[CHALLENGE AT-VOTE] Repeal: “On Scientific Cooperation”

[Princess Rainbow Sparkles]

*snip*

Snark acknowledged. No offense intended. They say you shouldn't scold the ref about the call they are making; you should scold them about the call they are going to make in the future. Sometimes I take that too literally.

[Sierra Lyricalia]

I have conducted a quick manual review of unrepealed legislation in search of cases where a WA committee is tasked with enforcing some requirement, directive, financial burden, or other exertion of its will upon member states; where there is no separate explicit requirement that member states abide by the committee's will. Given 1) the clear intent in these resolutions that the committee's directives are to be followed by member states, and 2) the longevity and/or importance of some of these resolutions, a sudden finding that WA committees are no longer able to enforce directives upon member states without separate, explicit authorization, would be absurd.

The following committees are authorized by the WA to enforce requirements on member states, without an explicit direction to member states to follow such requirements:

• General Accounting Office (#17) - in assessing "donations" to the General Fund
• WA Food & Drug Regulatory Agency (#64) - places some mandates on states but gives WAFDRA job of enforcing others without specific mandate that nations comply
• Office for Education Exchange (#159) - if formatting were this nitpicky, OEX would be bypassed by the WA itself in matters presumably under OEX's remit: in same section, verbs (presumably?) indicating OEX activity vs. acting externally upon OEX
• WA Trade Commission (#208) - WATC may enforce arbitration decisions by fine, without explicit direction for nations to comply nor statement that they may not withdraw consent to binding arbitration
• Joint Water Resources Management Panel (#223) - agency is to establish policies, protocols, regulations to protect transboundary waters; member nations have several explicit mandates, none of which involve these policies, protocols, or regulations. Crucially: "CLARIFIES that member nations may... Enact more stringent environmental and water conservation laws than those stipulated by JWRMP."
• Spill and Leak Disaster Administration (#298) - agency may collect fines from negligent spillers, but nations must merely establish standards for preventing spills, and deny entry to transports operated by noncompliant entities
• WASP Atmospheric Chemistry Establishment (#445) - ACE may issue punitive fees for member nations, but there is no requirement to either pay such fees or abide by ACE emissions targets
• WHA (#499, Clause 7) - WHA must issue regulations; within same clause "Such regulations overrule those made by members..."

This one is just incoherently written and should probably be repealed and replaced as its mandates on nations are explicit, but clearly wrongly directed (rather than implicit or through the committee on purpose). I include it here for the sake of completeness:

• Committee for the Preservation of Marine Environments (#510) - nations mandated only to "implement regulations," not specifically CPME's regulations, nor ones actually designed to protect marine sanctuaries: only located in marine sanctuaries; CPME also tasked to distribute sanctuary regulations to member nations "should they desire that information" rather than as a matter of course or enforcement.

---

TL;dr - the WA has a long history in which it must be presumed to have the power to implicitly delegate authority to its committees to enforce directives upon member states, even in the absence of an explicit mandate for states to comply with such directives. Declaring that power nonexistent by virtue of (to use a metaphor) which folder in the file directory the committee's instruction to enforce its directives was placed in, has no basis in any existing interpretation of WA rules.

[Imperium Anglorum]

I concur with SL and would vote illegal on similar reasoning.

[Merni]

Is GenSec formally considering this challenge? I get that we won't probably get a decision by the time the proposal passes (in about 24 hours), but it would be nice to have precedent on the issues raised here, at least, even if it doesn't have an effect on this proposal.

[Hulldom]

Is GenSec formally considering this challenge? I get that we won't probably get a decision by the time the proposal passes (in about 24 hours), but it would be nice to have precedent on the issues raised here, at least, even if it doesn't have an effect on this proposal.

I'm going to go with what IA said and point out that I imagine they're going to discard.

While I wish it would have been brought up earlier, I am glad that you brought this up anyways, Merni. Onwards and upwards.

[Merni]

Is GenSec formally considering this challenge? I get that we won't probably get a decision by the time the proposal passes (in about 24 hours), but it would be nice to have precedent on the issues raised here, at least, even if it doesn't have an effect on this proposal.

I'm going to go with what IA said and point out that I imagine they're going to discard.

While I wish it would have been brought up earlier, I am glad that you brought this up anyways, Merni. Onwards and upwards.

It isn't the issue I brought up that SL and IA discussed anyway -- I should thank Princess Rainbow Sparkles for that

[Sierra Lyricalia]

Is GenSec formally considering this challenge? I get that we won't probably get a decision by the time the proposal passes (in about 24 hours), but it would be nice to have precedent on the issues raised here, at least, even if it doesn't have an effect on this proposal.

We are discussing it. We'll give you at least legal/illegal before the vote ends, and discard if necessary.

[Ainocra]

Perhaps it speaks ill of me to say that I find this vastly amusing.

The original resolution was declared illegal while at vote but was passed into law despite that.
Now the repeal seems to be headed toward a similar fate.

I don't know that I'll ever be able to top that little bit of WA lore

[Sierra Lyricalia]

*** Notice ***

A majority of GenSec has found the current proposal illegal for an Honest Mistake violation. The proposal will be Discarded at the end of the voting period.

[Hulldom]

Thank you Gen Sec for doing your due diligence. Obviously not the result I was hoping for, but we live and we learn.

[Princess Rainbow Sparkles]

Thank you Gen Sec for doing your due diligence. Obviously not the result I was hoping for, but we live and we learn.

FWIW, I do hope you regroup and try again. I agreed strongly with your argument about censorship and I think that's a genuine, harmful flaw in a resolution that is supposed to be about fostering good scientific cooperation. Also, while I aggressively attacked your arguments about the risk of pseudo-science and unscientific data entering the archive, I was persuaded by Sep's reply and IA's reply that those claims should survive the HM rule. The voters as a whole were obviously very impressed by the repeal argument.

And the irony of having an ambiguously formatted resolution with a typo in the preamble as the standard-bearer for WA scientific cooperation is certainly not lost on me.

The original resolution was declared illegal while at vote but was passed into law despite that.

I reviewed the record of the original resolution's drafting thread you provided. (Thanks BTW). It appears that the OSC proposal was deemed illegal at vote for a committee-only violation. But the committee-only rule in effect at the time appears to have been substantially different from the one we have now. Back then committees were supposed to be additions to resolutions. Now they can be the primary thing a resolution does. Simply having member nations interact with the committee somehow is specifically stated in the current rule set as being enough to avoid a committee-only violation.

Were OSC at vote today, I don't think there could be the same question of its legality that was raised back in 2015.

[Imperium Anglorum]

The original resolution was declared illegal while at vote but was passed into law despite that.

I reviewed the record of the original resolution's drafting thread you provided. (Thanks BTW). It appears that the OSC proposal was deemed illegal at vote for a committee-only violation. But the committee-only rule in effect at the time appears to have been substantially different from the one we have now. Back then committees were supposed to be additions to resolutions. Now they can be the primary thing a resolution does. Simply having member nations interact with the committee somehow is specifically stated in the current rule set as being enough to avoid a committee-only violation.

Were OSC at vote today, I don't think there could be the same question of its legality that was raised back in 2015.

Yea, the old strip-out test is dead. What we have now is an incomplete compromise where committee actions aren't on the same 'level' as 'real' actions, but at least you can acknowledge they exist.

[Ainocra]

I reviewed the record of the original resolution's drafting thread you provided. (Thanks BTW). It appears that the OSC proposal was deemed illegal at vote for a committee-only violation. But the committee-only rule in effect at the time appears to have been substantially different from the one we have now. Back then committees were supposed to be additions to resolutions. Now they can be the primary thing a resolution does. Simply having member nations interact with the committee somehow is specifically stated in the current rule set as being enough to avoid a committee-only violation.

Were OSC at vote today, I don't think there could be the same question of its legality that was raised back in 2015.

Yea, the old strip-out test is dead. What we have now is an incomplete compromise where committee actions aren't on the same 'level' as 'real' actions, but at least you can acknowledge they exist.

I do feel that the current rule is superior. I was quite impressed by the repeal as well. Very well done. Hopefully it can be easily amended and resubmitted.

[Imperium Anglorum]

*** Opinion of the Secretariat ***

The Secretariat found the proposal illegal on honest mistake grounds. Imperium Anglorum wrote Part I of the Opinion; Sierra Lyricalia wrote Part II. They were joined by Separatist Peoples, Grays Harbor, and Bananaistan. Imperium Anglorum wrote a concurring opinion. Bears Armed did not participate.

Opinion

[1] There are four issues at hand. They are here presented chronologically.

1. Is the claim in the repeal that the target does not account for member nations possibly 'mak[ing] parts of scientific study illegal and thus prevent[ing] the dissemination of materials from the WASP regarding the scientific consensus' not colourable? Challenger argues GA 436 'Protecting Free Expression' would preclude such censorship.
2. Are there actually no mandates in the target imposed on member nations?
3. Could pseudo-science be included by target clause 1(a)'s reference to 'any and all publicly available scientific literature'?
4. Could 'unscientific and pseudo-scientific data' be collected by clause 1(b)'s collection of 'all data relevant to [WASP]'s mandate'?

Part I

[2] This part relates to issues 1, 3, and 4. We reject the challenges for these issues. See Part II for issue 2.

[3] With Issue 1, [2018] GAS 1 ('Epidemics and risk') establishes that making a claim that a target does not cover some topic – an omission claim – is not an honest mistake when the omission is 'very relevant' to the target's topic. Challenger M argues against applying [2018] GAS 1. @. M argues censorship is not related to scientific cooperation, yet free sharing of scientific knowledge (as desired in target preamble) and censorship are incompatible. M argues similarity to a separate clause in [2018] GAS 1 not making an omission claim; this is irrelevant. M argues a difference in framing, that placing the censorship claim in a separate sentence has the repeal make a general claim. This is the strongest difference; the whole-text canon, however, rejects it. The following sentence immediately places that general claim in terms of the target resolution 'fail[ing] to consider' it.

[4] We conclude, therefore, the repeal is protected by [2018] GAS 1's omission claim precedent. Even if the framing question were resolved for the challenger, for the repeal to be illegal, GA 436 would have to wholly preclude censoring of scientific dissemination. It does not. GA 436 s 2 provides many exceptions to free expression. Challenger admits that member nations arguably may be permitted to censor some dissemination under some portions of GA 436 s 2. That it is arguable is also sufficient space for the repeal to be legal.

[5] Issue 3 argues that target's scientific literature archive cannot 'include[...] pseudo-scientific literature' because 'pseudoscience is, by definition, not included in science'. @. This is too narrow a reading. The Oxford Dictionary of English defines 'pseudoscience', in relevant part, as 'beliefs... mistakenly regarded as being based on scientific method'. If something is mistakenly believed to be scientific, the archive would include it. To rule otherwise would endow committees with preternatural clairvoyance; we are not willing to so endow.

[6] Issue 4 argues that 'all data relevant to [WASP]'s mandate' cannot include 'unscientific and pseudo-scientific data'. As the matter in Issue 3 determines the scope of WASP's mandate, the same analysis as above applies. Collections of scientific literature are not somehow immune to the possibility of fraudulent or anecdotal papers. Not only is p-hacking an unfortunate occurrence under cutthroat publishing conditions, there have been high-profile cases of previously lauded results being discredited after discovery of data fakery. Constructing a dataset to produce a desired result is gravely unscientific. That this occurs in real life is more than sufficient to establish the factual plausibility of the repeal's claim.

Part II

[7] Repeal's Clause 5 reads, "This legislation presents no mandate on member states, only facilitating their potential cooperation." But the target resolution reads, in part:

1) Hereby tasks the WASP with the following mandate;
...
(b) Requires all WA members to cooperate with the WASP by supplying it with all data relevant to it's mandate within extant national and subnational law.

[8] The requirement in target's 1(b) makes the repeal's allegation a clear misrepresentation on its face. It was, however, argued that this format – instructing a committee to require member state cooperation, rather than requiring cooperation from member states in the first instance – makes the repeal allegation colorable. That is, only the WA can require compliance from member states: to be enforceable, committee instructions to member states require a clause outside of the committee's list of powers, specifically instructing member states that they must cooperate with the committee. For this to be the case, GenSec must make a novel game rule finding that WA committees cannot act on member states without a separate enabling clause, implying they cannot act on member states by themselves.

[9] There is no formal precedent either way on this question. The old version of the Committee rule would have made any proposal illegal which, like the target, acted only through a committee; but we rejected the old strip-out test in 2018. The new Committee rule implies that committees can, by themselves, give rise to statistical effects on member nations. To hold otherwise would require yet another rule rewrite, upsetting guidance and creating an internal logical inconsistency.

[10] Moreover, we can look at past resolutions to see if every single committee held to have power over member states in fact uses a separate enforcement clause to cement its authority. A number of resolutions do so. However, the practice of a separate enforcement clause is far from universal. Eight separate unrepealed resolutions (as of this writing) instruct a committee to require member states to comply with its directives, without including a separate clause specifically instructing member states to comply. Past practice has assumed that committees, when given regulatory powers, are also given the necessary enforcement powers without the need for a separate enforcement clause. Were we to rule otherwise now, that necessarily changes the way the entire community must interpret several existing resolutions.

[11] For all of these reasons, we therefore determine the repeal illegal for misrepresenting its target (the "Honest Mistake" rule) in Clause 5.

Concurring (Imperium Anglorum)

[12] In this matter, I would have also been willing to narrow the test in [2018] GAS 1 for omissions claims, permitting such claims in general if true. The current test for omission claims, permitting them if they are 'very relevant to the topic of the resolution', is too subjective. The test requires an unclear judgement call from the Secretariat as to what the 'true' 'topic' of the resolution is.

[13] Resolutions are not always topically unified. Eg GA 500 'International Criminal Protocol' and GA 580 'Omnibus Due Process Act'. Unless the Secretariat would be willing to accept almost any omission claim that includes any mention of any topic touched on in the target resolution, this would impose an unclear and difficult to predict burden for repeal authors. If the Secretariat were so willing, there would be almost no meaningful difference – authors being under incentives to present a coherent and cohesive case for repeal to voters – between that standard and the complete omission of a topicality requirement.

[14] Previous repeals also have made omission claims – even totally non-topical ones – before. Eg GA 368 'Repeal "Law Enforcement Education"' ('Disappointed by the resolution's lack of [an Orange Julius]'). GA 368's Orange Julius omission claim was not challenged on Honest Mistake or Joke grounds at the time. This previous resolution, which I would stress is not binding, trends also towards permitting such omission claims in general.

[15] Clearer guidance and more predictable decisions would be brought with a bright-line rule omitting that subjectivity.

2022gas2 ; correction made as to post location.

[Ainocra]

I would like to thank the Secretariat for their diligence. This was a fascinating read to begin my morning. Let me finish my coffee and I'll see what I can foul up today.