NationStates Jolt Archive

Why should other nations listen to the UN? Seemingly each country has the right not to obey the will of other countries; it's soveregnity. There should be a line between being part of the international community and being forced to abide by foreign resolutions.

UN membership is voluntary. No one is forcing you to obey resolutions. Why should you listen to it? Well, if you are a member, then you agreed to do so. If you aren't a member, then the resolutions mean nothing to you.

I would like to clearly state that the U.N. is optional. Each country has the choice of applying and only those in are effected. Non-U.N. members don't have to care a thing about what goes on in the U.N. because you are not a member. If you want to be part of the organization you have to follow their rules and I can see your point. My final opinion is that you don't have to do anything, but if you don't join the U.N. you will not experience the full effect of the game. Maybe you should try to join another organization.

UN membership is voluntary. No one is forcing you to obey resolutions. Why should you listen to it? Well, if you are a member, then you agreed to do so. If you aren't a member, then the resolutions mean nothing to you.

This is a great question.

The answer is perhaps the most lame of the magic 8-ball responses: It Depends.

Here is a case for when even non-UN members should pay attention to UN resolutions: the Diplomatic Immunity resolution proposed by Rehochipe. In the resolution a "model" agreement between two nations is established. If a non-UN member wants to send a mission to a UN member and the resolution passes, it looks to me like the UN nation would have to honor that agreement. To date, embassies have been informal. But with rules established, UN members are probably going to ask that non-UN members honor the same rules with them.

So the answer is, even if you aren't a member of the UN, chances are that if you want to have normal relations with a UN member, that you'll have to play by the rules.


Another example: Ballast Water.

Again, non-UN ships coming into UN ports now have to report that they have exchanged their ballast water while at deep sea. There is no advantage to a shipping company to fly the flag of a non-UN ship. In fact, there actually is a small insentive for shipping companies to now base their ships out of UN ports.

Assuming that UN ports are going to be safer with these regulations, if you have the choice of a clean ship or a high risk ship coming into port, which one would your nation be wary about admitting?

Hobgoblonia pointed this out to us by particing in the debate and saying that his nation did not agree with the cost of an extra 20-40 hours of travel time added onto the weeks of travel for shipping, but he did have standing to bring his plea to the UN, because his ships will have to follow the rules the same as ours when going to UN ports.

(The flip side is non-UN ports may have more relaxed environmental standards, so it is possible that in the short-term that shipping will redirect to these ports and use rail to make up the last leg of the trip ... of course this is assuming that the ports are close enough to the final destination of the cargo.)

10kMichael

I think the problem with the United Nations is that many people abuse it. Most people send in resolutions about national issues. It should be kept to INTERnational issues. I think one resolution that passed was "Legalize Prostitution". This has nothing to do with the welfare of the international community. It's just a post that someone thought would be a good idea to put there.

The United Nations needs to be reformed. If we should have to abide by their resolutions, then the resolutions should encompass RELEVANT INTERnational issues, not internal issues such as "Legalizing Prostitution".

What exactly is a relevant international issue? If the purpose of the United Nations is to further the achievments of mankind, then surely facilitating those achievmenst in any way are also important aims of the UN. So, if legalising prostitution benefits people by removing the criminal element from the sex industry, thus making prostitution a safer industry to work in, increasing health by monitoring prostitutes and reducing the chance of transmission of STIs (some of which are virtually wiping out whole nations in Africa), increasing taxable income for governments thus making them richer, helping to remove the stigma from one of the oldest professions known to man, then this is a relevant international issue in that it aids all people in all countries. Sovereignty is virtually abandoned when a nation signs to the UN, as was the case with European nations signing to the EU. If you do not like the decisions the UN makes, then leave the UN. However small a situation or proposal seems to be, the ultimate effect could be wide ranging and worthy of UN attention.

Why should other nations listen to the UN? Seemingly each country has the right not to obey the will of other countries; it's soveregnity. There should be a line between being part of the international community and being forced to abide by foreign resolutions.

Perhaps this is a question best answered with another question: Why should anyone obey the will of another person or group of people at all? Don't people have sovereignty and freedom of choice and action? Can't people do as they choose? Why shouldn't I be able to smash someone else's nose in if I feel like it?

Part of it is beyond the player's control... the coding in the game reach's out and touch every player. That is part of playing this type of game... I'm sure the techies are always willing to look at some new code.

You only have a right to praise :D or criticize :evil:... if you are part of the process. Every player is entitled to a comprehensive, readable set of game rules, but that is another story :P .

Some people object to the whole principle of having their nation affected by UN legislation. To them I say, don't worry, UN membership is not compulsory. If you are not a member, nothing the UN does will affect your nation.

Others enjoy the benefits that UN membership brings, but strongly object to some legislation. To them I say, if you feel that strongly about a particular Resolution, resign before it passes, and rejoin a day later. Thus you will have dodged its effects.

Why worry?

Tactical Grace
UN Delegate / Minister of War / Defence Consultancy
Mercia The Next Generation (http://www.nationstates.net/cgi-bin/index.cgi/target=display_region/region=Mercia_The_Next_Generation)

So far, I have found that passed UN Resolution have not had much of an affect.

To them I say, if you feel that strongly about a particular Resolution, resign before it passes, and rejoin a day later. Thus you will have dodged its effects.

Now, this is the kind of sneaky, but legal stuff I want to know. Actually, to me... it is the issues that can influence a nation the most. To script an issue that will be accepted... appears to be a lot harder to me. Standards are much higher... than with resolutions :lol: .

Others enjoy the benefits that UN membership brings...

What exactly are these benefits? I have been a member of the UN in the past, but lost that when a friend hacked into my nation... anyways, the best I got from it was a little banner that says "UN Member" Not that I have anything against the UN (please point the collective arms of the UN away from my capital **gets down on knees and begs**)

A relevant international issue would be an issue pertaining to something on an international level. For instance, a resolution about trade is international. Legalizing Prostitution is not international. That's internal. I know, I know, that many will say "Well, YOU signed up for the UN, so YOU have to listen." That's walking around the argument here. The issue is what the UN should be used for, or whether it should be used at all. Saying "You signed up for it, you knew what to expect" in a debate like this is the equivilent to saying "I don't think we should be able to use marijuana because it is against the law"

Yes, the UN's jurisdiction is international, but what counts as an international issue is debatable. Trade, travel and the environment, certainly. But it's very easy to make an argument that human rights transcend national borders.

Yeah, the UN has passed a couple of resolutions that should really have been left to national sovereignty. But these aren't really very big issues as far as we're concerned. If you feel legalised prostitution and gay marriage will really cause your society such harm (and god knows Australia and Holland are collapsing into anarchy), feel free to stay out of the UN.
As a rule, proposals that impinge unacceptably on national sovereignty are ruthlessly mocked on the forums and don't make it to quorum. There are exceptions, true, but they tend to be benign ones.

The UN by nature is regulated by the members (unless something is illegal then a mod steps in). Collectively we decide what is relevant.

Desdemona,
UN representative,
The Black New World
Do you know what ‘gay science’ is?

To reply to a few points:

Yes, getting an issue scripted is extremely hard, for every one that is accepted, at least a hundred are rejected. Submitting a Proposal is a trivial exercise, as you only need UN membership and two endorsements to do it. Passing a Resolution however, is still very hard.

Any passed Resolution will only affect a couple of hidden stats, and will rarely change the actual shape of the country in a noticable way, unless it is very small. So even if something you don't like passes, as long as your country has a population of a few hundred million or more, its inertial properties will absorb the legislation without any noticable effects on its visible stats.

It could be argued that prostitution is an internal issue best left to individual nations, while the sex slave trade is an international issue worthy of UN involvement. However, the UN is a very democratic institution, and since its members on the whole seem to want the UN to deal with domestic legislation, it does. The way the UN mechanism is arranged, it can deal with purely domestic issues across the entire membership if those voting for a particular Resolution choose to allow it to do so. A look at the passed Resolution archive shows a mix of domestic and international legislation. When half the total UN membership votes 3-1 to pass domestic laws across the entire UN, that's a clear sign that the will of the people does indeed lie in that direction. Those who disagree, as I have explained, can always dodge it.

The other benefits of UN membership, by the way, are the countless opportunities for inter-regional politics it offers. That's an NS World Gameplay semi-RP thing which not everyone is into, of course. The best-known example of this is region-crashing.

Tactical Grace
UN Delegate / Minister of War / Defence Consultancy
Mercia The Next Generation (http://www.nationstates.net/cgi-bin/index.cgi/target=display_region/region=Mercia_The_Next_Generation)

Part of joining an organizing is adhering to its tenets, if you didn't agree to listen to them, why did you join?