[DRAFT] For the Uniformity of Asiento Rights

[Nouvelle Provence]

Free Trade
Mild

Noting the reliance of many member nations on commercial intercourse with their partners of this Assembly and their use of contracts or commissions for the importation or exportation of selected goods.

Recognising that there is a need to safeguard the interests of all members of this Assembly as to ensure a proper and fair conduction of commercial exchange for those who resort to the use of asiento rights or any similar contractions and commissions.

Accounting for the fact that as of yet the General Assembly has not passed any resolution that would structuralise the institution of asiento rights or any such similar principle of commerce.

Wary that the lack of meaningful legislation to ensure the good orderliness of this type of commercial intercourse could ultimately create tensions or otherwise open conflicts between member nations.

The General Assembly declares that:

A. This Resolution only pertains to Asientos and to "other derivative" sorts of international commercial agreement. Because defining the "other derivatives" is both impossible and impractical as the many nuances between the many types of compacts could result in further confusion and/or conflict, the usage of Asiento contracts as defined in the present Resolution is at the discretion of the potential part-takers. Therefore:
I. The creation of Asiento agreements strictly abiding to the terms of this Resolution will only be required if all part-takers agree on the principle that whichever commercial venture they are drawing up should be categorised as an agreement of Asiento.
II. This Resolution does not force members to resort to Asiento contracts, the creation of which is only voluntary on their part.
III. All other forms of commercial intercourse are not concerned by this Resolution, the scope of which is only limited to Asientos and similar intercourses as defined by their part-takers.
IV. This Assembly encourages its members to part-take in mutually benefiting commerce and stresses the importance of future legislations pertaining to reducing trade-related conflicts
V. This present Resolution refers to "Asientos" that have nothing to do with slave commerce, which has already been formally outlawed by this Assembly.

B. The notion of "Asiento", or its derived synonyms, refers to a pre-determined right or a set of pre-determined rights which have been granted by an official sovereign government of a nation (hereby referred to as the "Contractor") to another nation, either directly by officially contracting, an agency attached to the sovereign government of the contracted nation (hereby referred to as the "Contractee"), or indirectly via a private individual or a group of private individuals unrelated to the Contractee's government officially licensed by both the Contractor and the Contractee (hereby referred to as the "Contractee's Executor"), to coordinate, define, delimit, or else codify the bounds within which the Contractee or the Contractee's Executor can operate to carry a specific commercial activity.

C. Members of this Assembly, who decide to engage in such a compact, must do so in the following fashion:
I. Be official signatories of a written contract, compact, treaty, or any other meaningful forms of written engagements, of Asiento.
II. The written engagement must clearly define without ambiguity the different parties (Contractor, Contractee, or if applicable, Contactee's Executor).
III. The written engagement must state which good or goods are subject to this Asiento, as well as a defined amount or quantity allocated to the commercial exchange expressed in the relevant measurements of the metric system, or any other viable system of measurement upon which all parties can safely rely on to avoid confusion or misunderstandings, as well as a pre-defined timeframe if applicable within which the agreement may be carried out if so decided by all parties. If found proper, any relevant details pertaining to the said goods for purposes of exchange, such as taxes, tariffs, custom fees, transportation dues, relevant sub-legislation, or any other fact which have been identified by the parties as relevant to their discussed business must be clearly pre-defined within the frame of an Asiento compact.

D. Any part-taker of a formal Asiento contract as defined and ordained by the present resolution who deliberately disregards the terms of said compact will be judged as liable to all the losses experienced by the neglected parties, as well as for compensations of the illicit gains or profits they may have made by breaching their engagements and may face condemnation by the Security Council for untrustworthiness and unfair trading practices.

[Tinhampton]

OOC: Are you aware that the asiento was a contract between Spain and another entity granting that entity exclusive rights to provide slaves for Spanish colonies back in the bad old days? Slavery was outlawed by GA#23.

[Nouvelle Provence]

OOC: Are you aware that the asiento was a contract between Spain and another entity granting that entity exclusive rights to provide slaves for Spanish colonies back in the bad old days? Slavery was outlawed by GA#23.

Very much so Sir! Of all which you have said of course. However, the term "Asiento" is used in this resolution as the main example of this type of commercial contract. "Monopoly" or "charters", didn't quite fit what I wanted to define.

I understand your concerns, and assure you that this is by no means a resolution aimed at regulated any form of slavery.

Furthermore, thanks to your intervention, I shall add a supplemental point in my draft to clarify this.

[Araraukar]

OOC: Could you please remove enter presses from the ends of the lines, as it makes the text line up weirdly on some monitors?

What enter presses make it look like:

A. The notion of "Asiento", or its derived synonyms, refers to a pre-determined right or a set of pre-
determined rights
which have been granted by an official sovereign government of a nation (hereby referred to as the
"Contractor") to
another nation, either directly by officially contracting, an agency attached to the sovereign government of
the
contracted nation (hereby referred to as the "Contractee"), or indirectly via a private individual or a group of
private
individuals unrelated to the Contractee's government officially licensed by both the Contractor and the
Contractee
(hereby referred to as the "Contractee's Executor"), to coordinate, define, delimit, or else codify the bounds
within
which the Contractee or the Contractee's Executor can operate to carry a specific commercial activity.

Also, at least my Finnish sources say that "asiento" basically means "trade contract", and I'm fairly sure we have more than one resolution already concerning trade and contracting. Have you checked those?

[Nouvelle Provence]

Oh, sorry about that! I'll clean that mess up right away as I amend my draft.

Do you mean that "asiento" means "trade contract" in Finnish? Well, I must confess I am not well versed in this language, so pardon my ignorance on this matter. I did look through the Free Trade resolutions and could not find anything related to the said topic. I was surprised in the same that there are so few Free Trade resolutions. Perhaps Free Trade is not the right category?

[Araraukar]

Do you mean that "asiento" means "trade contract" in Finnish?

OOC: Well, not necessarily, because "trade contract" (or contract to trade, more like it) is likely not same as "kauppasopimus", but I'm not an expert on trade legislation so I don't know the exact English term, but that sounds close enough in meaning to my ear.

At a quick look through passed resolutions, things to do with trade:

viewtopic.php?p=10021560#p10021560
viewtopic.php?p=11260510#p11260510
viewtopic.php?p=38150493#p38150493

And the one I remembered was about contracts:

viewtopic.php?p=10021368#p10021368

[Nouvelle Provence]

Cheers, I got caught up for a bit, but now I have a tad more free time.

I looked at the resolution you specified (viewtopic.php?p=10021368#p10021368) and in its section 5 it does permit to further define contracts. Moreover, that resolution pertained to free individuals not necessarily nations, which something I focus on more in this resolution. I will make a bit more fine-tuning, and I will be submitting this resolution relatively soon.

[Outer Sparta]

Cheers, I got caught up for a bit, but now I have a tad more free time.

I looked at the resolution you specified (viewtopic.php?p=10021368#p10021368) and in its section 5 it does permit to further define contracts. Moreover, that resolution pertained to free individuals not necessarily nations, which something I focus on more in this resolution. I will make a bit more fine-tuning, and I will be submitting this resolution relatively soon.

I would hold off submitting it very soon.

[Nouvelle Provence]

Why so? Is there too big of a backlog of proposals?

[Outer Sparta]

Why so? Is there too big of a backlog of proposals?

No, but so that others have had ample time to look over your resolution and so you can get more feedback.

[Nouvelle Provence]

Oh right, good point. It doesn't seem to attract that much attention, though. I will wait a bit more then.

[Araraukar]

Oh right, good point. It doesn't seem to attract that much attention, though. I will wait a bit more then.

OOC: Using a non-English word in the proposal name is likely a reason of not getting much attention as it either means something very negative (slave trade) or is just a nonsense word for the majority of forum-goers. It might even be against proposal rules. Consider switching over to an English term, not just in the name but also in proposal content.

[Bears Armed]

OOC: Using a non-English word in the proposal name is likely a reason of not getting much attention as it either means something very negative (slave trade) or is just a nonsense word for the majority of forum-goers. It might even be against proposal rules.

OOC: Past rulings say that reasonably well-known Latin terms may be allowed where relevant, with all the examples so far that I can recall having been from the field field of legal terminology (e.g. 'Habeas Corpus'), but that probably is the limit. I'm not sure how many other GenSec members would allow a foreign word with a specialised meaning as long as that term was defined in the proposal's opening sentence, but I at least am willing to consider this idea.
Of course, bearing in mind the nature of the English language, any word of foreign origins that becomes sufficiently well-known to English speakers that it wouldn't need a definition has effectively become an 'English' word anyway... 'Asiento' probably is not such a well-known word, although it might be remembered by some English-speakers whose education in history was wide enough to say (as mine did) enough about relations between England & Spain -- and/or the 'South Sea Bubble' -- during the i8th century, and its relationship to the English word 'Assent' might or might not help here...

Some relevant accepted-as-English terms for possible use as alternatives here: "trade agreement", "trade treaty", " 'most favoured nation' status"....

[Nouvelle Provence]

OOC: Using a non-English word in the proposal name is likely a reason of not getting much attention as it either means something very negative (slave trade) or is just a nonsense word for the majority of forum-goers. It might even be against proposal rules.

OOC: Past rulings say that reasonably well-known Latin terms may be allowed where relevant, with all the examples so far that I can recall having been from the field field of legal terminology (e.g. 'Habeas Corpus'), but that probably is the limit. I'm not sure how many other GenSec members would allow a foreign word with a specialised meaning as long as that term was defined in the proposal's opening sentence, but I at least am willing to consider this idea.
Of course, bearing in mind the nature of the English language, any word of foreign origins that becomes sufficiently well-known to English speakers that it wouldn't need a definition has effectively become an 'English' word anyway... 'Asiento' probably is not such a well-known word, although it might be remembered by some English-speakers whose education in history was wide enough to say (as mine did) enough about relations between England & Spain -- and/or the 'South Sea Bubble' -- during the i8th century, and its relationship to the English word 'Assent' might or might not help here...

Some relevant accepted-as-English terms for possible use as alternatives here: "trade agreement", "trade treaty", " 'most favoured nation' status"....

Fair points, perhaps it should have been something that I should have considered. To be fair, I still struggle to find an accurate English translation for the notion of asiento. Even in French I cannot find a good translation as they too use the Spanish word. Only in German have I found that they use the word "Vertrag" for "Asiento" which means "contract" which itself is far too vague.

Another point I would like to raise is that what everyone refers to as the Asiento is actually the Asiento de Negros, the asiento on slave imports in Spanish America. However, an Asiento is just that, an Asiento. I know that when one speaks of the Asiento it is done so in an abuse of language as they refer to it as if it were the only Asiento that there ever was, which is not the case. Yet, playing on this subtlety would simply lead to even more confusion.

I found this passage of the relevant Wiki article which helps define the terms:
The general meaning of asiento (from the Spanish verb sentar, to sit, which was derived from the Latin sedere) in Spanish is "consent" or "settlement, establishment". In a commercial context it means "contract, trading agreement". In the words of Georges Scelle, it was "a term in Spanish public law which designates every contract made for the purpose of public utility...between the Spanish government and private individuals."
Nevertheless, would that be defined as a monopoly charter? A chartered company? A government contract? I feel as if none of these accurately define an asiento, the lack thereof definition forces the use of the word "asiento", which leads to confusion as we have discussed so far.

I am thinking that perhaps I should just dive in it and define/clarify all of this within my resolution draft, at the cost of making it tediously long and heavy...

[Araraukar]

Nevertheless, would that be defined as a monopoly charter? A chartered company? A government contract? I feel as if none of these accurately define an asiento

OOC: BA really did provide you with the right one (based on what I read about RL Asiento elsewhere but Wikipedia):

" 'most favoured nation' status"

[Nouvelle Provence]

Nevertheless, would that be defined as a monopoly charter? A chartered company? A government contract? I feel as if none of these accurately define an asiento

OOC: BA really did provide you with the right one (based on what I read about RL Asiento elsewhere but Wikipedia):

" 'most favoured nation' status"

Well, the core problem with adopting the term "trade agreement" or "trade treaty" is that I would be writing an entirely different resolution than it intend, one that would be covering a very large area. A trade agreement is very generic and could be applicable to any deal struck between two nations. That feels far too overreaching, especially since I intended to only formalise a very specific type of trade deal in order to avoid the potential quagmire of attempting to regulate trade deals in general.

I do like the term "most favoured nation's status", perhaps I will reword that into something more specific. Yet again, although it comes closer, it still seems to differ from an asiento.

I guess I am left with no choice but to make a big step and tediously add clauses to the draft which bring ever more clarifications and definitions. I will try to see how a reworded "most favoured nation's status" would work out.

[Araraukar]

I guess I am left with no choice but to make a big step and tediously add clauses to the draft which bring ever more clarifications and definitions. I will try to see how a reworded "most favoured nation's status" would work out.

OOC: I think you need a serious rethink about your proposal in general. Though other languages may say things simpler at times, you're still going to need to sell the idea to mainly English-using voters, who tend to have an aversion to non-English terminology.

Rather than add definitions of asiento, call it something else entirely. Moving RL concepts into NS tends to not work as 100% conversion anyway.

So, what's the main thing you want to do? Promote most favourite trade partner thing? Ban it? Why, on either? Has it already been done? There are a few trade-relations-related resolutions out there that might make such favoritism already illegal or at least very difficult. And at least one that may make totally banning it illegal/impossible as well.

Try rewriting the proposal without using "asiento" at all, and see where it gets you?

[Bananaistan]

OOC: Existing legislation is relevant, I think - I'm not quite sure because it's hard to make out exactly what this is trying to do. See GAR# 205 and GAR#531.

[Wallenburg]

Okay, so the main issue here is that the entire proposal is damned near incomprehensible. I still don't know what an asiento is after reading your definitions several times, probably because the main definition is a massive run-on sentence. You also use your words in an unusual manner, such that I don't know whether you intend your proposal to work one way or another. You also just make up some words, such as "part-taker", which I can only guess as to the meaning of.

A. This Resolution only pertains to Asientos and to "other derivative" sorts of international commercial agreement. Because defining the "other derivatives" is both impossible and impractical as the many nuances between the many types of compacts could result in further confusion and/or conflict, the usage of Asiento contracts as defined in the present Resolution is at the discretion of the potential part-takers.

I do not understand this. Do you mean that member states are explicitly permitted to define "asiento" as "vanilla custard"? Or that member states are not required to create asientos? Because the first is a really bad idea and the second is already in your proposal.

Therefore:
I. The creation of Asiento agreements strictly abiding to the terms of this Resolution will only be required if all part-takers agree on the principle that whichever commercial venture they are drawing up should be categorised as an agreement of Asiento.
II. This Resolution does not force members to resort to Asiento contracts, the creation of which is only voluntary on their part.

These contradict each other. The first section requires the creation of asientos in certian circumstances, and the second section states that the creation of aseintos is never required.

V. This present Resolution refers to "Asientos" that have nothing to do with slave commerce, which has already been formally outlawed by this Assembly.

I'm not sure whether this violates the House of Cards rule for relying on existing legislation, but even if it doesn't it is totally unnecessary. Slavery is banned independent of your contract law.

C. Members of this Assembly, who decide to engage in such a compact, must do so in the following fashion:
I. Be official signatories of a written contract, compact, treaty, or any other meaningful forms of written engagements, of Asiento.
II. The written engagement must clearly define without ambiguity the different parties (Contractor, Contractee, or if applicable, Contactee's Executor).
III. The written engagement must state which good or goods are subject to this Asiento, as well as a defined amount or quantity allocated to the commercial exchange expressed in the relevant measurements of the metric system, or any other viable system of measurement upon which all parties can safely rely on to avoid confusion or misunderstandings, as well as a pre-defined timeframe if applicable within which the agreement may be carried out if so decided by all parties. If found proper, any relevant details pertaining to the said goods for purposes of exchange, such as taxes, tariffs, custom fees, transportation dues, relevant sub-legislation, or any other fact which have been identified by the parties as relevant to their discussed business must be clearly pre-defined within the frame of an Asiento compact.

This seems to just be the requirements for making a contract. I don't see how this is of international importance, given that any member state would already do these things. No member state is going to sign a treaty giving away various rights to other nations and then not name the nations it is giving them to.

D. Any part-taker of a formal Asiento contract as defined and ordained by the present resolution who deliberately disregards the terms of said compact will be judged as liable to all the losses experienced by the neglected parties, as well as for compensations of the illicit gains or profits they may have made by breaching their engagements and may face condemnation by the Security Council for untrustworthiness and unfair trading practices.

That last part is a Game Mechanics violation. The GA cannot compel Security Council action.

[Outer Sparta]

Using the English equivalent of what an "Asiento" means would be a start to improving your resolution. Otherwise, I don't see much potential in this.

[Sierra Lyricalia]

Using the English equivalent of what an "Asiento" means would be a start to improving your resolution. Otherwise, I don't see much potential in this.

OOC: Google isn't terribly helpful (to the author, anyway). Virtually all hits use the term solely to mean the asiento de negros (the slave trade monopoly). However, there is this useful excerpt:

An asiento is a Spanish language-term used to describe short-term loan or debt contract, of about one to four years, signed between the Spanish crown and a banker or a small group of bankers ("asentistas") against future crown revenues,[5][6] often included after peace treaties were signed. An asiento covered one or a combination of three specific transactions: an unsecured short-term loan, a transfer of payment, and a currency exchange contract.[7]

(source)

Both this and the author's own draft indicate that types of asiento are so varied as to be not worth the formal definition here. The only possible operative language, then, is what the author has requiring that these agreements be explicit in all their particulars. That is something that the WA might find useful for all contracts (especially because using the term asiento absolutely guarantees that some party will break their contract and then claim that it wasn't an asiento it was actually this other kind of contract which isn't subject to these requirements because it's not called an asiento so they didn't really break it, because you see there was nothing prohibiting these secret clauses or what was alluded to in Exhibit AA-23 but not named by name per se, so...........

I note there does not exist this type of commercial good faith requirement in current WA law. The author might happen to like the word "asiento," but would be well-advised to drop it both because of the slavery connotations and because the term is totally unnecessary for any goal the WA could reasonably wish to achieve.