NationStates Jolt Archive

"Friends, opponents, newcomers: Lend me your ears!

Slightly over two years ago, I had the pleasure of being able to tell the government that I represented here in those days that I and my colleagues had managed to get one of their proposals passed as a UN resolution. That measure was resolution #148, 'Meteorological Cooperation', which established the International Meteorological Organisation that has been so useful to so many nations since then.
But now, because so many people here have apparently decided that the new start this organisation is making requires 'throwing the baby out with the bathwater' (as the saying goes) by voting to repeal ALL of the UN's remaining resolutions in one go no matter what their quality, that organisation faces an end to its existence within a matter of days...
Some of you might now be guessing that the purpose of my speech is to propose a 'World Assembly' resolution in continuance of UN Resolution #148... but, if so, you are in error."

(He paused for a couple of minutes, until the confused mutterings that his last sentence had caused had died down again...)

"My government has decided against taking such a step, at least for now, for two reasons:
Firstly, there is the matter of priorities. Whilst we are not in complete wih the contents of the legislative agenda that some of the missions here have been drawing up, we do agree that many of the subjects covered by proposals being listed there are much more important than this topic."

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OOC: out of time, so I'll finish this post on Monday...

OOC: out of time, so I'll finish this post on Monday...And what are we supposed to do till then?

And what, may I also ask, is the purpose of this topic?

wait,

to "Save the IMO" and wait till the posts finished....

And why not do a "International Standards and Co-ordination Board" that can be tasked to do things like that instead of having a myriad of organisations who'se sole purpose is to collate and disseminate information?

And what are we supposed to do till then?

Save the IMO posts? :)

Perhaps, absent any particular content, we might discuss which committees are worth saving.

On my list would be IRCO, UNEA, NDAO - perhaps expanded to non-natural disasters as well - and something like, but perhaps not exactly replicating, the UNEAF.

Edit: This post uses 'perhaps' 3 times.

OOC: Sorry about the incomplete post. I was writing it in an internet cafe on Saturday, and the place's owner decided to close up shop a quarter-hour earlier than normal -- with only a couple of minutes' warning -- so I didn't have time to finish it...

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"My government's second reason for not attempting to re-pass the resolution in question," Alfred continues after (from an IC viewpoint) a very a brief pause, "is even simpler: It's no longer actually needed. Although UN action seemed necessary to us for the initial creation of the IMO, to provide its start-up funding and bring it quickly to the attention of a high proportion of the national governments that exist, that organisation obviously does exist now... and the effective repeal of Resolution #148 that is currently taking place, although it will end the former arrangements for funding the IMO (apart from the agency's contracts with nations that weren't in the UN anyway), clearly won't outlaw it.

The IMO's accumulated database had completely up-to-date copies stored at several locations, for safety's sake, so it wasn't lost when the NSUN Building was destroyed, and -- in keeping with their mandated duty to share that inormation with cooperating nations -- they have already sent a full copy of this data to the St Edmundan government and are willing to supply other copies to any other "cooperating" nation that requests this before the last remnants of the NSUN pull the plugs on their power supply and external communications.

The IMO still has its staff under contract for now, and the Director-General assures me that he expects an overwhelming majority of those personnel would be willing to continue working for the IMO if it were to become a independent agency rather than a UN or WA one.

What the IMO does not still have, of course, is a guarantee of adequate funding to continue operations on its current scale for very long. Its existing contracts with nations that weren't NSUN members anyway will keep it going for a few days, and the St Edmundan government has decided that as the agency's original sponsors we should offer an interest-free loan to extend that period somewhat, but clearly it will need contributions directly from some of the nations that formerly received its services as a "free" benefit of their NSUN membership too if it is to survive.

My friends, surely we can NOT allow this agency to be lost and its accumulated expertise dispersed to the four winds! If your governments contribute to its funds at the same rates as non-NSUN nations have already been doing then I think the cost to your budgets would be fairly minimal in most cases, and would be FAR outweighed by the benefits to your economies that having this assistance with weather-forecasting would bring.

For this reason, my government has produced a treaty that we hope many of your nations' governments will choose to sign. I have copies of it here..."

The International Meteorological Agreement

We, the signatory nations of this treaty, do hereby declare _

1. That there shall be an international agency called the International Meteorological Organisation, which shall function just as the NSUN agency of the same name did with the three following exceptions_
A. That this agency shall be funded fully by the cooperating nations, with their national contributions assessed using the same formulae that were previously used when calculating the fees to be paid by those non-NSUN nations that chose to sign contracts with the IMO.
B. That the Director-General of this agency shall be appointed by and answerable to a Council on which all nations contributing appropriately to this agency's funds shall have equal rights of representation, rather than to any committee or official of either the NSUN or the World Assembly.
C. That this same Council shall have the power to make additional rules concerning the operations of the IMO, and to propose changes to this Treaty for approval or rejection by the signatory governments.

2. That this International Meteorological Organisation shall be a neutral body, whose personnel shall refrain entirely from political activities within the signatory nations and from military or covert operations anywhere, and that its personnel shall therefore be recognised and protected as neutrals during any conflict in which signatory nations are involved.

"I have already been given full authority to sign this treaty on behalf of not only St Edmund itself, and the St Edmundan Antarctic as well, but the entire Godwinnian Commonwealth into the bargain...

Please, for the sake of your own nations, pass this request on to your governments -- if you don't possess sufficient plenipotentiary powers to commit them to this treaty by yourself -- as quickly as possible..."


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OOC: If & when NSwiki is back up & running I'll set up a page there where nations can sign on to the treaty. Until then, however, I suppose this thread is the best place for doing so...

EDIT: If & when several nations have signed up I'll start an 'IMA Council' thread in the II forum, for Council discussions, and any further signings could then take place there instead...

Well...at least it's not "Save the Emo"