NationStates Jolt Archive

Category: Human Rights
Strength: Significant
Resolution Name: Ex Post Facto Law

Description: The General Assembly,

RECOGNIZING "ex post facto law" as either:
(a) the retroactive criminalization of an action which was legal at the time it was committed; or
(b) the imposition of a harsher penalty for a crime than was permissible when the crime was committed,

CONVINCED that "ex post facto law" is injust and a violation of basic human rights,

ALSO NOTING that there are actions which are considered universally to be criminal in nature, regardless of domestic statutes:

1. ENJOINS member nations from the creation, and from the enforcement of, "ex post facto law";

2. ENCOURAGES all other nations to do the same;

3. ALLOWS for the creation of a committee to determine and define, as it becomes necessary, those actions which are universally abhorrent and criminal, and which shall be exempt from the prohibitions of this resolution.

- Are HTML tags allowed?
Pretty sure it's plain text only.
- Do the em dashes in the first perambulatory clause show up on everyone's computer?
They show up on mine.
- At first, I thought that this proposal would be best categorized as "Furtherment of Democracy", but after some consideration I decided to change it to "Human Rights". Which is better?
Good question. Habeus Corpus is under "Human Rights", but Definition of 'Fair Trial' is Furtherment of Democracy. I guess pick one. I'd go with Human Rights.
- Is there anything that might cause this to be deleted? I have gone over the rules and I think it's clean, but you never know...
I can't think of anything offhand. Ex Post Facto is not mentioned in the any of the earlier resolutions that deal with legal proceedings. We're likely to support this.

EDIT: Yeldan UN Mission beat me. Had to take some questions out

- I'm not sure about the strength either. Considering that it goes beyond simply recommending/advising/encouraging and actually bans something, I wouldn't call it "weak". And there remains the possibility of exceptions to the rule, so it's not as "strong" as it could be. I settled on the middle ground.

Significant seems fine to me.

- Is there anything that might cause this to be deleted? I have gone over the rules and I think it's clean, but you never know...

I found one flaw that may be flagged. See your first operative clause for more information

Category: Human Rights
Strength: Significant
Resolution Name: Ex Post Facto Law

Description: The General Assembly,

NOTING that the retroactive criminalization of an action which was legal at the time of commission, or the imposition of a stronger penalty than was permitted at the time of commission—known as ex post facto law—is injust and a violation of basic human rights,

This is (to me) a very confusing sentence, and caused a brain cramp. I think a better line would be:

DEFINING the ex post facto law as the imprisonment or higher sentencing of a criminal for a crime that was commited before a lwa was enacted

NOTING that the ex post facto law is injust and a violation of basic human rights

It breaks up the sentence, and allows small vocabulary members to understand what you are saying.

ALSO NOTING that there are actions which are considered universally to be criminal in nature, regardless of domestic statutes,

1. ENJOINS member nations from the creation, and from the enforcement of, ex post facto law;

[QUOTE]2. ENCOURAGES all other nations to do the same;

According to the almighty Hack Laws, UN resolutions cannot affect non-UN members. .

MetaGaming is a difficult to understand category at times, especially since it often shares jurisdiction with Game Mechanics violations. Essentially, a MetaGaming violation is one that breaks "the fourth wall", or attempts to force events outside of the UN itself. Proposals dealing with Regions, with other nations, Moderators, and requiring activities on the Forums are examples. This also includes Proposals that try to affect non-UN nations

3. ALLOWS for the creation of a committee to determine and define as necessary those actions which are universally abhorrent and criminal, and which shall be exempt from the prohibitions of this resolution.

I really like this resolution. I think it will do really well as a resolution. I suggest reading the Hack Laws, just to make sure any future ideas will not delete the proposal. Good job Mustachios

To Yeldan UN Mission—thanks for the feedback.

To Arrogantia Unlimited—I see your point about the overly long first clause. I'll try splitting it up a few ways and see what I like best for the final draft. I'd like to stay with "imposition of a stronger penalty" over "higher sentencing" though as the former seems less ambiguous. Perhaps "imposition of a harsher penalty" is even better.

I am confident however that the second operative clause does not violate the metagaming rule, because it is merely a suggestion. I studied the form of several passed resolutions in order to get my language right, particularly Resolution #64 "Tracking Near Earth Objects" by Mikitivity which seems very well composed, and reads in part (emphasis added):
1. ENCOURAGES all nations, United Nations members and non-members, to share any information on the trajectories of any Near Earth Objects (NEOs);
As long as no burden of compliance is placed on non-member nations there shouldn't be a problem.

I like it. It deals with an important legal matter in a clear and concise way. Plus, it forces most UN members to read the actual resolution.

The encouragement of non-UN members you'll want to take before the mods. Old resolutions make poor defense of your own legality issues. Case and point: Resolution 11 has a real-life reference. However, the mods don't believe in ex-post-facto moderating so rules that weren't in existence 20 resolutions ago don't effect resolutions that are older than that. As such......

Category:

I would't go with precedent.

Furtherment of Democracy increases your political rights. This could be equated to free speech (speaking out against the government, freedom of media, etc). On a very debatable level, it could be for fair trials, but that would be a secondary categorization IMO.

Human Rights is more about civil liberties, and judicial rights, IMO, would fall under that (unless they are very political judicial issues). As such, it would be Human Rights.

-------------------

Strength: Significant. Mild is about resolutions that have little or no "umph" to them, and are almost always recommendation resolutions. Strong ones either are really extreme, or change the way the world thinks entirely. For example, banning or forcing Euthanasia would be strong, permitting it or limiting it would be significant, and making a recommendation would be mild. In this case, it's a generally accepted philosophy and you aren't really changing the rules structure of most governments too extensively. As such, significant.

Rarely will the mods delete on significant vs strong (unless its blatantly obvious - sentencing all Nazis to death - while illegal proposal for a different reason - classified as significant would probably be deleted for strength - ideological ban aside). Mild vs significant/strong is much easier to spot, and yours isn't mild.

Case and point: Resolution 11 has a real-life reference. However, the mods don't believe in ex-post-facto moderating so rules that weren't in existence 20 resolutions ago don't effect resolutions that are older than that.Also keeping in mind that Mods didn't exist when 11 went through and that we don't have the power to delete Resolutions...

The encouragement of non-UN members you'll want to take before the mods.
Okay. Is there something more I have to do to get a mod ruling than simply posting the draft?

Mod rulings you can get on the moderation forum.

I prefer the original text to Arrogantia Unlimited's re-write, because it is more accurate - with the re-write, it is open to interpretation exactly what laws are being passed after the event.

If it needs simplification, I'd suggest this (I don't know if the brackets are a good thing, feel free to remove them):

CONVINCED that punishing as criminal an action (or inaction) that was legal at the time of the action (or inaction), or imposing a stronger penalty than was permitted by law at the time or action (or inaction)—known as ex post facto law—is injust and a violation of basic human rights,

I think this is a brilliant principle, however I'm not comfortable with the 3rd clause. It is too open and I'm not prepared to blindly agree to whatever this committee decides. Additionally, even where there is definitely a case for allowing punishment of things like murder even if ex post facto law is required, I'm not in favour of it being possible to raise the penalty - for instance, someone might commit murder when the max penalty was a prison sentence, but if the committee allowed, the government might be allowed to impose capital punishment.

One other problem to consider - sometimes it's not possible to determine objectively what's a harsher penalty. How do we equate prison terms with monetary fines?

I think this is a brilliant principle, however I'm not comfortable with the 3rd clause. It is too open and I'm not prepared to blindly agree to whatever this committee decides.
I considered defining a few situations right in the resolution where an ex post facto law would be appropriate, but there are always new cases that come up and I want to avoid arguments over the details which might prevent the resolution from passing. Note that the resolution does not establish, but merely allows for, the future establishment of a committee. I intentionally left it open so that the question of exceptions could be dealt with through a later resolution, or not at all.

One other problem to consider - sometimes it's not possible to determine objectively what's a harsher penalty. How do we equate prison terms with monetary fines?
Yes, that's a tough one. Do you have something in mind? I would prefer not to address this at all, if possible, leaving it to be included in any future resolution which concerns the establishment of an exceptions committee.

I would support such proposals. The Republic already barrs (constitutionally) our legislative houses from creating ex-post-facto law; As I am sure most NSUN member states do so to one degree or another (though it is surprising it has taken this long for this issue, as closely as it is related to legal equity as found in the jurisprudence espoused in various past resolutions of the same legal calibre as the DOFT and Habeus Corpus res's)... You can count on my future vote on such.

Thank you. I too was surprised to find that the matter hadn't been addressed by any previous resolution.

I have made some changes the the first draft and edited the first post of the thread to reflect this. Since there haven't been too many responses, I'm calling this the final draft; anyone who wishes to make further suggestions regarding the language or content of the proposal should do so now. If there are no major objections, I will be submitting the proposal before the end of the week.