NationStates Jolt Archive

It has come to my attention that the current version is quite flawed. Why we of The Popotan believe in the principle of the resoultion, the wording is such that it overimposes the age of maturity and moreso the age listed is currently conflicting with multiple resolutions to protect children.

Proposed repeal poposal:
UNDERSTANDING the original intent of the proposal, the attempt to better protect of children,

ARGUING that different cultural and ethnic histories and background have affected what many cultures view age an appropriate age of maturity,

POINTING OUT several other resoultions conflict with the stated age of maturity listed,

SUGGESTING that each culture is better at determining what its own maturity age is,

RECOMMENDING a better law be passed that better reflects the ability of states to deal with their own society more flexibly.

For those who wish to view the current version, it is resolution #25.

As a start, it would probably be helpful for us if you listed, if not in the proposal then at least here, what these other conflicting resolutions actually are. I can find one ("Children in War").

Your broader argument is a bit weak, because Resolution #25 is itself so vague. We see nothing in it to prevent a nation adopting a higher age of maturity; and its mandates are so lax as to allow a nation, de facto, to set (or at least work to) a lower age of maturity anyway.

What substantive damage do you think the resolution is doing as it stands?

-- Samantha Benson
Congressional Liaison, Department of UN Affairs
The Democratic States of Quintessence of Dust

With respect to the Congressional Liason of Quintessence of Dust,

It is in part the age requirment that is of issue. Many states have ages of maturity lower than 18. Other similar measures do not try to impose such a high age range, indeed, Children of War act allows for consciption of 16 and 17 year olds, the Child Labor act allows those 13 and older to seek work. In addition the Child Pornography Prohibition and Outlaw Pedophilia acts do not even specify ages.

We do not seek to completely remove the effort made here, but make it so the UN does not over impose it's definition of a child unto the world community for such a high age level. The current proposal assumes that every world has the same conditions as those who proposed, that children shall be living as dependants until at least the age of eighteen and it further through wording makes it even if it is not the case, that they're rights shall be considered superior to that of others.

We of the Popotan value protection of children, especially those who cannot protect themselves, but feel the wording of this proposal makes this particular one not in line with others the UN has made to protect children from harm.

We have put up a proposal to repeal the current version, with slightly ammeded content to take into some of what the Congressional Liaison, Department of UN Affairs of The Democratic States of Quintessence of Dust mentioned. The current proposal is titled Repeal "The Child Protection Act". We intend to propose a new version once this one is repealed so, let me assure you, we are not anti-children.

May we suggest that the honoured ambassador enters his repeal as a repeal, not as a human rights resolution, since at present it is illegal. We would also find his last sentence a good deal more convincing had we actually had sight of a replacement.

I thank you for your advice and that has already been done. Please, may the honored ambassador of Gobbannium search a bit further.

Unfortunately, once a proposal is made, it cannot be unmade until it expires.

As requested by said ambassador, here is the new wording. It is, as previously mentioned, quite similar. The only difference is in the section "POINTING OUT"
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Repeal "The Child Protection Act"
Description: UN Resolution #25: The Child Protection Act (Category: Human Rights; Strength: Significant) shall be struck out and rendered null and void.

Argument: Description: UNDERSTANDING the original intent of the proposal, the attempt to better protect of children,

ARGUING that different cultural and ethnic histories and background have affected what many cultures view age an appropriate age of maturity,

POINTING OUT several other resolutions conflict with the stated age of resolution 25's maturity listed,

SUGGESTING that each culture is better at determining what its own maturity age is,

RECOMMENDING a better law be passed that better reflects the ability of states to deal with their own society more flexibly.

Unfortunately, once a proposal is made, it cannot be unmade until it expiresOOC: Bzzt! Wrong, simply file a Getting Help (http://www.nationstates.net/10935/page=help) request and ask for it to be removed.

I thank you for your advice and that has already been done. Please, may the honored ambassador of Gobbannium search a bit further.

We have scanned the minutes of the proceedings in these chambers for the last month and a half, and are still at a loss as to what the honoured ambassador is refering to.

For those who wish to view the current version, it is resolution #25.This resolution only mentions age once in it that we noted:

ARTICLE 1
For the purposes of the present resolution, a minor means every human being below the age of eighteen years unless, under the law applicable to the minor, majority is attained earlier. And that age is 18 by R25 and it accounts for those nations where the age may be lower in this "majority is attained earlier". In nations where a child doesn't reach maturity until ages over 18 then if they have rights at 18 and are not due to immaturity able to use them it is not a nations place to force them to use those rights nor take actions to have them use those rights. An example would be in marriage and sexual relations to concieve children. If a being in a nation is not able to do this until say age 100 then forcing them to marry at age 18 would result in nothing since they can't perform the funtions of a marriage until they reach age 100 or more.
Thus your comment SUGGESTING that each culture is better at determining what its own maturity age isHolds true and R25 does nothing to change how any nations set their age of maturity.

RECOMMENDING a better law be passed that better reflects the ability of states to deal with their own society more flexibly.Thus we have this already in R25 so any repeal and new resoltion is a waste of time and effort as R25 does what is needs to do.. while not mandating on nations to set some obscure age that is not suited for them. Or one that may force nations to let chidren have sex or perform other things before they are mature enough to do so simply because they have reached some human age.

The mention here of Human age of 18 is just as we see it a base to go by when looking at individual national maturity ages. If as in my nation we by age ten are as mature as an eighteen year old human then our laws so show that as our age. If another nations children do not mature as humans do or us and say are not '18' until they have lived 100 years then that is their maturity age. R25 simply provides a base to use not a mandated age of maturity... for all nations. As it is and has been as far as I know that most things are based on human measurements as a reference just as we use one language in council to debate issues.. we use humans as the base refence for most issues..

I support this conservative ideal fully because it liberates the peoples' from the injustices of Government bereucracy!

Thus we have this already in R25 so any repeal and new resoltion is a waste of time and effort as R25 does what is needs to do.. while not mandating on nations to set some obscure age that is not suited for them. Or one that may force nations to let chidren have sex or perform other things before they are mature enough to do so simply because they have reached some human age.

The mention here of Human age of 18 is just as we see it a base to go by when looking at individual national maturity ages. If as in my nation we by age ten are as mature as an eighteen year old human then our laws so show that as our age. If another nations children do not mature as humans do or us and say are not '18' until they have lived 100 years then that is their maturity age. R25 simply provides a base to use not a mandated age of maturity... for all nations. As it is and has been as far as I know that most things are based on human measurements as a reference just as we use one language in council to debate issues.. we use humans as the base refence for most issues..However you're also assuming that life span differential is same for every human society or any other non-human socieity. Different cultural, enthic, historic, etc values play a role in the age of maturity and this takes none of that into account.

It may be that, in standard human earth-year terms, one group considers 14 the correct age and another 22. Neither should be done since not every socieity is a cardbon copy.

The Popotan has reproposed this taking into consideration some of the comments made here:
Argument: UNDERSTANDING the original intent of the proposal, the attempt to better protect of children,

ARGUING that different cultural and ethnic histories and background have affected what many cultures view age an appropriate age of maturity,

POINTING OUT several other resolutions conflict with the stated age of resolution 25's maturity listed of age eighteen which include, but are not limited to, resolution 14, Child Labor and resolution 51, Children of War,

SUGGESTING that each culture is better at determining what its own maturity age is even within the same species,

RECOMMENDING a better law be passed that better reflects the ability of states to deal with their own society more flexibly.

Our point concerning the lack of evidence of any replacement stands.

What would you have me do? I can't make a proposal before the one is repealed and I have stated many times I plan to only change the line specifying an age. Everything else I will resubmit without any changes, unless during the course of the reproposal other ideas to strengthen it come forth.

Therefore what more can I do to convince you?

What would you have me do? I can't make a proposal before the one is repealed and I have stated many times I plan to only change the line specifying an age. Everything else I will resubmit without any changes, unless during the course of the reproposal other ideas to strengthen it come forth.

Therefore what more can I do to convince you?

We have put up a proposal to repeal the current version, with slightly ammeded content to take into some of what the Congressional Liaison, Department of UN Affairs of The Democratic States of Quintessence of Dust mentioned. The current proposal is titled Repeal "The Child Protection Act". We intend to propose a new version once this one is repealed so, let me assure you, we are not anti-children.

Popotan, this post here (#4 in this thread) you did not say that was your plan. You also were asked twice before you finally indicated the content of the, "new, improved", resolution.

Have you been posting as a different nation? I cannot find evidence of posts under your nation name (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/search.php?searchid=963127) of your, "new, improved", resolution idea.

What would you have me do? I can't make a proposal before the one is repealed and I have stated many times I plan to only change the line specifying an age. Everything else I will resubmit without any changes, unless during the course of the reproposal other ideas to strengthen it come forth.

Therefore what more can I do to convince you?

You can post it here in the forum now, you just can't submit it.

Wow, the good ambassador for The Popotan certainly has some guts.

Resolution #25 has been firmly seated in the UN for five years, passed by a majority of over 9000 votes, and comprehensively written by Stephistan no less!

I don't believe a repeal is called for.

We are not willing to risk wasting away one of the stronger pillars in the resolution archives, for the sake of age issues. We believe that for a human, the age 18 is an appropriate maturity age.

As Resolution #25 only refers to "human beings", we can easily escape the nightmare of dealing with beings possessing different life-spans, but admittedly it might be possible for a nation to be populated entirely of short or long-living humans.

In such a case, what is needed is not a repeal, but one or two new resolutions. Such a resolution might re-classify humans that naturally live longer or shorter than the typical homo sapiens - and perhaps place them in a different sub-species category? From there another can be extended to protect the rights of 'children' in this biologically alternative branch of men.

What we should be grieving over, is not the supposed deficiencies of Resolution #25, but that child protection is not granted to any other non-human beings!

CoN Lord Chancellor
UN Delegate of The Council of Narnia

I have to agree with most of the responses in this thread. As stated in the original resolution, the cut off age for a minor is only different, should it have been attained prior to joining the UN (or prior to the resolution being passed, for those who were here before then); as such, the culture has a say in the determination of this limit (which seems to be the basis of the entire repeal). (Unless I stand corrected, I think it can still be (re)determined after this resolution comes into play, anyhow.) So, should this make quorum, (or I become a Delegate prior to this repeal making quorum), I shall have to vote against this repeal.

Horgen Dush
UN Representative, Nomadic Peoples of Damanucus

We are not willing to risk wasting away one of the stronger pillars in the resolution archives, for the sake of age issues. We believe that for a human, the age 18 is an appropriate maturity age.That is of course, you're right, ambassador, but not everyone in the world shares it and I do not believe the UN should be imposing such arbitrary values on other nations, esepcially nations who have had long standing younger ages, for humans and non-humans.
As Resolution #25 only refers to "human beings", we can easily escape the nightmare of dealing with beings possessing different life-spans, but admittedly it might be possible for a nation to be populated entirely of short or long-living humans.

In such a case, what is needed is not a repeal, but one or two new resolutions. Such a resolution might re-classify humans that naturally live longer or shorter than the typical homo sapiens - and perhaps place them in a different sub-species category? From there another can be extended to protect the rights of 'children' in this biologically alternative branch of men.

What we should be grieving over, is not the supposed deficiencies of Resolution #25, but that child protection is not granted to any other non-human beings!

CoN Lord Chancellor
UN Delegate of The Council of NarniaI am not against such a proposal, and if the body likes I could also add that to such a proposal after this measure is repealed, thus removing the need for extra proposals.

To ambassador Horgen Dush, I was unable to understand half of what you said. I do understand you do not agree with my attempt to repeal this, and as mentioned, you have such a right. However, I am hoping you have some more constructive criticism, as I do not intend to waiver in my attempt, and please make more sense in the future.

While I respect the original proposer of this amendment, I feel he had overstep the bounds by the one little phrase. The rest of the proposal is fine, baring the possibility of expanding rights to non-humans.

If the body really insists on me making a show, and that's what it will be, a show, of what the future proposal will look like, I can attempt to do so tomorrow. It is getting late in my area and I am becoming a bit too tired from some work today (OOC: I had 5 hours spent video editing still not done).

Repealing any of the child protection acts and replacing them would be a monumental task, since there are so many and they are tangled together. It's basically impossible, but good luck with that. Have replacements written that you can link to before you repeal anything you plan to replace.

I wish you good luck, because you'll need it to get this to vote. I think even a full telegram campaign of every delegate might be hard pressed to get an issue like this to vote, and even if that worked, it wouldn't pass. Still, have fun with it.

It is apparent that the member from Popotan missed the point I made in R25.

ARTICLE 1
For the purposes of the present resolution, a minor means every human being below the age of eighteen years unless, under the law applicable to the minor, majority is attained earlier. Note the HIGLIGHTED portion of A1 of R25... this means nations can have the age of majority under 18... thus no problem here for us with our age at 12 human years. As for those might want the age at say 25 human years then no problem either as the resolution doesn't force children to marry at 18 or be included in the military or whatever... it simply sets a reference point for one to use to single out minors and adults it doen't define minor and what they can do under national laws. Then it leaves individual nations to fine tune that separation point in general life areas where age is a factor in doing it or not doing it.

Also if you notice A1 doesn't set the time on a year but it is generaly considered to be measured by human standards for a common references. Thus 18 human years to my people is 2.9 years times that then we at the Cavirrian age of 52.2 become adults by this but by are own reach it at 12 human years or 34.8 Cavirrian years and live about 200 human years or 580 Cavirrian years. If this was applied simply on the number 18 years and we add the term Cavirrian then our children would be mature at 6.2 human years and would be starting to learning their basic skills for becoming a productive citizen of our nation once they have completed their schooling and national service.. and far from marriage and being able to produce children.


Since you argue nations should have the right to set the age then R25 has given them that right while for those who had not set age gives a point of reference to use to decided on the age they select.