NationStates Jolt Archive

Honored Ambassador,

The United Nations Association -- Mikitivity would like to conduct a survey to feel out the NS UN forum’s interest in various UN resolution categories. Previous surveys were conducted and have been analyzed in the UNA White Paper 2005-01. This survey is designed to test to see if the opinion of nations has changed since the past survey and to extend the work of the previous surveys. These results will be archived and shared with UN members and non-members in order to facilitate better proposal writing.

Since national opinions are subject to change, this survey is limited for 30-days and will be conducted again at a future date.

As your schedule permits, please respond to the poll included with this survey. These responses are general, but comments (in the form of a post) are most welcomed and will be reviewed and shared along side the poll results. I think you’ll be pleased with the graphics we plan to share based on these survey results!

Background
(taken from the official UN description of Free Trade and Social Justice resolutions):


Free Trade
A resolution to reduce barriers to free trade and commerce.

Social Justice
A resolution to reduce income inequality and increase basic welfare.

These are almost exactly opposed types of resolutions. Both affect Economic freedoms. "Free Trade" increases Economic freedoms while "Social Justice" reduces Economic freedoms. In addition, "Social Justice" also increases government spending on welfare and healthcare (though "Free Trade" does not have an opposite effect). Economic freedoms primarily discuss how much regulation there is on business/industry or how much government spending goes to helping poor/sick people. Total Economic freedom is Laissez-faire Capitalism. Zero Economic freedom is a completely government-controlled economy. Creating a Food and Drug Administration in all UN member nations, or creating a Securities and Exchange Commission in all UN member nations is imposing a mild form of Economic control, and therefore a mild reduction of Economic freedoms; you're imposing restrictions on what businesses and industries may do and you're moving away from a completely-uncontrolled Laissez-faire system.

In terms of Economic Freedoms, "Mild" versions of either category will push nations in a particular direction, but only as far as the center. Stronger versions will push nations towards a more extreme end of the spectrum.


A printer friendly copy of all 9 UN Social Justice resolutions (passed and failed) is available at the UNA archive:
http://pweb.netcom.com/~mierzwa10k/una/FT.pdf

Here is a chronological list of the 9 Free Trade resolutions that have been brought to the UN floor to date:

Scientific Freedom (#2)
DVD Region Removal (#5)
Metric System (#24)
The GeneticCorp Convention (failed)
UCPL (#45)
UN Space Consortium (#50)
Public Domain (#60)
The Law of the Sea (#74)
The Sex Industry Workers Act (#91)

The question:
How likely are you to support a UN Free Trade Resolution?

Always (We supported all of them)
Very Likely (We supported 75% to 100% of them)
Likely (We supported 50% to 75% of them)
Unlikely (We supported 25% to 50% of them)
Very Unlikely (We supported 0% to 25% of them)
Never (We supported none of them)
other – please explain

After answering this survey, please consider also answering the Social Justice Survey which is designed to work along side this survey. http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=409257

Thank you,
Janet Van Dyne
Chairwoman, United Nations Association -- Mikitivity

For those of you trying to remember how you voted, your vote may be recorded in the following voting record thread:

http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=344311

If you've never added your voting record to that thread, please feel free to join in. There is a blank ballot in the second post in the thread, and if you copy it, you may begin! :)

Well, this'd be the flip side for Krioval. We love strong economic systems. Freer trade means we can move more weapons (sorry, pacifists, it's what we do).

I enjoy voting on these polls before reading the list of past resolutions.

I stand by my vote.

I don't judge UN resolutions any more based on their category, I judge them based on their merit and circumstance, as I stated, too, in the other voting thread.

I don't judge UN resolutions any more based on their category, I judge them based on their merit and circumstance, as I stated, too, in the other voting thread.

My government agrees. The devil is in the details.

However, in looking over resolutions sometimes resolutions in similar categories base the primary argument on a common theme. For social justice, HIV has come up several times. If more nations like a particular theme, then *new* proposal writers might have better luck writing their first idea with that in mind.

For example, there are only a few players who could really manage to get a Gun Control proposal to the floor, much less have it pass. That is just a hard nut to crack. But if you have a problem and solution that might take several different approaches, say a Human Rights vs. a Social Justice category, then these results could be a good starting point.

I'm very likely to support a free trade resolution.

a. Trade is often truly an international issue.
b. I'm a free trade kinda fella.

As I'm pretty sure I said when these polls were last up, I try not to judge based purely on category. Having said that, I'm not usually in favour of free trade, and it would take a good argument to sway me from that position. I'm pretty sure it has happened in the past, but I have always been sceptical of the benefits of free trade.

As I'm pretty sure I said when these polls were last up, I try not to judge based purely on category. Having said that, I'm not usually in favour of free trade, and it would take a good argument to sway me from that position. I'm pretty sure it has happened in the past, but I have always been sceptical of the benefits of free trade.

OOC: I can understand that. It's hard to assess the benefits of something that has never truly occurred on a large scale.

Ecopoeia would never rule out a proposal purely on the basis of coming under the 'Free Trade' category. However, we are unlikely to support such proposals unless they are of 'mild' strength and incorporate a fair trade ethos.

Mathieu Vergniaud
Deputy Speaker to the UN

Of the nine existing Free Trade resolutions, the Confederated City States of Mikitivity voted in favour of 4 of the 9, which technically means we are unlikely to support free trade resolutions. However, we've only cast votes against 3 Free Trade resolutions (or more correctly would have voted against 3 FT resolutiosn), as our Y-N-A count is 4-3-2.

However, this is not to say that my government does not believe in free trade. Rather the opposite. We've felt that this particular category of resolution has at times been confused and that resolutions that put restrictions on capitalism have been adopted (and misused), thus we've voted against a few measures that were good ideas and concepts, but that could have stood a more refined approach.

While we'll be quick to support any well thought out resolution, we've found that this particular resolution category is one of the least understood ... shockingly even by pro-capitalist nations. The City States feel that this category should always strive to lessen the amount of government regulation of industries ... and there are a few times when resolutions or proposed resolutions actually sought to increase government regulations.

Very Likely (We supported 75% to 100% of them)

Free trade is very important. Only countries who are enemies of our region we simply do not trade with.