[PASSED] Right to Self-defense

[Saranidia]

OOC: can you give me a link to GAR#9

"Well ideological bans are prohibited so banning nations from basing their votes on religious would be prohibited".

(OOC: Here it is. Separatist Peoples was making a reference to the rules of the World Assembly Headquarters though, not to a clause banning anything ideological. Also, there are many reasons to vote AGAINST the proposal, one of the best being that it authorises criminals’ families to shoot police officers harming their (criminal and possibly in the process of murdering) relatives.)

OOC: well that says nothing about religious edicts.

[Saranidia]

"Not the majority but It will affect all Muslim delegates save Quran only Muslims. if I catch a Muslim delegate voting against I will discuss theology with them.", "I shall also bring biblequotes such as Exodus 22 if the delegates would like."

"I think that violates GAR#9, ambassador."

"Gar 9 says nothing about banning Islamic law."

[Separatist Peoples]

"I think that violates GAR#9, ambassador."

"Gar 9 says nothing about banning Islamic law."

Bell holds up two hands.

"This is your head." He holds hand parallel to the floor at eye level.

"This is the joke." He sends the other hand gently over his head.

[Liberimery]

This may change my vote. Can you show the logic behind your read of this, Ambassador?

3. Affirms the right to self-defense, of oneself and/or his or her family, and declares that nations are to permit and accept the exercise of this right as an affirmative defense in cases, so long as:

a) The threat poses a clear and immediate danger to the life of the individual or his or her family,

b) The force used in response is not excessive with regards to the threat of the situation presented,

"The right of self defense is unqualified by the nature of the threat, merely the severity of the threat and the nature of the force. It applies equally to police officers as it does to criminals and wild animals. Sane states do not permit the use of force to defend oneself against an identified law enforcement officer, regardless of the force involved in their seizure. While the prosecution can argue that no such defense was reasonable, it does not eliminate the right to use that force in the first instance, and thus incentivizes force against law enforcement officers.There should be no self defense defense as against identified law enforcement."

Interesting ambassador. I don't see any mention of Law enforcement but cusps for finding it somewhere. By the way, what's your opinion on defending yourself from cops who mucked up the mission and are serving the warrant for a drug dealer on his innocent neighbors.

[The Republic of The Republic of Toast]

If either of your tyrannies continue to threaten further damage to your people's, our world class peacemaking forces will step in to end such a conflict once and for all.

As to the proposal at vote, we oppose it and intend to repeal and replace it with a right to collective defense, as "self defense" is an illusion at best and a ticket to commit violence at worse.

"we will fight if you threaten us further"- Major General Muhammad.

"Oh, really?" - Conducător Alexandru Romanianguy

[Cosmopolitan borovan]

"Outrageous. What country that cares for its citizens would outright oppose their right to defend themselves? The delegate's home country does care for its citizens, yes?"
-Ambassador Gregory Williams

"Ambassador Gregory Williams has no right to assume a country's position towards its people, no less insult the country's constitution. My nation trusts its criminal justice system completely and there is no need for people to take matters into their own hands. If Ambassador Williams won't stop blabbering, I would support an invasion of the Northeastern American Federation!"
-Outspoken citizen

The WA ambassador spills out food from her mouth on the table.
"What's this talk about an invasion? This is just the discussion of a resolution over the policies over rights. If The republic of the republic of Toast in anyway," she jabbed, "is showing signs of invasion over Northeast American Federation, I'll be personally alerting my leader about this, and be warned there will be bombs flying and a army mobilizing in your country by next week."

[Cosmopolitan borovan]

Right to Self-defense was passed 9,737 votes to 7,685

[Northeast American Federation]

Right to Self-defense was passed 9,737 votes to 7,685

"The Northeast American Federation commends the sense of our fellow nations in recognizing the right of self defense across the World Assembly."
-Ambassador Gregory Williams

[Nueva Rico]

"I hesitated to respond for quite awhile, mostly because a lot of the feedback I received, especially by telegram, was illogical. However, I will move past that because I have heard some rational arguments, and would like to give rebuttal. To make things short, I would like to go through Iciaros' comprehensive argument against as, out of all the collective responses, theirs was the most detailed. I would also like to give some topical background to writing this proposal, as Trayvon Martin was brought up. And, I will elaborate shortly on some other arguments I have heard, as well. If you voted against, read this before you vote on repeal.

Issue 1: Family
We are concerned about the limitation of self-defense to cover only the defense of oneself and family. This would omit anyone outside of the common-sense definition of ties by blood and marriage, like friends, acquaintances, and others. (We are unsure what constitutes a 'substantial and tangible' relationship, particularly as relationships are intangible, but presumably this will not extend the meaning of family beyond its common usage.) In any case, we believe that self-defense should be available to protect the life of anyone in actual peril, regardless of the relationship between oneself and that person.

Tangible, in the sake of law, has a number of definitions. The same point has been debated in American court systems - tangible, by law, is concrete and provable. In this context, a tangible relationship and substantial relationship is not vague, (as you said) it's an atypical use of the word family, but it's an important distinction. If you see two strangers having a fight, it is not your moral obligation to jump in and protect who looks like they are losing, even if it's painful to see someone get hit. However, assuming arguendo that if a person cannot protect themselves, then it is of (substantial, tangible, provable, moral) reason to protect them, even if they are a stranger, because we have a tangible relationship as residents of the same community. It's more soundly justified in the biological response of fight or flight when someone else is unable to protect themselves from a predator or threat. That warrants protection. Good samaritan laws do not exonerate murderers, they are there to protect the helpless.

Issue 2: Self-Defense against Lawful Activities
Though this may be implicit, the resolution at hand does not specifically disallow the exercise of self-defense against lawfully undertaken actions - for instance, government agents acting within the bounds of their authority. If, for example, there were to be a shootout between the police and an armed criminal, could the criminal be said to be acting in self-defense as against the police? Self defense should only be available as a right where it is exercised to oppose an unlawful activity that causes peril. (A corollary of this is that you cannot exercise self-defense against someone exercising self-defense.)

This argument certainly seems valid sifting through the word choice, and that makes it one of the most frustrating and silly. It is certainly implicit; it would've been redundant, just as if I specified that you can't try to electrocute the government when they put you in an electric chair. It's not of the same law, it doesn't really have anything to do with the issue at hand. I see why someone scrutinizing the diction for reasons to vote against could come to that conclusion, but I think if you really think about it as an argument, it's illogical. There have been plenty of resolutions that test the game of Chicken that is government sovereignty opposed to the WA. Like how nobody considers consensual euthanasia or suicide is murder, by definition it is, but nobody would legislate a clause that says "it's okay (or is not okay) to kill yourself".

Issue 3: Excessive Force
This is an issue of great concern to us, and one that poses questions for criminal law experts across the many nations within and without the World Assembly: what constitutes excessive force? Is it any force beyond what is minimally necessary to achieve the aim of self-defense? Is it any force applied that does not reasonably serve the aim of self-defense? Further, what if the individual genuinely believed a certain application of force to be 'necessary', by whatever definition, when it was in actuality not? How far does the doctrine of mistaken beliefs apply to the application of excessive force? These ambiguities pose serious problems to the application of this resolution, and we cannot vote in favour of it until this section on excessive force is further elaborated on.

This is another case of the essence of common sense legislature. It's not vague unless you try to stretch the diction, as any word has a million different degrees, hence why puns are so punny and there're a billion adverbs. The force at which something is met with, is the maximum to which it could respond. If you rob a bank with a fake gun, you are treated as an armed robber, because someone reasonable would assume, "okay, it's a gun and that is of great danger to the people around me." Okay. Assuming arguendo that if someone punches you, but you mistake it for a gun, so you shoot them accidentally and they die, and there was no logical reason for you to mistake the threat for something more severe, you would be charged with manslaughter. Same as if you fed your kids rat poison because you thought it would make rats stay away from them, or if you thought a person was your driveway and hit them with your car.

Issue 4: Reference to Arms
Though not an issue per se, it seems to us that the reference to arms in this resolution was unnecessary; its only actual usage was to affirm that the resolution would not prevent member states from restricting its usage, which is something that we feel should not need to be clarified, since no part of this resolution stipulates that such a restriction should be put in place. The right to self defense has been legitimately exercised in jurisdictions where publicly available lethal weapons have been banned. Self defense in itself does not seem to require or imply the use of firearms or other killing implements.
As previous nations have mentioned before, the stipulation that self defense with any common object should not be criminalised is not particularly meaningful; this omits uncommon objects, as weapons might be in jurisdictions outlawing them, and in any case, separate legislation can criminalise the possession or use of illegal objects, thus allowing for a circumvention of this resolution to convict an individual using an illegal object in self-defense.

I'm glad you brought this up, and I find it ironic you took a drastically different stance than half of the other people arguing against the inclusion of the "weapons" clause. Let me clarify your main point real quick, as the last clause states, my resolution should not interfere with extant criminalization of weapons. If someone is convicted, even in self-defense, for using a banned weapon, they deserve to be tried. It's illegal, and you could not rationally justify that you went through the extensive process of buying a banned gun just for the one instance of self-defense. So, no problem there. The inclusion of "common objects" is to mitigate the exclusionary case where a woman hits a very strong robber over the head with a chair and the argument for self-defense is thrown out because the court says she used a weapon, or if Congress passed a law that banned fists, for whatever reason. What's most interesting is that the majority of people who find this resolution abhorrent because they think it advocates or incites violence and weaponization? I don't know where that thought comes from. I specifically made that clause so that people would not say that I was trying to criminalize or legalize violence or weapons. I suppose it boils down to people having predispositions about something topical or controversial, so much so that a lot of voters don't care about the legitimacy of the resolution, they are just trying to reinforce their own political leanings with a fancy chart.

Issue 5: Immediacy of Danger
This is a smaller issue, but what qualifies as 'immediate' is not defined for the purposes of this resolution. We would argue that the reason for the requirement of immediacy is that individuals can escape, and have recourse to the authorities, if the threat could not immediately be exercised. For this reason, the position we would support for any definition of immediacy would be that the individual would have no opportunity for reasonable recourse to authorities before the threat can be carried out. (If the threat could only be carried out in twelve hours, for example, but the individual is thirteen hours away from contacting law enforcement, this would qualify as immediate under this definition although it involves a substantial time-lapse.) We would ask that the requirement of immediacy be elaborated upon in the resolution.

Okay. Once again, a little absurd, and might, at first, appear to make sense. If a threat is going to be carried out in twelve hours, but police cannot arrive except in thirteen hours, you do not procrastinate until the threat is immediate to call law enforcement. Run, board up your windows, do what you need to do. You can't just kill someone on the spot because they said they are going to kill you in twelve hours. That is logically not an immediate threat, thus it does not need to be elaborated on.

Issue 6 (A Late Addendum): Danger to Life
Something that did not occur to us at first, but now has risen to our attention, is that under this resolution self defense can be exercised only to oppose a danger to one's life. This seems unnecessarily restrictive; what about the danger of grievous and/or irreversible bodily harm, that does not amount to a danger to life? (For instance, a threat to amputate one's limbs.) It seems like self defense should be available in these scenarios as well. A more open approach would be to make self defense available against any sort of harm, but the excessiveness of the response should be tagged to the type of harm that is threatened. This will allow a flexible approach while not condoning manifestly excessive behaviour, for instance the murder of someone threatening to inflict a paper cut. This will, of course, rely on the idea of excessive force that must be fleshed out further, as discussed under Issue 3.

I feel like I keep making the same counter argument, but it seems most of the arguments are rooted in the same logic. A danger to someone's life does not necessarily imply that you will die immediately, as, say, a gun might present. If someone has a katana and they intend to cut all your limbs off, it's still certainly a threat to your life. Moreover, as a reasonable person would assume, you would not die from a paper cut, so you should not jump to killing them. I think you have rooted your argument against so firmly in diction you haven't stopped to consider the diction you use to support your own argument. What is grievous bodily damage? What is fatal? And what is a threat? If someone makes an eerily specific verbal threat that they intend to cut all your limbs off, by whatever means, you should distance yourself from them. Not all verbal threats are actual threats to someone's life, and that is determined by context and the severity of the threat. As they argue in 12 Angry Men, saying "I'll kill you" doesn't always mean you intend to kill them. Saying I'll dismember you, while sharpening a katana, is a little different. If a Katana or a gun, or any weapon, or even someone's fists, can dismember your body parts, it can kill you, so it's logically justifiable a person treat it likewise.

[Side note, big thanks to you, Iciaros, I hope you would like to continue the dialogue when a repeal arises, especially if you feel I haven't promptly responded to some of your doubts or concerns. Your commentary was a very eloquent post and, while it took quite some time, I've enjoyed looking at the resolution in a different light to make this reply. It's not so much about the vote, obviously I was not timely enough to convince you to change to for, but I really enjoy the wholesome political discourse. I apologize that I took so long to respond. I'm quite tired now, it's been almost an hour of writing this response and now it's 1am.]

In short, I have heard everything from my resolution stinking of American-ness, which seems a little xenophobic and irrational, to inciting violence, overarching on sovereignty. I guess it was to be expected, but I got the idea after looking more into the political climate of Haitian and the Dominican Republic racial conflict. The DR has justified, or at least, equivocated the killing of innocent Haitians who try to defend themselves from beatings, bombings, torture, amongst other things, by saying it's in the interest of national security, and the Haitian citizens of the DR have no right to self-defense afforded to them. Yes, I am American, as about 300 million people are. Don't think less of me or this proposal because you think it's an American idea."

Thanks to all who voted in support, the resolution has now passed. Goodnight, all.

I'll leave this here.

For every idealistic peacemaker willing to renounce his right to self-defense in favor of a conflict free world, there is at least one warmonger anxious to exploit the other's good intentions.

[Imperium Anglorum]

Issue 2: Self-Defense against Lawful Activities
Though this may be implicit, the resolution at hand does not specifically disallow the exercise of self-defense against lawfully undertaken actions - for instance, government agents acting within the bounds of their authority. If, for example, there were to be a shootout between the police and an armed criminal, could the criminal be said to be acting in self-defense as against the police? Self defense should only be available as a right where it is exercised to oppose an unlawful activity that causes peril. (A corollary of this is that you cannot exercise self-defense against someone exercising self-defense.)

This argument certainly seems valid sifting through the word choice, and that makes it one of the most frustrating and silly. It is certainly implicit; it would've been redundant, just as if I specified that you can't try to electrocute the government when they put you in an electric chair. It's not of the same law, it doesn't really have anything to do with the issue at hand. I see why someone scrutinizing the diction for reasons to vote against could come to that conclusion, but I think if you really think about it as an argument, it's illogical. There have been plenty of resolutions that test the game of Chicken that is government sovereignty opposed to the WA. Like how nobody considers consensual euthanasia or suicide is murder, by definition it is, but nobody would legislate a clause that says "it's okay (or is not okay) to kill yourself".

Asserting that the counter-argument is illogical is not an argument. There is no warrant. Perhaps it is implicit, as claimed in the second sentence. Tell us where. The rest is a non sequitur.

[Araraukar]

b) The force used in response is not excessive with regards to the threat of the situation presented,

"Since the quoted clause continues to allow Araraukar to consider all use of violence by regular citizens to be "excessive", we are not too sad to see this having passed. We would, however, support a repeal, due to the lack of an exception made for law enforcement, regardless of the frivolous defence it would grant anyone."

[Saranidia]

"Gar 9 says nothing about banning Islamic law."

Bell holds up two hands.

"This is your head." He holds hand parallel to the floor at eye level.

"This is the joke." He sends the other hand gently over his head.

"get off me please i fail to see how this is amusing"

[Saranidia]

"To the Ambassadors of Canadiana and Separatist People's and
the "outspoken citizen" of the Republic of Toast I demand satisfaction! If you don't know what that means you may ask!"-Ambassador Sulaiman Khan(his name is not Alexander Khan actually i confused him with someone else) on international television(the BBC and Al Jazeera)

[Separatist Peoples]

Bell holds up two hands.

"This is your head." He holds hand parallel to the floor at eye level.

"This is the joke." He sends the other hand gently over his head.

"get off me please i fail to see how this is amusing"

"I didn't touch you, ambassador. Its amusing because you don't understand the joke. It'll be funnier when you do."

[Arasi Luvasa]

"And until this resolution is repealed, may as well pass legislation stating that any force intentionally causing harm will be considered excessive. That is until our courts can vet a better worded law to work around this in such a way as to essentially be our innitial system permitting violence in self deffence."

[Wallenburg]

"get off me please i fail to see how this is amusing"

"I didn't touch you, ambassador. Its amusing because you don't understand the joke. It'll be funnier when you do."

Ogenbond falls out of his chair.

[Lord Dominator]

"I didn't touch you, ambassador. Its amusing because you don't understand the joke. It'll be funnier when you do."

Ogenbond falls out of his chair.

Dee sets off a part cannon to celebrate the joke.