's not like it couldn't do it again, WA-wide. However, there are existing restrictions on when it's allowable.

[Kenmoria]

“In 5b, ‘poses’ should be ‘possess’.”

[Tinfect]

Title: Preventing Natural Resource Theft

Category: International Security, Strength: Significant

The World Assembly,

Knowing that when resources are harvested illegally, core concepts of national sovereignty and property rights are undermined and local resource management becomes challenging,

Concerned that rogue states may use resource theft as a tactic to undermine other nations, as an underhanded means to obtain resources inexpensively, or as a way of extracting a resource without concern for the local environmental consequences,

Wishing to take away the ability for resource thieves to use international boundaries and jurisdictions to shield themselves from the legal consequences of their action,

Hereby;

1. Defines a resource, for the purposes of this resolution, as any naturally occurring deposits of a material that are located entirely within a nation's sovereign territory and is either,
   1. non-living material located beneath or at the surface of the earth, and will stay where it is, unless disturbed by sapient activity, or
   2. living organisms, or material derived from organisms, that are extremely unlikely to leave a nation's sovereign territory in its life without sapient intervention;
2. Defines resource theft, for the purposes of this resolution, as the removal of a resource without the knowledge or permission of the person(s) or nation with the rights to the resource, or the removal of the resource in a manner that wholly disregards the will of person(s) with the rights to the resource or local regulations regarding resource removal (excluding a nation lawfully obtaining land or rights from its citizens against their will);
   
   
3. Bans member nations from participating in resources theft in other nations, either directly or through contracting/subcontracting;
   
   
4. Bans member nations from directly or indirectly purchasing resources for which there is reasonable suspicion that the resources have been stolen;
   
   
5. Requires member nations to take action against its citizens or registered corporations when there is reasonable suspicion that they are participating in, funding, or directly profiting from stealing a resource from another nation; the action may take one of two forms:
   
   1. Extradite the party or parties to the relevant foreign jurisdiction, or where this would violate existing legislation or otherwise be politically problematic;
   2. Initiate local criminal proceedings where, if the party or parties are found guilty, they will forfeit the stolen resources or the profits from the resource, if they still poses them, as well as receive additional punitive action;
6. Clarifies that the prohibitions in this resolution do not apply when two countries are at war with each other;
   
   
7. Noting the difficulty of assigning whole or partial sovereignty in situations where resource deposits are shared between nations or resources mobile, and urges the passage of specifically targeted resolutions to address each of these situations where they have not already been addressed.

"The Imperium has no objections; foreign governments have no right to Imperial resources. We would thank the delegation of Ransium for their contributions to Imperial security."

[Bears Armed]

OOC
Doesn't the wartime exception, clause 6, potentially clash with one of SP's resolutions on the conduct of war... or is that one still just at the drafting stage?
If this clause get left in the proposal then maybe it should specify that limits set by GA resolutions on environmental matters still apply, to avoid potential contradiction of those... and also should specify that the removal of living resources cannot be on such a scale that it deprives the native population of essential food? (Consider, from RL, the USA's near-extermination of the Bison in order to force the plains-dwelling tribes into submission...)

[Araraukar]

OOC
Doesn't the wartime exception, clause 6, potentially clash with one of SP's resolutions on the conduct of war... or is that one still just at the drafting stage?

OOC: But if the proposal literally says it's not dealing with X, any resolution that deals with X would not be clashed with?

[Kenmoria]

“Clause 4 has no exception for circumstances where the resources have been stolen from a nation that no longer exists due to war or peaceful transition, or cases where they were stolen thousands of years ago.”

[Araraukar]

“Clause 4 has no exception for circumstances where the resources have been stolen from a nation that no longer exists due to war or peaceful transition, or cases where they were stolen thousands of years ago.”

"...exactly what kind of natural resources do you think could have been stolen thousands of years ago that would still be trackable as the exact same materials stolen? Also, to my knowledge WA resolutions do not apply retroactively. In fact, I'm fairly sure there's a resolution saying that would be illegal."

[Kenmoria]

“Clause 4 has no exception for circumstances where the resources have been stolen from a nation that no longer exists due to war or peaceful transition, or cases where they were stolen thousands of years ago.”

"...exactly what kind of natural resources do you think could have been stolen thousands of years ago that would still be trackable as the exact same materials stolen? Also, to my knowledge WA resolutions do not apply retroactively. In fact, I'm fairly sure there's a resolution saying that would be illegal."

“I’d imagine a hunk of diamond could be easily traceable, especially if it had a distinctive shape or colour. What I was referring to wasn’t apply this proposal retroactively, rather a hypothetical sale in the future of a stolen material. Lots of countries, including Kenmoria, have had colonial histories, involving a theft. However, it has been so long now that I believe it is indeed Kenmoria’s to sell freely.”

[Araraukar]

“I’d imagine a hunk of diamond could be easily traceable, especially if it had a distinctive shape or colour. What I was referring to wasn’t apply this proposal retroactively, rather a hypothetical sale in the future of a stolen material. Lots of countries, including Kenmoria, have had colonial histories, involving a theft. However, it has been so long now that I believe it is indeed Kenmoria’s to sell freely.”

"But given that the theft would not count as theft under this resolution, unless it happened after the resolution passed, the colonial times - sometimes I feel so lucky my ancestors had a whole subcontinent to themselves - crimes would not have been crimes in the eyes of the WA law."

[Ransium]

Reading over Ban on Ex Post Facto Laws while it's true a nation could not be guilty of stealing an artifact before this law has been passed I think you could say that an artifact that was stolen in the past could no longer be sold. I will make some alterations.

---

OOC
Doesn't the wartime exception, clause 6, potentially clash with one of SP's resolutions on the conduct of war... or is that one still just at the drafting stage?
If this clause get left in the proposal then maybe it should specify that limits set by GA resolutions on environmental matters still apply, to avoid potential contradiction of those... and also should specify that the removal of living resources cannot be on such a scale that it deprives the native population of essential food? (Consider, from RL, the USA's near-extermination of the Bison in order to force the plains-dwelling tribes into submission...)

Ara is correct that my intent is to only say this resolution does not apply to war, not that previously passed (or resolutions in the future) don't apply during war times.

Clarifies that the prohibitions in this resolution do not apply when two countries are at war with each other;

Is there some word choice you would prefer to make this more clear?

Also Sep's Wartime Looting and Pillaging is on the books.

---

I’m also concerned with the extradition part as well as those are treaties between two nations and only for the crimes negotiated which are usually for crimes both nations recognize as crimes in their respective jurisdictions.

While extradition is the preferred remedy in this resolution it is not mandated. I will try fiddling with the wording to make this more clear.

[Ransium]

Bump.

[Kenmoria]

Reading over Ban on Ex Post Facto Laws while it's true a nation could not be guilty of stealing an artifact before this law has been passed I think you could say that an artifact that was stolen in the past could no longer be sold. I will make some alterations.

(OOC: This was my original concern. If something was stolen from a long-destroyed empire, it can’t be returned anymore, and there’s no harm in letting it be sold to a buyer.)

[Ransium]

Reading over Ban on Ex Post Facto Laws while it's true a nation could not be guilty of stealing an artifact before this law has been passed I think you could say that an artifact that was stolen in the past could no longer be sold. I will make some alterations.

(OOC: This was my original concern. If something was stolen from a long-destroyed empire, it can’t be returned anymore, and there’s no harm in letting it be sold to a buyer.)

It's been addressed now, see clause 7.

[Aclion]

As written the definition of resource excludes most fishery resources. That's unfortunate since illegal fishing is among the most common forms of international resource theft.

Also "citizens or registered corporations" would exclude individuals who are not citizens as well as other legal entities. Just use "people".