NationStates Jolt Archive

The basic idea being: all companies involved in international trade should work on the same page.

Will edit as I think more about this, but in short - all products should be on the same standard for comparison. And this goes beyond the Metric System resolution into "equal comparison on international basis".

The basic idea being: all companies involved in international trade should work on the same page.

Will edit as I think more about this, but in short - all products should be on the same standard for comparison. And this goes beyond the Metric System resolution into "equal comparison on international basis".

Well, this is a tangent but along the same lines ... many nations have standardized codes for construction materials. For example, if I order a steel I-beam from one company, I need only ask for it in a sort of code. I'd have to run and pull my LRFD mannual to relearn what those codes were, but it is pretty cook book.

This might go along with your idea ... but the question is, how much retooling would standardize be? I'd certainly classify most standardization free trade issues not at mild (which my tariff removal proposal is), but certainly as strong.

OOC: If there is an interest in the standardization of building materials, maybe in a few weeks I can poke around my old text and see how the EU, US, and other nations tend to trade building materials. It is possible we can crib some already thought out proposals / treaties and find a way to hack them into NationStates.

I don't exactly get what your proposal is, sounds more like you want to standardize Compartmentalization or Stock codes across national boarders.

I really can't see how that would be practicle to impliment.

Alright, maybe an example would help.

I import a bottle of "S-beer" from Internationalizationalizt.

How do I know the content of alcohol? How about the other contents? Is the volume of the liquid within the container given? Is it kosher or non-kosher (or in line with any other religious restriction)?

For all I know, Internationalizationalizt puts kerosene in it's beer "for that extra kick".

The act would require such information on the label.

IOW... you want a bottle of beer to post it's ingridients in 104,000 different NS languages, with all religious restrictions, and condormities, and it's alcohol content... think you can also bump in a process to genetically engineer human eyes to read the 0.01pt print you'll need to post all that detail on the bottle to the resolution?

An interesting concern.

Perhaps an exported commodity should have such information printed in a single language of the receivers choice?

An interesting concern.

Perhaps an exported commodity should have such information printed in a single language of the receivers choice?

Maybe something like this would help ...

Basically if an exporter wanted to ship beer to my country, fine. We wouldn't put a punative tariff on it, but we would certainly want to test it to make sure it was safe. In order to move a product from our food and drug testing groups into the hands of consumers it would be in the exporter's interest to disclose all the info my government would want, no?

[NOTE: That is part of the reason I'm picking on beer. If we continue to bat around a simple example that most of us are familiar with, we might be able to work through many of the trade issues.]

I'm not quite sure what you want to do with non-food/drink products, but my reply for your example would be this:

Many if not most nations will already have laws about labelling ingredients etc, and mostly, these will dictate that imports will have to conform to the same standard. If you want to ensure that everything has at least allergy information, ingredients, religious details etc., then I think the best way to do this would be to say:

All food and drink products must be accurately labelled with at least this and that info in the official language(s) of the nation of purchase. Imported food and drink must follow the same standards, with labelling comprehensible to the consumer in the receiving nation.

That would be the general idea.

And that would cover consumables. What about non-consumables?

Okay, yeah, I can kinda get into this. 'Cause yesterday I was washing my hair with this foreign shampoo that they said was organic, and I found out later from my spiritual advisor that they totally use all sorts of pesticides and junk, which we all know is soooo bad for the bunnies.

And, y'know, as far as the company having to pay? I don't really think that's the case in most countries, 'cause I know that when my CDs get shipped to my billions of fans all over the world (And I am so sorry to be using an example that isn't beer, but I'll get right back to that one, promise!), it's, like, not my distributor that pays to print all the new labels and junk. It's the distributors in the other countries. That's always totally part of the contract. But, y'know, I leave the financial stuff up to my managers, 'cause that's what I pay them for. I don't want to have to think about it.

So, yeah, have your people telegram my people with a resolution, and you've got the support of one totally awesome Princess and UN Delegate.. And kerosene in beer? Sounds like what my Daddy used to drink. 'Cept he didn't use much beer.

A similar idea as what I suggested could be used for products like shampoo, cosmetics etc

As to other non-consumables like TVs or construction materials, I'm not sure exactly what kind of thing you want, but I think they should be dealt with in a separate proposal.

Interesting proposal. Good idea. But I would vote against it. It's that whole national sovereignty/free market thing. Stop coddling the consumers!!! Sorry, rant over. :)

There appears to be two things here, and I think the two are not compatable.

If we are talking about the simple listing of ingredients, that might be possible on most products. This happens in the real world today. A more complex listing (dividing products into sub types or other categories) would be impossible on most products.

Probably a better solution would be to maintain some sort of international product code standard and to maintain a database that lists the ingredients and other important information facts for products that are shipped across international borders. That information would be in a single language and thus individual nations would only have to worry about translating the common language to their own regional language for their information publications. This way the list can be expanded to include possible cross contamination information. (Common now in the US for places that process nuts in the same machines that process non nut candy for example.)

Maintaining a list is an important element of another legisation (the beer resolution) but having it appear on the labels is not considered important there, as much as it is having it generally available.

So far I like:

All food and drink products must be accurately labelled with at least this and that info in the official language(s) of the nation of purchase. Imported food and drink must follow the same standards, with labelling comprehensible to the consumer in the receiving nation;

International Product Code Standards for the common ingredients, with those which are proprietary to be disclosed to the importing nations government for adequate labelling;

Includes possible cross-contamination information (ie - same machinery is used to process nuts, or pesticides, or anything other then then product in discussion);

Mikivity - This one, I would think as Significant, as it will alter how business is done, and "level the playing field" significantly, same as the creation of the FDA altered how people eat (and what they eat).


HotRodia - would it aid in gaining your support if there was a clause stating the Importing nation did not have to use the system, but the Exporting nation had to make it available on request?


I'll work on a more formal draft and edit it into the top post in a day or so. This sounds like "Free Trade/Significant" .

Rebuttals? Ideas? Comments? Pecan pies?

An interesting proposal, rather than imprinting the package with the information in text, of all pertinant data, the imprinting of a UPC of, and a maintained datebase for the information, rather than the traditional BarCode system the Matrix-Dot system, used to encode information of the back of Military and other ID's, and at least one of these 'readers' at establishments where the products are purchased. Maybe an online database of UPC type codes, where people can go online to review the total bulk of information on this products handling, and religious partiality.

An interesting proposal, rather than imprinting the package with the information in text, of all pertinant data, the imprinting of a UPC of, and a maintained datebase for the information, rather than the traditional BarCode system the Matrix-Dot system, used to encode information of the back of Military and other ID's, and at least one of these 'readers' at establishments where the products are purchased. Maybe an online database of UPC type codes, where people can go online to review the total bulk of information on this products handling, and religious partiality.

This would increase the scope and require funding. And why require the citizens to buy the product - go home - check the barcode?

This would increase the scope and require funding. And why require the citizens to buy the product - go home - check the barcode?

There's no requirement for the citizens to check anything. As I see it. If you want the all the pertinent ingredients printed, religious restricts and applicability, and handling conditions of the product, you have two options, a matrix-dot encoding system and reader units, or imprinting the packaging with information in dot-pitches too small for the general populace... And if not that, the increase in packaging requirements for the products (and thereby the cost of the products.) So you're faced with a tradeoff of practicability and impracticability (wouldn't surprise me it would be an impracticle version of the solution, that the people who be forced to foot. Politicians). Since only the minority would be interested in the bulk of the imprinted data, the burden of finding it should be on them, and not the general populace. This is merely keeping the existing ingredient requirements, while bolstering the UPC format to include more pertinent data on the product, for those few overly interested persons.

If you want to impliment a practicle solution, and then not fund it, my recomendation is not to impliment it in the first place, because it's not practivcle without funding.

Having reread the resolutions which passed, getting funding appears to be not be a concern.