NationStates Jolt Archive

This is an idea for a UN-specific draft, or perhaps to be modified for implementation UN-member nations.

RECOGNIZING that the United Nations is an organization founded on democratic principles,

BELIEVING that UN resolutions are ratified upon the basis of a majority vote,

NOTING that UN resolutions which have been approved in the past, may no longer have relevance to the generation of today,

FURTHER NOTING that any laws passed by previous generations long deceased are effectively governing the living,

RECOGNIZING the contributions made by members who have come before us and are no longer with us,

DEFINING a generation by an average length of, but not limited to 25 years, the period in which the majority of the past no longer holds a majority in the present,

MOVES all laws that are passed by the United Nations General Assembly have written into them a sunset clause.

REQUIRES that:

• Every resolution passed will expire after 25 years and is eligible for either:

Instant repealment, if the law is deemed no longer necessary by a majority of the UN
the resolution can be renewed for a further 25 years.


• Defining RENEWAL as a ballot held by the constituents at the time of the sunset clause expiry which has attracted a majority vote.

URGES all member nations to ensure intergenerational sovereignty is maintained and that future generations are not held to the will of those who have served in public office in the past - members that cannot influence the decisions of the present. It also reminds members that the present generation of member states’ right to self-determination is upheld.


Please tell me what you think.

No. You can't legislate game mechanics.

Anyway we already have a mechanism that handles that...


It's called "A REPEAL!"

Obviously, a repeal is different to what this is proposing. It is a review of legislation 25 years after the fact to check if it is still relevant. Not all redundant legislation is repealed, and this is a safeguard. Technically the constitutions of many nations are examples of the dead governing the living, keeping aside the fact that they are effective and/or acceptable to the current generation. This deals with that fact exclusively, NOT to laws passed within this current generation that are no longer wanted or necessary by that same generation of living persons.

Perhaps if it is modified to be implemented in member nations instead of directly referencing the game mechanics, would this resolution be acceptable for proposal?

Perhaps if it is modified to be implemented in member nations instead of directly referencing the game mechanics, would this resolution be acceptable for proposal?All UN Resolutions are implemented in member nations. I have no idea what kind of distinction you're trying to draw.

All UN Resolutions are implemented in member nations. I have no idea what kind of distinction you're trying to draw.

I think he's grasping at straws trying to figure out a way to make this legal.

My distinction is that legislation that may be currently practised by governments in this era, 2007 - may have been passed in 1897 - a time when the legislators have now since passed away. By this virtue, the law that you are obliged to comply to was NOT voted or authorized by you or any other living peer. The dead, although at the time they were alive should, at least according to this law, have no providence over the living since they wield no power in the legislative process in the current timeframe. This is the distinction I am drawing. Repealing laws made by a majority of living peers by a subsequent majority of living peers is not the same as expiring laws made by deceased persons. The majority of deceased who voted back then cannot vote against your repeal if they are dead. This ensures all living humans are administered and governed by living humans at all times - consistent among all pieces of legislation that all living humans are subject to.

Since this UN draws distinctions between who is a human and who is not - evidenced by many laws outlawing necrophilia and the handling of deceased persons and their estates etc. - I felt the need for such a law to be implemented. Since it contravenes the "game mechanics" rule, I will modify it. Please offer suggestions.

The only way I could see this being legal is if you were mandating that individual nations review their laws every 25 years, seperate from UN law.

Which I, and most everyone else here, would vehemently oppose.

OK. You had an interesting idea. You put some effort into coming up with a proposal. We can appreciate that. We'll even give tou a round of applause for it. But let's cut to the chase.... This doesn't have wings and it ain't gonna fly. You need to write it off as a good effort and move on to something else.

Balthasar H. von Aschenbach
Prime Minister

Even if it were legal (which it isn't), we wouldn't be in favor of this. It is silly to have to review every piece of international legislation after a set period of time when we already have the option to repeal that legislation, whenever we want (if we can get people to back the repeal).

- Jaris Krytellin, Ambassador

Besides, do we really want to undergo some of those awful debates we've had in the past again?

Bob Flibble
UN Representative

On one hand, it's illegal, makes very little sense, and will serve to make more work by making us renew perfectly good proposals, thereby taking up valuable time that could be used in order to make newer, better proposals.

On the other hand, it makes me wonder how many of us will still be playing NS in 25 years and if any of us will be affected by it.

Well there is the general question of time in NS. That's a problem that has more hand waves than the question of space and the multiverse. How long is 25 NS years in the Real World?

Well there is the general question of time in NS. That's a problem that has more hand waves than the question of space and the multiverse. How long is 25 NS years in the Real World?

Well, let's see how we could calculate that. One way is by population increases.

Let's say that population doubles in about 40 years. How long does it take for population to go from, say, 500 million to the coveted 1 billion point on NS?

Let's assume one issue a day and an increase of 6 million per issue. That means 83 days or so. So we'll just round that to 80 days. That means that one day in real time is 6 months in NS time. That means that, if a proposal expires after 25 years, we have to renew it every 50 days. That's horribly impractical.

It's worse if we go with the assumption that 1 real day = 1 NS year. That means that a proposal has to be renewed between 14 and 15 times every real year. I'll pass, thank you.

Also factor in that not all nations live on Earth or use the Earth calendar. What Earthlings call 25 years may be a few hours to those in another nation, or it may be several generations. Wht if your nation's civilians are all single-celled bacteria with a life span of 12 hours - a resolution could be in force for 20,000 generations.

This discrepancy and the inability to measure time on NS in proportion are good reasons that this proposal concept is flawed.

I have to agree with the previous statements and say that this idea simply isn't practical enough to work. However, as a newly formed nation, I share your concern that the UN resolutions can be a bit unwieldy (OOC: sp?). However, I might suggest changing your direction a bit, focusing not on the an automatic re-appraisal of all resolutions after a given amount of time, but on something that would make it easier to go through the different resolutions so that obsolete/poorly conceived ideas can be more easily found and repealed.

Let's say that population doubles in about 40 years. How long does it take for population to go from, say, 500 million to the coveted 1 billion point on NS?3 months. The problem is, the doubling keeps taking longer. Doubling from 1 billion takes 6 months. Doubling from 2 billion takes 1 year. And so on.

Let's assume one issue a day and an increase of 6 million per issue.Why would you assume that you get population based on the number of issues you receive?

The problem is, the doubling keeps taking longer.

No, it's just that time keeps going slower. ;)