NationStates Jolt Archive

Description: Category: Human Rights

Title: The Rights of Sentients Act

The World Assembly

BEING a World Government ruling with the mutural consent of member States,

RECOGNIZING the need for national and international stability

AWARE of vast contributions made by clones, artificially created humans, and aliens, and intelligent nonhuman forms of life

AWARE that all sentient beings have emotions and feel pain

AWARE that all sentient beings are endowed by nature with basic rights and that among these are life, liberty, and equal treatment by the law and government.

EMPHASIZING the right of all sentients to be inalienable,

Hereby Declares:

1. All humans, clones, other artificially created humans, all sentient extraterrestrials, and all nonhuman sentient lifeforms shall be treated with dignity and respect by the international community and each member nation of the World Assembly. All such sentients just mentioned are to be treated equally by the laws of the member nations of the World Assembly and by the World Assembly itself. Sentients affected by this section shall be as defined by Section 7.

2. Should a nation find it cannot grant equal or similar rights to a nonnatural human or a nonhuman sentient, the government shall permit the sentient group to leave their territory if they so chose. However, no whole group of sentients can be forced to relocate on the basis of their species identification or lifeform classification.

3. To assist nations in enforcing this resolution, this body creates the World Assembly Human Rights Commission, hereby known after as WAHRC, to rank nations according to their human rights records and to flag gross abusers. This information shall be released periodically in the World Census report.

4.
a. Nothing in this resolution shall be deemed to give the World Assembly the power to intervene militarily in a nation with low sentient rights rankings. Nor shall this resolution be deemed to give the World Assembly the power to impose economic or trade embargoes on such nations.
b. Nothing in this resolution shall be deemed to ban individual nations from taking actions to help World Assembly members improve their human and sentient rights scores through peaceful or other means.

5. Nothing in this resolution shall be deemed to ban WA member nations from enforcing national laws or imposing just punishments for the violation of such laws. However, all national laws must be applied equally to all sentients in a nation's borders regardless of species, human status, or life origination, or life form type.

6. Member states are encouraged to create commissions to enforce their own equal rights laws and equal rights treaties which they have signed onto.

7. For the purposes of this resolution Sentients shall be defined as:

a. Beings who are self-aware, able to examine their own traits, feelings, and behaviours.

b. Beings who are intelligent, able to learn, reason, and understand complex information shown to them.

c. Sentients engage in self motivated activity, capable of developing artificial means of communication, and abstract ideas on their own.

I have a few things to say

1) that TMZ treats all species even handedly but we will never treat criminals with respect and dignity. We believe that criminals have forfited those rights.

And while liberty, and life may be inalienalbe, others are not necessarily so and while trying to mandate to mother nature has chuckle value, that just doesn't cut it in even NS's reality.

All members of the World Assembly shall create commissions to ensure the human rights of clones, artificial humans and nonhuman sentients are protected

We of TMZ keep our government to a minimum and creating commissions for special groups is against our principle of treating all evenly.

And why just those specific groups? why not all groups - if you are trying to be fair.

I will vote against this resolution specifically for this portion.

To assist nations in enforcing this resolution, this body creates the World Assembly Human Rights Commission, hereby known after as WAHRC, to rank nations according to their human rights records.

and I think this is simply another waste of money and effort.

On your first point I think that clause 4 addresses it by implying that it does not apply to lawbreakers.

Clause 5 is just a incharacterization of something that already done by the World Census report. There would be no changes there game wise. When it pops up it would still be under "the world census report".

It covers all sentient groups.

Eh...your government could be the commission? The idea is equal treatment which you say your nation does anyway.

No, my government wouldn't be the 'commission' - they'd have to set one(s) up to fulfill what you are wanting - and I refuse to wate money that way.

and who decided the two highlighted and hued below?

4. Nothing in this resolution may be deemed to ban forced labor as a form of punishment for breaking national laws as long as such punish is not more than one lifetime and imposed only for the most serious of crimes.


Who decides what is a 'life time' - they vary dramatically by species - and why should we wan to use the dead - zombies are notorious for simply falling apart on one...

What is a serious crime in TMZ may not be in another nation.

Doesn't your nation have a equal rights council or something? How does it enforce the equal treatment you speak of?

The lifetime would depend on the species.

Serious crimes are to be determined by each member nation, in accordance with their right to national soverignty. As long as the laws of your nation are applied equally to all sentients. If you give free speech to humans, the resolution simply says you must also give free speech to clones, ET, predator, self aware robots, and other sentient beings.

But if you ban free speech for ET, then you have to ban for everyone else too.

If the punishment for attempted murder is life in prison then you would apply it equally to all sentients.

However there is a grammatical error I missed until when you highlighted the crimes part. (speciel group is akin to ethnic group but for species).

Looks like this one will have to die and be resubmitted. Meantime, we can just use this thread to fix any problems with it.

I'm not saying that it has to die but I see a number of problems that need to be solved.

AWARE that all sentient beings have emotions and feel pain - Why is this in there, it has nothing to do with rights.

EMPHASIZING the right of all sentients to be inalienable - I profoundly disagree - TMZ also has the Death Penality, so Life is not inalienable in our view. I'm not going to go into how I feel that none of these so called 'rights' are inherent, or inalienable.

You ask where is TMZ's equal rights commisasion - we don't have one. A sentient is a sentient is a sentient, and why does it take - in your thinking - a commission, or a council to ensure this- No one has ever said that a society has to be nherently discriminary.

The TMZ evolved in such a way that it's founders were already treating every one as equal - all the privates treated like privates, the sergeants like sergeants and the officers well...like officers.

Though we do know that not every nation is as clear sighted in this as we are.

Though most deligates are going to be less of a thorn in WA's side than I am.

Captain Abigail Hardcastle WA delegate from TMZ

BEING a World Government ruling with the mutural consent of member States,
That would be "mutual."

AWARE that all sentient beings have emotions and feel pain
Not necessarily. I suggest you leave the definition of sentient beings and related topics to the Definition of Sentience proposal so as to avoid conflicts within law.

AWARE that all sentient beings are endowed by nature with basic rights and that among these are life, liberty, and equal treatment by the law and government.
I suggest removing "are endowed by nature with basic rights and that among these are" and inserting "possess basic, inalienable rights, among which are." Also, nature does not endow the right to equal treatment by the law and government. These are human constructs. What you should specify it endows are things such as life, freedom from XYZ, freedom to XYZ, etc. However, I do not believe you should detail just what rights sentient beings have here. You should do that below.

EMPHASIZING the right of all sentients to be inalienable,
This section becomes irrelevant upon the above change. Also, unless sentient beings have only one right, it is "rights."

1. All clones, other artificially created humans, all Extraterrestrials, and all nonhuman intelligent lifeforms to have the right to be treated with dignity and respect. All such sentients are to be treated equally by the laws of the member nations of the World Assembly.[.quote]
Why not just remove "clones...humans...extraterrestrials...intelligent lifeforms" and insert "sentient beings"?

[QUOTE=UnitedStatesOfAmerica-;13576574]2. Should a nation find it cannot grant equality to a nonnatural human or a nonhuman sentient, the government shall permit the speciel group to leave their territory.
I suggest you remove this. If you want a strong proposal, you cannot allow these exceptions. If WA Member States find they cannot follow legislation passed by the Assembly, then they must leave the Assembly.

3. All members of the World Assembly shall create commissions to ensure the human rights of clones, artificial humans and nonhuman sentients are protected.
Why not just "sentient beings"? This seems discriminatory and inane to me: why have a specialized branch to look over the rights of specific groups when you might suggest creating a commission that ensures the rights of all sentient beings? Also, "human rights of...nonhuman sentients"?

4. Nothing in this resolution may be deemed to ban forced labor as a form of punishment for breaking national laws as long as such punish is not more than one lifetime and imposed only for the most serious of crimes.
Perhaps, "This resolution does not ban the use of forced labor as a form of punishment inflicted upon a citizen by its respective nation."

5. To assist nations in enforcing this resolution, this body creates the World Assembly Human Rights Commission, hereby known after as WAHRC, to rank nations according to their human rights records.
You wish to create a commission whose only mandate is to rank nations?

Overall, I am unable to support this proposal at this time. It has parts of the proposal scrambled into the "EMPHASIZING" and "NOTING" section, is unclear, and does not mention the more basic rights at all in its declaration section, such as the right to life, instead devoting much text to technicalities. A proposal to note the basic, inalienable rights should be much cleaner and much clearer than this.


Respectfully,
The Dominion

I'd point the ambassador to the previous long-running discussions of sentience, sapience, and how to get very screwed up about producing a proposal that's a lot more reasonable than this one, but frankly I can't be arsed.

--
Cerys Coch, Permanant Undersecretary

How about something more like this, which is adapted from this old proposal (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=551796&highlight=for+the+expansion+of+rights):

Recognizing that the nations of the World Assembly are composed of a wide variety of citizens from various origins; and

Whereas the World Assembly cannot predict the variety of citizenry that will inhabit future generations; and

Recognizing the need to equally apply the laws of this organization;

Therefore, citizenship will be extended to any self-aware individual that is intellectually capable of independently participating in government when given adequate access; and

All proposals passed by this organization shall apply equally to all citizens.

- I profoundly disagree - TMZ also has the Death Penality, so Life is not inalienable in our view.The two are not mutually exclusive. 'Inalienable' simply means they cannot be transfered from one individual to another (such as property rights).

How about something more like this, which is adapted from this old proposal (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=551796&highlight=for+the+expansion+of+rights):

I really like this one - one of the best working definitions of sentience I've seen proposed. Unlike many, it doesn't get bogged down in endless nitpicking over what is or isn't sentient, and thus may actually stand a chance of reaching the proposal queue.

That would be "mutual."


Not necessarily. I suggest you leave the definition of sentient beings and related topics to the Definition of Sentience proposal so as to avoid conflicts within law.


I suggest removing "are endowed by nature with basic rights and that among these are" and inserting "possess basic, inalienable rights, among which are." Also, nature does not endow the right to equal treatment by the law and government. These are human constructs. What you should specify it endows are things such as life, freedom from XYZ, freedom to XYZ, etc. However, I do not believe you should detail just what rights sentient beings have here. You should do that below.


This section becomes irrelevant upon the above change. Also, unless sentient beings have only one right, it is "rights."

[QUOTE=UnitedStatesOfAmerica-;13576574]1. All clones, other artificially created humans, all Extraterrestrials, and all nonhuman intelligent lifeforms to have the right to be treated with dignity and respect. All such sentients are to be treated equally by the laws of the member nations of the World Assembly.[.quote]
Why not just remove "clones...humans...extraterrestrials...intelligent lifeforms" and insert "sentient beings"?


I suggest you remove this. If you want a strong proposal, you cannot allow these exceptions. If WA Member States find they cannot follow legislation passed by the Assembly, then they must leave the Assembly.


Why not just "sentient beings"? This seems discriminatory and inane to me: why have a specialized branch to look over the rights of specific groups when you might suggest creating a commission that ensures the rights of all sentient beings? Also, "human rights of...nonhuman sentients"?


Perhaps, "This resolution does not ban the use of forced labor as a form of punishment inflicted upon a citizen by its respective nation."


You wish to create a commission whose only mandate is to rank nations?

Overall, I am unable to support this proposal at this time. It has parts of the proposal scrambled into the "EMPHASIZING" and "NOTING" section, is unclear, and does not mention the more basic rights at all in its declaration section, such as the right to life, instead devoting much text to technicalities. A proposal to note the basic, inalienable rights should be much cleaner and much clearer than this.


Respectfully,
The Dominion

I agree with all those ideas.

TMZ: I was saying to let it die because, as noted by myself and TD, I have found a couple of grammatical (spelling) errors and if I'm correct those would probably render it dead on arrival. Also I'm going to see if I can include your views in the new draft.

Would it be prudent to wait for the passage of the Definition of Sentience before resubmitting this one?

Description: Category: Human Rights

Title: The Rights of Sentients Act

The World Assembly

Being a World Government ruling with the mutual consent of member states,


RECOGNIZING the need for national and international stability

AWARE of vast contributions made by clones, artificially created humans, and aliens, and intelligent nonhuman forms of life

AWARE that all sentient beings possess basic, inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, equal treatment by the law.

Hereby Declares:

1. All sentient beings have the right to be treated with dignity and respect. All sentients are to be treated equally by the laws of the member nations of the World Assembly.

2. In times of national emergency or war, should a nation find it cannot grant equality to all sentient groups, the government shall permit the sentient group to leave their territory without harrassment. At all other times, member nations must grant equal treatment and equal citizenship rights to all sentient beings in their territories.

3. All members of the World Assembly shall create commissions to ensure the Sentient Rights of all sentient beings are protected.

4. This resolution does not ban the use of forced labor or rights restrictions as a form of punishment inflicted upon a citizen by its respective nation.

5. To assist nations in enforcing this resolution, this body creates the World Assembly Sentient Rights Commission, hereby known after as WASRC, to rank nations according to their human rights records.
a. The WASRC shall compile statistics on treatment of sentients in all World Assembly nations. All nations must allow the WASRC to enter and operate freely on their territories for the purpose of collecting such data.
b. The WASRC shall report its findings to the World Assembly official responsible for publishing World Census data.
c. The report on Sentient Rights shall be merged with the World Census Human Rights Report which is periodically released.

I was going to insert freedom of the press, speech, religion, etc but perhaps those should be left to a different resolution?

TD: I left the part in about nations having sentient leave their territory because there might be times of war or national insurrection when a government might find it is impossible to continue treating a species group equally while at the same time maintaing peace and stability within its borders. But I inserted that in all peaceful times, governments must comply with treating sentients as equals. I hope that will work.

I've also eliminated that WAHRC. Instead of referring to human rights I refer to sentient rights. Leaving the definition of sentience to the Definition of Sentiency resolution currently under discussion.

EDIT: Reinserted 5.

I really like this one - one of the best working definitions of sentience I've seen proposed. Unlike many, it doesn't get bogged down in endless nitpicking over what is or isn't sentient, and thus may actually stand a chance of reaching the proposal queue.

Thanks! I think this other proposal is way too complex.

United States - this and the "Definition of Sentience" are basically duplicate proposals that arrived nearly simultaneously. (Also, the last version of the "Definition" proposal I saw essentially did nothing.)

Since there is no catagory for resolutions that offer nothing more than definitions and the the ROSA resolution might need a definition section, do you think the two should be merged?
On the condition the fellow who proposed the definition resolution agrees to a merger? I wouldn't want him to think I was stealing his work.


Also is there anything else on here that needs fixing or including? I was thinking of including stuff like slavery, free speech, free religion but if I did it would start veering off into different areas and I think the idea is to keep the scope of resolutions narrow and specific.
Hence this one focuses on requiring equal treatment by the law.

OOC: I just realized something. The acronym for this proposal is ROSA (Right Of Sentients Act). And the first name of a famous American civil rights activist was Rosa. Has anyone else noticed that?

OOC: I just realized something. The acronym for this proposal is ROSA (Right Of Sentients Act). And the first name of a famous American civil rights activist was Rosa. Has anyone else noticed that?
No. :D

Since there is no catagory for resolutions that offer nothing more than definitions and the the ROSA resolution might need a definition section, do you think the two should be merged?
On the condition the fellow who proposed the definition resolution agrees to a merger? I wouldn't want him to think I was stealing his work.


Go right ahead with merging the stuff...my proposal seems to have disappeared anyway.

ok.
Will add it in.

Just need to let the current incarnation run its course. Hopefully it won't pass as is, otherwise someone will need to do a repeal resolution.

Just need to let the current incarnation run its course.

Any WA proposal can be removed from the queue without penalty by its author. Just file a Getting Help request.

Any WA proposal can be removed from the queue without penalty by its author. Just file a Getting Help request.

Thanks. I'll file one. I'll a couple more days for more input on how to best improve the idea before resubmitting. We are getting a lot of good ideas that should be included.

I've a filed a request under the WA resolutions category.
I'll resubmit, with most of the proposed changes, on Monday at the earliest.

Some change proposals I've been TG'd won't be included such as an idea for the WA to militarily invade noncomplying members or impose embargoes. Not possible to do according to what I'm reading about how this supposed to work.

Meantime we can keep using this thread for change proposals instead of creating a new one.

Revised with input included. I've included a definition of sentience in section 7

According to word, the resolution has over 3,100 characters including spaces. Attempting to include line breaks brings it to 3,200 or somewhere in that area I think.

What is the opinion of Section 6? Should it be kept or should it be dumped?

...could you post the latest version?

It is in the opening post. I thought it would be best to edit the op so the new version will be the first thing people see when they click on the thread.

I say remove section 6.

Also, regarding your definition of sentience, might we define it as possessing:
1. consciousness (of objects and events external or internal to the being) and in particular the capacity to feel pain;
2. reasoning (the developed capacity to solve new and relatively complex problems);
3. self-motivated activity (activity that is relatively independent of either genetic or direct external control);
4. the capacity to communicate, by whatever means, messages of an indefinite variety of types--that is, not just with an indefinite number of possible contents but on many indefinite, possibly topics;
5. the presence of self-concepts and self-awareness, individual or racial or both.

(OOC This was borrowed from Mary Anne Warren, but it seems a more complete definition than the one offered. After all, most animals are self-aware and can learn, reason, and/or understand information, to an extent).

I believe point three to be especially important.


Respectfully,
The Dominion

This is probably the best of the Sentients' Rights attempts so far. It's still got a few problems.

Description: Category: Human Rights
Strength?

AWARE of vast contributions made by clones, artificially created humans, and aliens, and intelligent nonhuman forms of life
This comes from your original Clones' Rights draft, doesn't it? It looks out of place now.

Hereby Declares:

1. All humans, clones, other artificially created humans, all Extraterrestrials, and all nonhuman intelligent lifeforms shall be treated with dignity and respect by the international community and each member nation of the World Assembly.
All extraterrestrials? Even Zabriskan Fontemas? Or Arcturan Eggplants, or whatever else your favorite non-sentient alien may be? The later bit about the definition of "sentients" doesn't get you out of adding non-sentients here, you know :-)

2. Should a nation find it cannot grant equality to a nonnatural human or a nonhuman sentient, the government shall permit the sentient group to leave their territory if they so chose. However, no whole group of sentients can be forced to relocate on the basis of their species identification or lifeform classification.
This is fine, but I seem to remember an old attempt at this that tried to allow for as-close-to-equivalent-as-you-could-reasonably-get rights that you might want to try to work in here. I think it may have been Ambassador Sweynsson's work, but all the embassy's notes on those discussions are stuck up on what's left of the thirteenth floor, and are probably charcoal anyway.

6. Member states shall create commissions to enforce their own equal rights laws and equal rights treaties which they have signed onto.
This might go down better if it wasn't quite so strong. Mind you, HRH the Ambassador would disagree with me, so you pays your money and takes your choice, as they say.

7. For the purposes of this resolution Sentients shall be defined as:

a. Beings who are self-aware, able to examine their own traits, feelings, and behaviours.

b. Beings who are intelligent, able to learn, reason, and understand information shown to him.

c. Sentients can be living, undead, self aware artificial intelligences, or non carbon/nonbiological entities.
I'm not quite clear as to how many (or which) of the boxes on this list you have to be able to tick. The third one taking a different form from the others is particularly distracting, for some reason.

All in all, pretty good. I'm mostly nit-picking, and that's better than I can say for most of what's going on around here.

--
Cerys Coch, Permanent Undersecretary

yep........ ok.... id link you too my postt on gobbanium['s thread, but im dunrk....... so fuck it...... but i see no position other than a committe to resolve the issue of who's sentient and who's not......

And why just those specific groups? why not all groups - if you are trying to be fair.
I will vote against this resolution specifically for this portion.
and I think this is simply another waste of money and effort.Concur with TMZ on this one as once nations become members they as such are equal in regards to rights granted them as such members thus all beings in that nation considered citizens of that nations become equal under WA resolutions that apply to individuals or any group they might belong to as they do to the nation.. Thus to single out this group or that is not needed as once allowed in as a member all here are equal.. under the resolutions so passed by the WA and we don't need to be wasting time on giving rights to one group if they all don't have them as members. We need to work on insuring all are equal here regardless of what type being they may or may not be... They are members of the WA... equal under any resolutions so passed by it..

The issue is not whether the WA treats its members equally but the treatment of individuals by the national governments.
The point of the resolution is to require national governments to treat all persons on their territory with dignity, respect and equality, not just those who happen to be their own citizens.

For example, the nation of Ceratosaurus (a nonWA nation), humans and other noncerans have no rights and hence are not treated equally or fairly by the law. If Ceratosaurus was a WA member nation, this resolution would require the Ceran government to treat humans and other noncerans the same way it treats Cerans. Citizenship does not have anything to do with the issue.
All sentient beings have the right to be treated equally by a nation's laws.

D.R. and Gobbannium: I'm going to incorporate your views into the proposal.

Is there a consensus to replace " All humans, clones, other artificially created humans, all Extraterrestrials, and all nonhuman intelligent lifeforms shall be treated with dignity and respect by the international community and each member nation of the World Assembly. "
with
"All humans, both natural and artificially created, all sentient Extraterrestrials, and all nonhuman intelligent lifeforms shall be treated with dignity and respect by the international community and each member nation of the World Assembly" ?

As 2: The WA should not condone ethnic or specient cleansing by any of its members. There are certain rights that are universal and take precedence over national soverignty. One of those is the right to be treated equally by the law.
Wars and insurrections might make that almost impossible for some nations and this gives them a proper method for dealing with it. But the way it is worded is meant to prevent certain nations from arguing that the resolution endorses the forced movement of whole populations based on species differences.
Do you think we should allow specient cleansing?

Is there an agreement to dump clause 6? The resolution itself is meant to be strong. The point of 6 is to force nations to make sure they are treating people equally. But it might, at the same time, be redundant considering the job assigned the World Assembly Sentient Rights Commission (WASRC). The idea is to increase human rights rankings but not to bankrupt a nation in doing so. Though, I'm not sure if WA resolutions actually have any impact on nation's economic strengths. Maybe the mods could clarify that.

I see more need to discuss the definition portion so I will wait for more input, especially on that part.

My only qualm is with section 2.

Suppose there are 2 groups of sentient beings, Trogs & Dors.

The Trogs are a peaceful sentient group to the point of passivity. However, they also have a spirtual connection to the region, perhaps more than that. Perhaps it's a biological connection that if they left for too long, they'd die. Also they have an extremely low birthrate.

The Dors are an agressive sentient group who like nothing better than to slay anyone else, especially those who aren't like them, and especially those who they view as pansies or wimps, etc. The Trogs especially are loathed by the Dors because of this.

The problem with this is that the Trogs would like to live peacefully with the Dors, but the Dors don't and their #1 goal is erradication of the Trogs. Moreover, the laws are based upon Trog ideals and so they are very passive and can't do much against Dor violence, which will happen because Dors loathe Trogs to the core of their very being, perhaps it's become instict, so even heavily armed forces wouldn't stop them.

The bottom line is that over time, the Dors will slowly erode the Trogs numbers because the murder rate will outnumber the birthrate until all Trogs are killed, all because the Trogs and Dors can't live together, and Dors cannot be forced out.

D.R. and Gobbannium: I'm going to incorporate your views into the proposal.

Is there a consensus to replace " All humans, clones, other artificially created humans, all Extraterrestrials, and all nonhuman intelligent lifeforms shall be treated with dignity and respect by the international community and each member nation of the World Assembly. "
with
"All humans, both natural and artificially created, all sentient Extraterrestrials, and all nonhuman intelligent lifeforms shall be treated with dignity and respect by the international community and each member nation of the World Assembly" ?
I would still favor "sentient beings" merely for the sake of conciseness, but I suppose that is sufficient..

Is there an agreement to dump clause 6?
Yes.

I see more need to discuss the definition portion so I will wait for more input, especially on that part.
You got the Dominion's definition of sentience, yes?

The Dominion

D.R. and Gobbannium: I'm going to incorporate your views into the proposal.
Heh. Sorry, the last time the Ambassador had a long, philosophical conversation with the D.R. delegation, he had me put it on the "Don't Let Anyone You Care About Go There" list. I can get hours of fun winding him up with this. Thanks.

(OOC: ...and does that mean I'm Quinch? [/OBSCURE_COMICS_JOKE])

Is there a consensus to replace " All humans, clones, other artificially created humans, all Extraterrestrials, and all nonhuman intelligent lifeforms shall be treated with dignity and respect by the international community and each member nation of the World Assembly. "
with
"All humans, both natural and artificially created, all sentient Extraterrestrials, and all nonhuman intelligent lifeforms shall be treated with dignity and respect by the international community and each member nation of the World Assembly" ?
Looks legally OK, though using "sentient" in one case and "intelligent" in the other seems a bit strange.

As 2: The WA should not condone ethnic or specient cleansing by any of its members. There are certain rights that are universal and take precedence over national soverignty. One of those is the right to be treated equally by the law.
Wars and insurrections might make that almost impossible for some nations and this gives them a proper method for dealing with it. But the way it is worded is meant to prevent certain nations from arguing that the resolution endorses the forced movement of whole populations based on species differences.
Do you think we should allow specient cleansing?
Oh, I see. I thought you were doing something else entirely with that clause. I was thinking of the case where a particular right doesn't make physical sense across species.

Suppose your nation declared that it was the right of all beings to have government-funded prosthetic arms or legs fitted if their natural arms or legs are crippled. That works fine for people, but doesn't make any sense for (sentient) dolphins. The point of the other proposal was to make sure that something equivalent was also a right for dolphins, like getting free artificial tails, rather than letting humans get away with having superior rights just because someone was clever phrasing it.

Is there an agreement to dump clause 6? The resolution itself is meant to be strong. The point of 6 is to force nations to make sure they are treating people equally. But it might, at the same time, be redundant considering the job assigned the World Assembly Sentient Rights Commission (WASRC). The idea is to increase human rights rankings but not to bankrupt a nation in doing so. Though, I'm not sure if WA resolutions actually have any impact on nation's economic strengths. Maybe the mods could clarify that.
OOC: resolutions can affect any national indicators, depending on category and strength. My guess would be that Human Rights increase civil rights at the expense of the economy.

IC: I think you're more likely to get agreement if you "encourage" member nations to set up commissions rather than declaring that they "shall". I'm all for the idea myself, but then I'm a bureaucrat. On the other hand, dropping it wouldn't be the end of the world. Worlds. Whatever.

--
Cerys Coch, Permanent Undersecretary

Heh. Sorry, the last time the Ambassador had a long, philosophical conversation with the D.R. delegation, he had me put it on the "Don't Let Anyone You Care About Go There" list. I can get hours of fun winding him up with this. Thanks.
I don't quite know what you are talking about. I believe you are referring to the ex-nation Dagnus Reardinius. :)

OOC: Sadly, my old nation was deleted for inactivity :[ and I reeally was not going to go to the trouble of requesting that it gets restored. Phooey. That was a brilliant debate though.

The Dominion

OOC: Darn that one character!

According to the sticky in the Moderation forum (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=552190), it's trivially easy to resurrect nations nowadays. Just so you know.

OOC: Darn that one character!

According to the sticky in the Moderation forum (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=552190), it's trivially easy to resurrect nations nowadays. Just so you know.

you don't even have to go the getting help page either.

Gobbannium, I'm working on your ideas. I was going to submit tonight but I want to get more input on the definition of sentience from more people so I"ll put off on submitting until tommorrow night if that is alright.

Gobbannium, I'm working on your ideas. I was going to submit tonight but I want to get more input on the definition of sentience from more people so I"ll put off on submitting until tommorrow night if that is alright.

Cerys holds up her hands and leans back on the empty beer barrel she commandeered from somewhere as a seat. "Hey, it's your proposal, not mine! Submit it when you think it's good and ready."

--
Cerys Coch, Permanent Undersecretary

Changes have been made and the definition section modified. Can I get some feedback on the definition portion?

Changes have been made and the definition section modified. Can I get some feedback on the definition portion?

Has it changed? I still can't tell whether you need to tick all the boxes or if just ticking one will do.

--
Cerys Coch, Permanent Undersecretary

I suppose it is alright. However--artificial means of communications only? What about speaking? Signaling?

The Dominion

You need to be capable of all of them. Speaking of which, some species may not possess all of these but may be on the verge of discovering them. But that would be for a different WA resolution because it brings up whether there should be a Prime Directive against interfering in the affairs of primitive species who are on the path to sentience.

There is no room in the proposal but:

natural communication= simple vocalizing, appendage waving/gesturing

artificial communications= complex vocal or hand language, using mirrors, radios, torches, writing, etc.

IE: If the cockroach people pant, grunt, roar, purr, and that is all they do, they are not sentient. But the cockroach people jump on the radio talk the words "Hey old chap, how bout a game of chess. By the way can you bring me some budweiser." Then they are sentient.

If they have language.

Actually, language is natural communication, whereas deliberately invented communications, such as hand signals, Morse, and other codes are artificial communications.

I have submitted it. But I accidentally forgot to choose the strength so it will have a mild effect because that is the default.

I guess that is alright considering that I changed "All nations shall have commitees" to "all nations are encouraged to have committees"

Plus the fact it blocks the WA from taking military or economic action for or against.

Even the WASRC's only enforcement tool is the human rights ranking index but what does that do??

So I guess those would make the impact mild. Or is that a correct interpretation?

What is the difference between the effects?

need 90 more delegate votes.

The issue is not whether the WA treats its members equally but the treatment of individuals by the national governments.
The point of the resolution is to require national governments to treat all persons on their territory with dignity, respect and equality, not just those who happen to be their own citizens..If you remove people or citizens or whatever they may be called from a nation then there is no government so when one speaks of equality under laws created by a government then one is speaking of equality for the people those laws are in place to control... Remove people or whatever they are called and you have no governments. Be they a supercomputer or flesh and blood or some energy force. If there is nothing there to start a government then there is nothing there. So when we take in new members we are taking in whatever life forms submitted to become members under some form of government. Once they are taken in they agree to treat all members as equals..

Thus if the Trogs & Dors. file for membership as the governing powere in nation A then they agree to be equal and follow WA and international laws. If both file for membership as separate governments then once both join they become equal and under current active resolutions can't kill each other off. Take one out of a single government and then they are no longer the same nation as applied for membership thus I would say they need reapply for membership as a separate Race Trogs or Dors governing a given nation..


It makes no difference the term used Trogs or Dors Clone, Tuber, Robotic, Force, or whatever if they are capable of be taken into the WA as members of a governmemt then they are equal under WA laws and thus international laws since the WA has given to make them part of WA laws.

At the moment, with the fresh start for the WA and the nullification of all previous UN resolutions, there are no active resolutions that would require nations to treat all people in their territories equally.

So far only 2 WA resolutions have passed and they have been for WA governance and operations.

The one at vote now guarantees the right to a fair trial comes pretty close. But there is nothing guaranteeing that all persons on a nation's territory will be treated equally or fairly. Even in trails, suppose you don't recognize clones as people or robots as people. Then in such cases, member states could argue that because they don't recognize clones or ET as persons that the word "everyone" in the Right to Fair Trial resolution does not apply clones or ET's in their nation.


I see a fallacy in your statement that if a nation's population demographics change, it automatically becomes a different nation and must reapply for membership.

If the nation of Grungia has types of species, human and Cromag, and only humans run the government, the removal of the cromag does not make Grungia a different or new nation. It is still Grungia and still a member of the WA.

The government is the people who are in control, not the people who necessarily make up the population. In democracies, it is everyone who is eligible to vote. In a lot of nations one species is allowed the vote.


ROSA is going to fail this time around due to lack of 72 delegates.

It makes no difference the term used Trogs or Dors Clone, Tuber, Robotic, Force, or whatever if they are capable of be taken into the WA as members of a governmemt then they are equal under WA laws and thus international laws since the WA has given to make them part of WA laws.
My point seems to have been completely beyond your understanding, that or I hope you have not chose to blatantly ignore it.

The example given was to illustrate a situation where 2 legally represented, intellectual governing parities cannot coexist, they have a physical or instinctual reaction which makes it impossible, in the same nation and where neither one wants to leave the area. Moreover the original inhabitants, the Trogs in my example, were there first and the Dors are the newcomers.

It is similar to letting a few foxes into a massive chicken utopia, except the chicken's have low birthrates & it's the only habitat left for them to exist...the chickens can't defend themselves and can't force the foxes out. The foxes don't want to leave, for obvious reasons. The chickens can't leave for obvious reasons.

Now take that to a more higher level with intellect involved only....where the sole purpose of an entire race is breeding and destruction of all other races, both of which are WA members, though obviously one is a black sheep.

Sounds like Alien.

In such a case, it would require an international peacekeeping force. Unfortunately the first resolution passed by this body bans the establishment of WA peacekeeping force.

"F.... the Supreme Court." President Andrew Jackson when the US Supreme Court ruled that indians had the same rights as whites.

can i get your source for this quote? and perhaps the supreme court case he's referring to?

The example given was to illustrate a situation where 2 legally represented, intellectual governing parities cannot coexist, they have a physical or instinctual reaction which makes it impossible, in the same nation and where neither one wants to leave the area. Moreover the original inhabitants, the Trogs in my example, were there first and the Dors are the newcomers.Then how did they both become recognized as citizens of one nation or separate nations that got membership in the WA..? If they meet the requirements to join then and be recognized by the members then they are able to live together. Otherwise what if once the say Trogs exterminate the Dors they see citizens of another nation as their next to exterminate. If races of one nation can't live toghether within the borders of their own nations they how can we expect them to live among us outside those border?

It is similar to letting a few foxes into a massive chicken utopia, except the chicken's have low birthrates & it's the only habitat left for them to exist...the chickens can't defend themselves and can't force the foxes out. The foxes don't want to leave, for obvious reasons. The chickens can't leave for obvious reasons.So do we welcome the foxes into the WA knowing what they do to chickens..? Turn our backs when they eat just one or two or three or four.. When do we put a stop to it? After they eat us or before they eat us. Once they join they must be able to live in peace with all members their actions against their own should be a warning sign as to how they will come to treat certain members... As say my nation gets along well with the Dors then we become enemies of the Trogs..

Now take that to a more higher level with intellect involved only....where the sole purpose of an entire race is breeding and destruction of all other races, both of which are WA members, though obviously one is a black sheep.Think is my point exactly as we need to set standards for membership before we start trying to make us all equal.. Find those that are 'equal' and get them organized to bring those not 'egaul' in safely.. after all nobody wants the fox in the henhouse.

can i get your source for this quote? and perhaps the supreme court case he's referring to?


It's a summary of his attitude toward the Supreme Court. They did not use the F**** during that time period.
The case he was referring to was when the Supreme Court ruled he could not force the Cherokee in Georgia to move to what is now Oklahoma. He did it anyway, ignoring this and other Supreme Court rulings he did not like.