NationStates Jolt Archive

Good afternoon from a sunny Mayakovskia!

The following proposal is currently sitting at the back of the queue of UN proposals, on page 7. I would be very grateful for the endorsements of any nation who agrees with my proposal, and would also welcome discussion about its suggestions.

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The United Nations,

CALLING TO MIND the passage of “Ban Single-Hulled Tankers” from April 28, 2003;

RECOGNIZING that the banning of single-hulled tankers has been of great environmental benefit to the world;

RECOGNIZING FURTHER that the resolution "SPCC Regulation Act", passed May 17, 2004, calls for member states to not only unite to ban single-hulled tankers but also to legislate for "the use of double-hulled pipelines and storage/transport vehicles worldwide";

NOTING the desire of the United Nations to reduce bureaucracy, elminate the duplication of regulations and produce legislative clarity;

AIMING to make easily understandable the United Nations’ banning of ALL single-hulled transportation vessels, not only sea-borne tankers;

DETERMINING that "Ban Single-Hulled Tankers" is now obsolete in the light of "SPCC Regulation Act";

REPEALS “Ban Single-Hulled Tankers”.

Agreed, good repeal, my approval has just been granted.

We'll support it too. :D Anything to cut away red tape.

Yep, approval given.

If you really want this to fly may i suggest a telegram campaign?

Actually, the SPCC regulation act doesn't do anything other than endorse double hulls. It doesn't require them, it just says they're rather nice, then throws in a giant pile of horrible real-life references.

Which means that repealing the first resolution will leave us without anything stopping single-hulled tankers

I'd prefer to see a repeal of the SPCC for being a worthless pile of rubbish, then the implementation of a proposal mandating at least 2 hulls for any oil transport/storage containers, then the repeal of "Ban single-hulled Tankers", because that's got real-life references too.

Personally i'd like both repealed without any new ones put forward

Myopia -

I did also notice, as you pointed out, the less than absolute clarity involved in the language of resolution 58. However, I took that the reference to 'endorse' double-hulled vehicles, the lengthy discussion of environmental pollution due to accidents with single-hulled vehicles, and the effects of the proposal being to "increase the quality of the world's environment, at the expense of industry" between them appeared to add up to a de facto ban on single-hulled vehicles. While the language isn't completely watertight, I think we have to understand that the people making proposals are people playing an Internet game in their leisure time, and not professional legislators. Moreover, unlike the real-life UN, NationStates' UN does not have a body of support staff to translate language into legalese. For these reasons, I believe we should look at the spirit of a proposal as much as its exact wording. Of course, opinions on this may vary!


Venerable liberarians -

I may at some point do a telegram campaign, but I don't really have the time to for the immediate future. Thank you for your suggestion though.

Myopia -

I did also notice, as you pointed out, the less than absolute clarity involved in the language of resolution 58. However, I took that the reference to 'endorse' double-hulled vehicles, the lengthy discussion of environmental pollution due to accidents with single-hulled vehicles, and the effects of the proposal being to "increase the quality of the world's environment, at the expense of industry" between them appeared to add up to a de facto ban on single-hulled vehicles. While the language isn't completely watertight, I think we have to understand that the people making proposals are people playing an Internet game in their leisure time, and not professional legislators. Moreover, unlike the real-life UN, NationStates' UN does not have a body of support staff to translate language into legalese. For these reasons, I believe we should look at the spirit of a proposal as much as its exact wording. Of course, opinions on this may vary!

If you use this approach, every nation that wants can simply claim to be following a literal interpretation and use single hulls.

SPCC was never meant to stand on its own anyway. It doesn't do anything, and the NSUN, while it might not necessarily warrant professional legalese, does at least need things spelled out. If something is to be banned, you have to say so directly, regardless of whether you're saying it in legalese.

And by the way, especially recently, a lot of resolutions have been presented in a more official manner.

It all starts getting quite interesting when you break it down to this level.

We can imagine individual states in NS having shipyards and building tankers. However, the coding of the game is such that individual states possess a number of variables - say, for strength of human rights, and size of each particular industry - which are then affected by legislative changes. "Environmental" UN resolutions, as they state, increase the 'quality of environment' variable while lowering, in this case, the size of every industry. Resolutions 11 and 58 both do this, both in the name of preference for double-hulled vehicles. You could say that the effects of introducting double-hulled vehicles on nations have been exaggerated by a factor of two, and that a repeal of R11 would bring nations back to where they should be. This would be a pragmatic approach.

A second approach would be to run the UN as something of a mirror to the real-life UN, try and find a body of legislation that people would like to happen in the real world, and then hold what actually happens to countries as somewhat incidental. You could call this an idealistic approach.

Fundamentally, these are two different ways of looking at the game, which are incompatible with each other. It's interesting to look at the interplay of the two on this forum, and about this topic.

As you may be able to tell, I'm using a pragmatic approach. What's interesting about the game mechanics is that while almost all proposal categories are opposites - human rights/moral decency, free trade/social justice - the only thing opposite to environmental legislation is the repeal of environmental legislation (where unnecessary or duplicate). In a way, I felt that a law which redressed the balance somewhat - reducing burdens on all industries, hence increasing productivity and reducing taxes - would be a good thing if implemented in all UN countries.

But of course, that's up to you guys endorsing it! To be honest, I'm more interested in the perception of issues and the debates that certain ideas generate than trying to push through any individual resolution. But don't let that stop you endorsing it if you agree with any of what I'm saying!

We cannot support, due to reasons Myopia cited. We're tired of cleaning pollution out of D'ni Lake due to oil spills. Myopia's plan seems best.

Keep in mind that some of us go with the literal meaning of a resolution as well.

If you're intent on repealing one of these in the name of balancing the game stats, repeal SPCC for doing nothing - and I'll support you. I suspect a lot of others will too. There was quite a major effort to beat that one down with a telegram campaign.

Quite a few of us aren't that bothered about the game stats effect. I, for one, tend to ignore the category and strength, and concentrate on the texts of the resolutions, since that's the bit that's actually interesting as far as I'm concerned.

If you're intent on repealing one of these in the name of balancing the game stats, repeal SPCC for doing nothing - and I'll support you. I suspect a lot of others will too. There was quite a major effort to beat that one down with a telegram campaign.

Quite a few of us aren't that bothered about the game stats effect. I, for one, tend to ignore the category and strength, and concentrate on the texts of the resolutions, since that's the bit that's actually interesting as far as I'm concerned.

Here Here!