NationStates Jolt Archive

I can't understand why individual nations don't have the right to ignore resolutions passed by the UN. What if I want my nation to be apart of the UN, but don't agree with one or two of the passed resolutions. Take the Legalize prostitution resolution for example. Why should 9000 UN nations have to legalize prostitution because 10000 wanted it legalized? Does this not just make the UN a large parliament governing the world for us?

sadly, it's because those are the terms of the UN that you enter.

Quroum (horridly mangled spelling) is hard to achieve because not everyone votes... it's a question of who cares enough to vote and that's the way voluntary voting works (so all of you with that lovely little issue can think about that heh)

The UN in NS is capable of enforcing its laws as they are created. However, loopholes exist in most every passed resolution as it doesnt seem to take much to get anything by... You abide by all the laws passed, however, because your voice was counted among those who voted.

Illaria still supports the prayer of a way to repeal previously passed legislation, however unlikely that is... but is willing to continue the system as is also...

Well, if the UN could be considered a world parliament, then how could it be considered a political step BACKWARDS? There's been nothing like this before...

Illaria notes that this seems more and more like Federalism on a global scale.

The representative of the People's Republic of Rasputa notes that in the world today, a certain degree of federalism wouldn't go amiss, due the wild disparagies in wealth, rights, and standards of living as they exist today. Any nation that joins the UN should do so with the intention of all human beings living under a unified international code of liberty and humanity as both the means and the end of this endeavour, and that if that is NOT their intention, then what the zutz are they doing here? If they do not wish to give up their sovereign rights, they don't have to join, and that, as they say, is that.

The Lone Star Republic agrees that the UN (in NS) is a forum for enforcing human and civil rights in member nations. And a measure of sovereignty is given up accordingly. We accept those terms and remain UN members.

That is not to say, however, that we have to just bend over and take whatever voters feel like passing, especially when those issues have dire consequences to the traditions, culture, or ideological values of member nations. The UN is designed to act in a way to bring peace and cooperation to the international community, not make petty desicions on national laws. Dissenting voices should be heard, not shut up just because some members feel it's useless to disagree.

The People's Republic of Rasputa accepts that some measures are abhorrent to some member states, but that instead of simply picking and choosing which measures you like and which you don't like, a more internationalist and rationalist approach could be adopted.

However, Rasputa will petition its regional delegate to propose a change in the UN's voting structure, so that instead of relying on a simple majority, a majority of all UN member states (approximately 18,000 votes) is necessary for a Resolution to be passed, requiring an active commitment on the part of the proposers to argue the case for the proposal.

That better?

Protheraticessesceleon is not a member of the UN, for many good reasons, but just after the passage of euthanasia resolution I posted some thoughts on reform, which I now repeat:

A lot of people have been complaining about "stupid" proposals.

These proposals would not be a problem, of course, if it were not for the fact that they are often passed. But why would so many leaders vote for a stupid proposal? Are they so misinformed? Perhaps not; often it is the case that, although the central idea of a proposal is good, the rest is not well thought-out or written. Grammar and spelling mistakes are made, and crucial details are left unaddressed. Often a proposal's supporters wish they could make a few changes. Is there any reason why they shouldn't be able to?

The problem, as I see it, is that proposals are usually posted first to the UN and then discussed on the forums. At that time, it is too late to make changes to the proposal. But it doesn't have to be this way.

The solution is not to complain to the mods or to make game mechanics proposals. The power to bring better proposals to the floor of the UN is in the hands of its members alone. What we need is for the leaders of the world to rise up and send a message to the proposal makers that they will be more likely to support a proposal that goes to the forum first. The proposal writers will respond.

After a proposal has been discussed in the forum for a few days, an informal vote could be taken, if necessary, to see which of the various versions would have the most "yes" votes. This would benefit not only the UN at large, but also the proposer, because he or she would learn which small changes to the proposal would make it more likely to be accepted.

The final product of this process would be more likely to pass because of having clean spelling and grammar and being visibly better thought-out. In addition, the proposal might contain a short statement that it had undergone such a review, and a URL to the thread in which it took place.

Nor would this idea for getting saner proposals require much work from any one person -- just a group of people each making a small contribution. If the proposer isn't planning to be available a few days later, he or she could request that a volunteer submit the final proposal when the time came. There would be no need for anyone to supervise the process; everything could be done by volunteers.

What do you think?

EDIT: Double post! My bad!

EDIT: Triple post? Oh my...

Well, due to technical problems I'll give this a second try ...

There are several reforms that would be nice for our electronic UN, but I can't speak to how realistic they'd be to implement. For now, I'd like to focus on just the "Super Majority".

I've always liked the way that some forms of Paliamentary Proceedure handles a "Important Question". A super majority, be it 2/3 or 3/5 or whatever, is something that is required for certain votes and optional for others.

Even though CoM voted in favour of the most recent UN resolution, should the resolution been something to which our Confederation is seriously opposed to, we too would have been forced to withdrawl from the UN. Drastic, yes, but it is our opinion that allowing members to *raise* the number of votes necessary to pass "Important" resolutions would be one way to keep nations interested in the UN process and encourage us all to hammer out better proposals and agreements.

We'd propose that this forum be modified such that any when any Resolution is being debated that any nation can motion for the question to be considered "Important" and then increase the number of votes necessary for the resolution to pass. Then a *short* debate on the motion of increasing the number of votes necessary to pass could begin. If 50%+1 of the votes are in favour of making the resolution "Important", then for that resolution, the standard would be higher.

However, in practice this might just happen all the time. We have no feel for how frequent this would be, and if we can be persuaded that most resolutions would be "Important", then CoM would be in support of using Super Majorities to pass resolutions.

Afterall, with all of the diversity surrounding us, majority rule can not come at the expensive of minority rights!

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What we need is for the leaders of the world to rise up and send a message to the proposal makers that they will be more likely to support a proposal that goes to the forum first. The proposal writers will respond.
There have been several of these collaborative efforts, with moderately decent success. Unfortuately, none of them have made it through the approval process yet.Frisbeeteria created Rights and Duties of UN States via the collaborative method. We hope to resubmit it soon, when server lag will actually allow for its review and hopeful passage.

Sydia's Ban Child Soldiers was altered and updated via forum input. It's currently up for Approval and worthy of consideration.

1 Infinite Loop and Naleth collaborated offsite to create the Laws of Robotics proposal. It was fun, but not particularly practical to NS. Almost made it, though.There are a ton of dead and dying proposals currently in queue, and the vast majority of them are posted by nations who never grace these halls. Frisbeeteria stands fully behind the collaborative model, but we think you're preaching to the choir on this one