[DEFEATED] Requiring Promulgation of National Laws

[Sedgistan]

Requiring Promulgation of National Laws

Category: Civil Rights || Strength: Mild

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The World Assembly,

Cognizant of the importance of proper knowledge of the law,

Applauding the resolution GA#442:Circulation Of World Assembly Law, aimed at removing the common causes of ignorance of the World Assembly law,

Recognizing efforts of this body to ensure that laws of its members are guided by just principles,

Concerned that there is no regulation preventing nations from purposefully making their citizens ignorant of their laws by refusing to promulgate them,

Appalled that some nations may do so to perpetuate an oppressive and unfair government,

Noting that even after its promulgation there should ordinarily be a period before a law comes into force, to give citizens and state organs the time to adapt their conduct;

Hereby enacts the following as law of the World Assembly.

§ 1. For the purpose of this resolution:

1. official outlet is an outlet officially sanctioned and managed by the member nation for the purpose of promulgation of laws, and accessible to all citizens of the member nation;
2. concerned person is a reasonable person, whose rights or duties are or shall be modified by the relevant law;
3. vacatio legis is a period sufficient for a concerned person to adapt themselves to the new law;
4. amendment is a law promulgated separately that changes the text of another law or laws;
5. significant alteration of the text is a situation in which a concerned person has a trouble discerning their rights or duties contained in law, due to the amount or scope of the amendments to it;
6. consolidated text is a new text of the law, after amendments to it are accounted for.

§ 2. All laws of the member nations require for their validity to be promulgated in an official outlet. This section does not influence the validity of customs that are commonly recognized to have obtained the force of law.

§ 3. All legislation following on its promulgation has to undergo vacatio legis, during which it is not in force. Legislation may come to force without vacatio legis if it is passed in a national emergency. This section does not apply to legislation that came into force prior to this resolution being passed by the World Assembly.

§ 4. The Judicial Committee of the Compliance Commission is empowered to review the declarations of national emergency by the member nations and revert their effects regarding the length of vacatio legis, when finding that such declarations were not justified by the danger that the member nation faced at the time. In particular, any "danger" caused by the legitimate actions taken by political parties or citizens' organizations will not be admitted as justification for declaring a national emergency.

§ 5. If the text of the law was significantly altered by amendments, notwithstanding the promulgation of those amendments, the member nation is required to publish in its official outlet the consolidated text of the law.

§ 6. Laws of the member nations cannot be applied retroactively if that does not follow from their explicit meaning or purpose.

§ 7. Member nations are urged to:

1. write their laws in a manner as clear as possible;
2. contain legislation on connected matters in one act, instead of having it scattered throughout many separate acts.

OOC:
Handy dispatch if you want in-depth info on this: click
Proposal on-site: click

[The New Nordic Union]

This shouldn't duplicate any existing resolutions, GA#323:No Penalty Without Law deals with something similar but only requires criminal laws to be promulgated. This would place such requirement on all laws.
Para. 5 strikes me as something that should be contained within GA#374:The Rule of Law but oddly enough, it isn't.

I'm open to others thoughts on this.

OOC: Well, there is GAR#79, Ban on Ex Post Facto Laws, which you might be duplicating (no retroactive laws) and contradicting (special circumstances you allow) at the same time with §4; even though GAR#79 only deals with criminal laws.

[Mon Civia]

My issues relating to this proposal are specific to legal precedents for common law legal systems. Specifically, 7(a).

In common law legal systems, it is common to have a judgement through a precedent. Other judges and lawyers use those precedents in future for guidance on similar issues. These are not Specific Laws (eg. Thou Shalt Not XYZ) but rather an opinion written by a judge about how they came to the conclusion that they did. It is impossible for common law legal systems -and similar- to enable precedents that are clear, concise, and/or easily understandable by the common citizen.

[Sancta Romana Ecclesia]

My issues relating to this proposal are specific to legal precedents for common law legal systems. Specifically, 7(a).

In common law legal systems, it is common to have a judgement through a precedent. Other judges and lawyers use those precedents in future for guidance on similar issues. These are not Specific Laws (eg. Thou Shalt Not XYZ) but rather an opinion written by a judge about how they came to the conclusion that they did. It is impossible for common law legal systems -and similar- to enable precedents that are clear, concise, and/or easily understandable by the common citizen.

That is why this resolution "urges" member nations to write their laws in such a way, but doesn't require this. It's left to the discretion of members, but a recommendation is given. A separate issue is what "as clear as can be" is exactly, this is another reason why this is a recommendation and not a requirement.

You would still want those judgments to be published somewhere and accessible by the citizens wishing to know inner workings of the system. Second sentence in para. 1 actually exists because of common law countries, where some things are managed by custom instead of written law.

I would guess that the most common law unfriendly paragraph would be para. 5, if for example somebody is authorized by custom but I think it's a good idea to always require statutory authorization for actions of government.

OOC: Well, there is GAR#79, Ban on Ex Post Facto Laws, which you might be duplicating (no retroactive laws) and contradicting (special circumstances you allow) at the same time with §4; even though GAR#79 only deals with criminal laws.

OOC: I have read GA#79 before posting this draft and I don't think this is a duplication/contradiction of it, for two reasons:

1. It deals with criminal law as you have noticed, this deals with laws in general.
2. Para 4. doesn't allow retroactive laws (e.g. "can..."), it forbids certain kinds of them ("cannot..."). Retroactive criminal law is separately forbidden by GA#79, this doesn't change that.

I would be willing to add "This paragraph does not legalize laws forbidden by the current World Assembly legislation" (or something to that effect), if more clarity is judged necessary by more people.

[Tinhampton]

Full support, with one caveat: "Circulation of World Assembly Law" is GA#442, not GA#422.

EDIT TO ADD: Huzzah for the rule of lenity!

[Sancta Romana Ecclesia]

Full support, with one caveat: "Circulation of World Assembly Law" is GA#442, not GA#422.

OOC: Oops, fixed that.

[Cisairse]

Ensuring Clearness of National Laws

Category: Civil Rights || Strength: Mild

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The World Assembly,

Cognizant of the importance of proper knowledge of the law,

Applauding the resolution GA#442:Circulation Of World Assembly Law, aimed at removing the common causes of ignorance of the World Assembly law,

Recognizing efforts of this body to ensure that laws of its members are guided by just principles,

Concerned that there is no regulation preventing nations from purposefully making their citizens ignorant of their laws, either by writing them in an ambiguous manner, or by not promulgating them,

Appalled that some nations may do so to perpetuate an oppressive and unfair government;

Hereby enacts the following as law of the World Assembly.

§ 1. All laws of the member nations require for their validity to be promulgated in an official outlet of the nation, accessible by all citizens of said member nation. This paragraph does not influence the validity of customs that are commonly recognized to have obtained the force of law.

§ 2. All laws following on their promulgation have to undergo a period of vacatio legis, sufficient for a reasonable person to familiarize themselves with the new law, before they are enforced by the member nation. Laws may come to force without vacatio legis if they are passed in a national emergency.

§ 3. If an original law has undergone a significant amount of amendments, member nation is required to publish in the outlet mentioned in para. 1 the new text of the law that takes into account any amendments that have come into force.

§ 4. Laws of the member nations cannot be applied retroactively if that does not follow from their explicit meaning or purpose.

§ 5. No government official may act in an official capacity without the due authorization stated in a promulgated law.

§ 6. All ambiguities in criminal laws are to be resolved in favor of the accused.

§ 7. Member nations are urged to:

1. write their laws in a manner that is as clear as they can be without losing specificity;
2. practice codification, that is, contain legislation on meritorically connected matters in one act (code), instead of having it scattered throughout many separate acts.

This shouldn't duplicate any existing resolutions, GA#323:No Penalty Without Law deals with something similar but only requires criminal laws to be promulgated. This would place such requirement on all laws.
Para. 5 strikes me as something that should be contained within GA#374:The Rule of Law but oddly enough, it isn't.

I'm open to others thoughts on this.

This is a good premise. However,

1. You use the section symbol for each enumerated line, but then refer to those sections as "paragraphs." One of these is not like the other.
2. I am confused by a couple things in §3. Are amendments to public laws not themselves public laws? Why the distinction for "a significant amount" of amendments rather than any amendments? I would maybe understand language such as "a significant amendment" to protect clerks from being bogged down all the time by grammatical changes, but (1) putting the requirement for public notice of altered laws on an amount of changes seems completely nonsensical, and (2) I think it purely defeats the spirit of this resolution to even limit amendment publication to "significant" changes as in my suggested edit.

If these points could be resolved, I would happily support this proposal.

[Grays Harbor]

No government official may act in an official capacity without the due authorization stated in a promulgated law.

So unless it specifically states who does what in each and every law, nobody does anything. Brilliant. Just brilliant.

[Araraukar]

OOC: Tired brain comment: Your title is basically clearness of laws, but the active clauses are written in a language that leaves very little clear at all.

...and I just realized I am starting to rhyme. It is very definitely my bedtime.

[Sancta Romana Ecclesia]

This is a good premise. However,

1. You use the section symbol for each enumerated line, but then refer to those sections as "paragraphs." One of these is not like the other.
2. I am confused by a couple things in §3. Are amendments to public laws not themselves public laws? Why the distinction for "a significant amount" of amendments rather than any amendments? I would maybe understand language such as "a significant amendment" to protect clerks from being bogged down all the time by grammatical changes, but (1) putting the requirement for public notice of altered laws on an amount of changes seems completely nonsensical, and (2) I think it purely defeats the spirit of this resolution to even limit amendment publication to "significant" changes as in my suggested edit.

If these points could be resolved, I would happily support this proposal.

1. Thanks for pointing that out! It is actually because this symbolizes paragraphs in my native language (non-English).
2. They are and would be required to be published under sect. 1. It may however happen that amendments are published as separate acts and have clauses like this "The Article I of the Act XYZ is amended to read..." Then to actually know what the law says you'd need to read the original law and any amendments to it (which may be a lot). This section provides for the case when there is "a lot" of amendments, besides publishing the amendments themselves current text would need to be published as well. Changed the wording around to perhaps make that clearer.

No government official may act in an official capacity without the due authorization stated in a promulgated law.

So unless it specifically states who does what in each and every law, nobody does anything. Brilliant. Just brilliant.

I think I understand the allusion. How about: "No action of government may be done without the due authorization..." etc.?

OOC: Tired brain comment: Your title is basically clearness of laws, but the active clauses are written in a language that leaves very little clear at all.

...and I just realized I am starting to rhyme. It is very definitely my bedtime.

OOC: What needs clarification in your opinion?

[Grays Harbor]

I think I understand the allusion. How about: "No action of government may be done without the due authorization..." etc.?

No. When there is a law, the assumption is that if you break the damn law, there are consequences. Of an official capacity.

[Cisairse]

They are and would be required to be published under sect. 1. It may however happen that amendments are published as separate acts and have clauses like this "The Article I of the Act XYZ is amended to read..." Then to actually know what the law says you'd need to read the original law and any amendments to it (which may be a lot). This section provides for the case when there is "a lot" of amendments, besides publishing the amendments themselves current text would need to be published as well. Changed the wording around to perhaps make that clearer.

Isn't that what a code is for? In my experience, most (by a wide margin) laws are just amendments either to other laws, oftentimes amending a large number of other laws. It seems like a separate problem to require nations to know what laws have been passed vs. requiring nations to make what the current law is easy-to-understand. I agree that the WA should likely do both, but the method you have defined her does not seem like a good way of going about that.

[The New Sicilian State]

"Diplomats can no longer purchase a sandwich at the deli without strict government approval."

Crawford scratches his head

"Well not literally of course, but you get my idea. Also, what's this about all criminal cases involving ambiguous laws to be resolved in the favor of the accused? That's a dangerous clause my friend, depending on the lackadaisical nature of some of our colleagues' legislature,you could be absolving some bad folks from crimes based on standards that you haven't defined."

[Bananaistan]

"Completely utterly and totally opposed. Section two is a huge undue restriction of standard practice in many nation. Is it really necessary to let irrelevant people chew over minor changes to tax, company and administrative law before they take effect?

"Issues with section 5 have already been pointed out."

OOC: Not familiar with the practice in other countries but in Ireland, changes to tax law are often implemented immediately on the night of being announced in the budget by way of what we call financial resolutions being passed in Dáil Éireann. This is not unreasonable.

[Nacrad]

We would like to remind you that there are "Common Law" nations, in which the clauses are fairly vague, to allow the judges and juries to make their decisions in their own discretion. Article 7A seems to have neglected these nations.

[Sancta Romana Ecclesia]

"Completely utterly and totally opposed. Section two is a huge undue restriction of standard practice in many nation. Is it really necessary to let irrelevant people chew over minor changes to tax, company and administrative law before they take effect?"

It isn't a "huge" restriction, the omission of minimal timespan a law must spend in vacatio legis is purposeful. This period may be as short as one day, if that suffices for a reasonable person to be familiar with the new law. However, the issue of "irrelevant people" is a justified objection. I will attempt to resolve this by changing the wording of that section to ensure that really only the persons influenced by the law must have sufficient time to be familiarized with it. For example, a reasonable person that doesn't own a business would not necessarily follow all the changes to the law affecting only businesses.

This section aims to protect the ordinary people, as well as businesses, from sudden and sweeping changes to the law influencing their functioning. I hope you can agree with the goal, at least.

OOC: In Poland laws generally need to undergo 14 day of vacatio legis. I think that's a reasonable standard, but for obvious reasons didn't include a specific timespan here. They are of course widely abused exceptions.

"Well not literally of course, but you get my idea. Also, what's this about all criminal cases involving ambiguous laws to be resolved in the favor of the accused? That's a dangerous clause my friend, depending on the lackadaisical nature of some of our colleagues' legislature,you could be absolving some bad folks from crimes based on standards that you haven't defined."

If this is dangerous, so is GA#323:No Penalty Without Law. If the situation is not clearly a breach of the law, evidence is simply insufficient for conviction.

Isn't that what a code is for? In my experience, most (by a wide margin) laws are just amendments either to other laws, oftentimes amending a large number of other laws. It seems like a separate problem to require nations to know what laws have been passed vs. requiring nations to make what the current law is easy-to-understand. I agree that the WA should likely do both, but the method you have defined her does not seem like a good way of going about that.

Law may be understood to have been amended in two ways: either the text of the law itself was changed, or its application. Section in questions provides only for the first situation, because the new version of the law would take into account "any changes done to the text of the original law". I provided an example of an amendment that changes the text of the law above. To illustrate a situation regulated here more better, when a significant number of sections of the law were repealed in another law, nation would be required to publish new version of the text, without those sections.

An example of a change that influences the application of the text, without changing the text itself: second sentence of § 1 of this resolution. It doesn't change the text itself of the sentence preceding it, it only narrows the former's application. I think these kinds of changes is what you mean by "most (by a wide margin) laws are just amendments [...] to other laws" and that this kind of problem is solved by codification, which I agree with.

We would like to remind you that there are "Common Law" nations, in which the clauses are fairly vague, to allow the judges and juries to make their decisions in their own discretion. Article 7A seems to have neglected these nations.

I addressed this:

That is why this resolution "urges" member nations to write their laws in such a way, but doesn't require this. It's left to the discretion of members, but a recommendation is given. A separate issue is what "as clear as can be" is exactly, this is another reason why this is a recommendation and not a requirement.

You would still want those judgments to be published somewhere and accessible by the citizens wishing to know inner workings of the system. Second sentence in para. 1 actually exists because of common law countries, where some things are managed by custom instead of written law.

I would guess that the most common law unfriendly paragraph would be para. 5, if for example somebody is authorized by custom but I think it's a good idea to always require statutory authorization for actions of government.

[The Narnian Council]

This should be what the people demand from their governments, not what the WA demands from its member nations. Otherwise, this top-down approach looks like we're encouraging propaganda. Also, "clarity" is a better word than "clearness".

[The New Sicilian State]

"Well not literally of course, but you get my idea. Also, what's this about all criminal cases involving ambiguous laws to be resolved in the favor of the accused? That's a dangerous clause my friend, depending on the lackadaisical nature of some of our colleagues' legislature,you could be absolving some bad folks from crimes based on standards that you haven't defined."

If this is dangerous, so is GA#323:No Penalty Without Law. If the situation is not clearly a breach of the law, evidence is simply insufficient for conviction.

"I never said that clause of GAR# 323 wasn't dangerous."

[Sancta Romana Ecclesia]

"Issues with section 5 have already been pointed out."

No. When there is a law, the assumption is that if you break the damn law, there are consequences. Of an official capacity.

Call my intelligence into question, but I don't see the problem you wish to paint here. If you break the law, there exists an appropriate office for prosecuting this, a judge of some sort to pronounce a sentence, which is then executed by other officials. All of them have a role to play and all should have an authorization from the law to do this - otherwise, what's the difference between country's justice system and a bunch of citizens pronouncing and executing a sentence?
This section is necessary for the people to know what the government can and cannot do and to ensure protection of their rights. Giving citizens a clear legal situation in dealings with their government is something that WA should legislate for.

"I never said that clause of GAR# 323 wasn't dangerous."

In any case, I believe you are mistaken. Neither this clause, nor any of the clauses in GA#323 is dangerous. What's dangerous is to allow more unsavory WA members to prosecute their own citizens without any breaking of the law on their part, or on really shaky legal grounds.

This should be what the people demand from their governments, not what the WA demands from its member nations. Otherwise, this top-down approach looks like we're encouraging propaganda. Also, "clarity" is a better word than "clearness".

The same could be said about every resolution concerned with securing the civil rights. What exactly is the overreach of WA here? Surely you don't count it as transgressing sovereignty of your nation to be required to actually publish its laws? And how is it encouraging propaganda?
I would like to remind you that not all WA resolutions are self-enforceable, most of them actually require at least some national legislation. That's another reason why WA should ensure that laws are actually published and available to the citizens.

OOC: I agree that clarity looks nicer, thanks for the suggestion!

---

I changed this draft in the meantime, to address some of the concerns raised here and whatnot. The biggest change is that there are now legal definitions (I thought they won't be needed here, but alas) in the first section, which in turn allowed me to trim down other sections.

[Imperium Anglorum]

Elsie Mortimer Wellesley: We don't believe in any kind of legal vacation.

[Kelssek]

While we appreciate the drafter has made an attempt to account for the large number of member states operating on common law, this proposal seems to misunderstand just what common law (or other forms of customary law) is and how it gives rise to a very different practice and application of law and governance. As a result, its requirements for all "law" to be published at best puts an unnecessary burden on common law jurisdictions, and at worst makes it impossible for them to function.

This is not resolved by the proposal's section 2, which states,

§ 2. All laws of the member nations require for their validity to be promulgated in an official outlet. This section does not influence the validity of customs that are commonly recognized to have obtained the force of law.

Common law is not customary law. Yes, it does involve customary principles that are found in judicial decisions rather than legislation (which is what "law" actually appears to mean in this proposal). But common law is also an ongoing matter of legal practice in which judges are empowered and called upon to infer from legislation, precedent, and indeed current scholarship to discern and apply principles of law and justice to the cases before them. In other words the law is also its interpretation.

On the surface this might not seem to be a problem as the citizen of a common law country can simply visit their friendly neighbourhood university library and head to the law school's section. But let's note that the fundamental texts on contract law, constitutional law, etc. are not "official outlets" which we understand to mean something like a gazette. Rather they are and became authoritative by being cited in judgments and taught in law schools and accepted as giving a valid account of legal custom.

I'll note at this point that judicial interpretation takes care of this proposal's identified problem of legislation being deliberately written in ambiguous or obtuse ways. This is necessarily resolved when such a case comes before a court.

This includes crucial constitutional issues like who gets to be prime minister, something that many common law constitutions are silent on because the head of government and practical use of executive power evolved through custom (and perhaps more than a few regicides and civil wars). Since section 6 uses the phrase "promulgated law", this threatens to invalidate executive authority in Kelssek as our written constitution is silent on the designation and authority of the prime minister as head of government. This is quite common (ahem) in common law countries and constitutional monarchies. Creative issuance of presidential/royal decrees might get around this but we shouldn't have to deal with constitutional angst for the sake of this.

I think I'll wrap up my comments by pointing out that this resolution would do nothing to improve rights and freedoms of peoples in tyrannical regimes because all the tyrant needs to do is write oppressive legislation and publish it. And appoint judges friendly to the regime and deferential to it so that interpretation goes its way.

Gérard Poullet
Ambassador to the WA

[The Narnian Council]

The same could be said about every resolution concerned with securing the civil rights. What exactly is the overreach of WA here? Surely you don't count it as transgressing sovereignty of your nation to be required to actually publish its laws? And how is it encouraging propaganda? I would like to remind you that not all WA resolutions are self-enforceable, most of them actually require at least some national legislation. That's another reason why WA should ensure that laws are actually published and available to the citizens.

What's more important is that my citizens have a legitimate way to express their political grievances and have them addressed. This would fall under the topic of political rights. If their grievance is a lack of clarity in national law - then they should be enabled to express that.

However, a top-down resolution requiring clarity of law would 1) attempt to fix a problem that may not exist by 2) requiring the establishment of a national news service that may not exist. I believe it's a lot of bureaucracy without regard to actual situations.

[Sancta Romana Ecclesia]

I do appreciate the in-depth response to my proposal and I will try to address it.

Common law is not customary law.

This is true. Precedent (which is the main basis for rulings in common law countries) is rather a deliberate decision on the part of one applying the law, undertaken with an intent to serve as an exemplar for decisions in similar cases. It is something distinct from the custom, which is an ongoing practice. I actually thought to include it as a separate exception to the promulgation requirement for that reason, but judged it unnecessary. As precedents are binding in common law countries either on the basis of explicit provisions of statutory law (rarely if ever, I presume) or on the account of custom. So either way, under this proposal they would be valid source for judgments without any question about it.

And them being covered under the term "law" here doesn't really hurt, it just makes the government responsible for making them readily available to the public.

It is also important to distinguish a de facto authoritative source and one that is authoritative de iure. This proposal wouldn't change the legal status of the former, in which category most authoritative textbooks fall, even in common law countries. And if they are authoritative de iure, it simply means that those scholarly opinions need to be compiled by the government.

However, I do recognize a problem with applying vacatio legis to things that are not legis (statues or legislation), so that's why I'm changing the requirement of it to apply only to legislation.

OOC: As for the opinions of scholars, it isn't as crazy as you may think to publish them under official auspices of the government. This is what Institutions of Justinian and his Digest are: the first is a textbook, second is a compilation of the opinions of Roman jurists. Both were authoritative and had the force of law. They (and similar compilations) arguably would fit in the "official outlet" definition given here.
This wouldn't need to be a compilation done by the executive, judiciary could be responsible for producing such a publication.
And if your concern is that a judge should be allowed to pick authoritative textbooks freely, then sorry, they don't come under the definition of law at all. They are then simply a source that a particular judge chose and not law which all judges need to follow.

What's more important is that my citizens have a legitimate way to express their political grievances and have them addressed. This would fall under the topic of political rights. If their grievance is a lack of clarity in national law - then they should be enabled to express that.

However, a top-down resolution requiring clarity of law would 1) attempt to fix a problem that may not exist by 2) requiring the establishment of a national news service that may not exist. I believe it's a lot of bureaucracy without regard to actual situations.

Your citizens have that right guaranteed by WA legislation already in place, i.e. GA#174: Right To Petition. This proposal doesn't require to establish a national news service, it requires to establish a publication where laws would be promulgated (and solely them - see: "specifically established" in § 1a).

[Araraukar]

OOC post.

Tackling only the definitions for this post, because they're the bits giving me a headache. That doesn't mean I thought the rest of the text was just peachy, but rather that it's near-impossible for me to get past these to consider the rest of it with any kind of sensibility.

§ 1. For the purpose of this resolution:

I think you meant to say "defines, for the purposes of this resolution". That way you can drop the "is" from the definitions.

official outlet is an outlet specifically established for the promulgation of laws, officially sanctioned and managed by the member nation for that purpose, and accessible to all citizens of the member nation;

I have trouble wrapping my mind around this. Can you give a RL example? And if they don't actually exist in RL, then why should they exist in NS?

concerned person is a reasonable person, whose rights or duties are or shall be modified by the relevant law;

...what?

vacatio legis is a period sufficient for a concerned person to familiarize themselves with the new law;

Exactly what does this mean?

amendment is a law promulgated separately that changes the text of another law or laws;

So any amendment that also adds new content, is not an amendment?

significant alteration of the text is a situation in which a concerned person has a trouble discerning their rights or duties contained in law, due to the amount or scope of the amendments to it;

I'm having trouble discerning the purpose of this definition, for sure.

consolidated text is a new text of the law, after amendments to it are accounted for;

You'll really want to think about rewriting these things to sound a bit less legalese and a bit more everyday language, and in addition to which, why is this even necessary? Once the law has been changed by an amendment, it has been changed by an amendment; you'd have to be an idiot to keep the old wording around muddling things.

ambiguity is a situation in which a provision of the law may reasonably be read in multiple ways.

Common words don't need to be defined.

[Cisairse]

I have trouble wrapping my mind around this. Can you give a RL example? And if they don't actually exist in RL, then why should they exist in NS?

I can. The United States has the Office of the Federal Register, which makes national laws public via the United States Statutes at Large; those laws are then codified in the United States Code, which is maintained by the United States Government Publishing Office.

My interpretation of this resolution would be that both the U.S. OFR and U.S. GPO would satisfy that term.