NationStates Jolt Archive

Some ideas I have for proposals. Just want to get some peoples ideas as to whether they are good ideas or not before I start typing them out etc.
1) Revamped Diplomatic Immunity
2) Open Skies (free trade mild)
3) Formation of a (imaginary) WTO which will balance the demands of Free and Fair Trade, with the goal of eradicating tariffs within 50 years combined with regulations to prevent expoitation (free trade strong)
4) Conservation of Fish stocks (environmental, I think)
5) Proportional pigovian taxation (social justice, I think); this would follow in from free health care and state that taxes be imposed on products that cause massive expenditure in healthcare (e.g. cigarettes and alcohol) in such a way that the expiditure on treating diseases caused by such products (e.g. lung cancer) equals the income from such taxation
6) Formation of a (imaginary) International Monopolies Commitee, to prevent corporations from becoming monopolies and being dominent in the market place (free trade, significant)

Yelda approved the Diplomatic Immunity proposal and will do so again if it is resubmitted. I would like to know more about the Open Skies proposal. Hasn't that (or something similar) been submitted before? It sounds familiar.

As a staunch supporter of the Diplomatic Immunity proposal we would gladly support it upon resubmission. We also would support your Open Skies proposal. The rest however we cannot give an opnion upon until we see the text of the proposals.

Open skies is one of mine; I submitted it a while ago and it failed.
It's posted on the forum somewhere!

I don't have the time now, but the idea of protecting international fisheries is both good and difficult. There is a rather irrational dislike of marine based resolutions in the UN, and we'd have to really swing in and hit members with a very well written resolution to break past that bias. There were some previous draft proposals months ago that I would suggest grave digging and using as a starting point. They were probably from August or September, 2004.

On the subject of monopolies, my government actually feels that there are two types of monopolies that are good:

- Natural monopolies (think water utilities)
- Franchise monopolies (think subways / power companies)

A natural monopoly is a company that has control / ownership of a limited commodity, and I don't really see the point in having an international body regulate this.

A franchise monopoly is a service that is given a legal right to distribute its services within a city or region without having competition. I used the example of subways. While the fictional nation "Japan" has many different subway companies in Tokyo, if there isn't some sort of agreement between various companies, it makes it hard for the services provided to expand. As we can imagine, you can't easily dig a new line and make it profitable, if there is another tube / track in your way. [Personally I found the Tokyo system confusing ... whereas, I've found the Berlin and Paris city public transit systems easier to use.]

Yes, I would naturally exclude any natural monopoly and nationalised monopolies in the resolution. It would be ridiculous for several telephone companies to be stringing up there own telephone lines everywhere!

On the subject of Fisheries ... I won't have time to do this, but I strongly recommend asking the mods about creating a new environmental category called "marine & fisheries". Currently you'll have to target "all businesses", but environmental laws like the Ballast Water and Law of the Sea resolutions should really only impact marine / fisheries businesses. (The Law of the Sea ended up being classified as a Free Trade resolution.)

As for your Open Skies concept, I think the basic idea is very similar to one I was interested in:

Navigatable Water Ways

The real world example would be the rights that Switzerland and Germany have along the Rhine, which passes through the Netherlands. The Dutch allow Swiss and Germany transports to travel through the Netherlands. I am not sure if other nationalities travel along the Rhine (where is Groot Gouda when I need him)! :)

But a "Free Trade" agreement would be to prevent governments from prohibiting trade vessels from land locked nations. The selling point here is we'd be giving land locked nations a bonus, and then later bringing a fisheries conservation plan to the table which land locks sometimes protest about (why I don't know ... being a landlocked government, seafood is a rather unimportant part of my government's food supply, unless it is importanted from neighbors like Sober Thought or Domonia).

Don't worry, I plan on writing the 'winners'; although Open Skies and Diplomatic Immunity: The Revenge have already been written by me and posted on the forum.
As for the UN categories, I think they should get rid of guns/drugs etc categories and replaced with "international dialogue", and "transport regulation".
I'll consider other options of category with fish.

1) Revamped Diplomatic Immunity

You have our views on this in the pertinent discussion.

2) Open Skies (free trade mild)

No opinions as of yet.

3) Formation of a (imaginary) WTO which will balance the demands of Free and Fair Trade, with the goal of eradicating tariffs within 50 years combined with regulations to prevent expoitation (free trade strong)

I don't believe that we will support an organisation that seeks to set a time scale for eliminating tariffs, simply because developing nations should be free to take appropriate protectionist measures to secure key industries, irrespective of prevailing economic ideology. That said, a softer version of this may be something we can support. [ooc: I'd love to RP a WTO, especially as Ecopoeia is a developing country. Arm-twisting, domineering, warts and all - fantastic. However, how could such an organisation be inclusively RP'd in the NS universe? It can't, unfortunately, so you're right to make this imaginary.]

4) Conservation of Fish stocks (environmental, I think)

Ecopoeia would be very interested in providing assistance in drafting such a proposal.

5) Proportional pigovian taxation (social justice, I think); this would follow in from free health care and state that taxes be imposed on products that cause massive expenditure in healthcare (e.g. cigarettes and alcohol) in such a way that the expiditure on treating diseases caused by such products (e.g. lung cancer) equals the income from such taxation

We won't support a proposal that seeks to directly affect national taxation policy in this manner.

6) Formation of a (imaginary) International Monopolies Commitee, to prevent corporations from becoming monopolies and being dominent in the market place (free trade, significant)

This would have to be a very carefully worded proposal indeed, though it's conceivable that we would support, pseudo-anticapitalists that we are.

Varia Yefremova
Speaker to the UN