NationStates Jolt Archive

The description of this proposal is:

"Racism is kill anybody of another racial group. Killing that people is a major crime. To prevent this we can do this:

1. Arrest (of course) racists and order them 12 to 30 years in prison.

2. To racists that killed somebody of two racial groups we can order them 20 to 40 years in prison.

3. To racists that killed somebody of more than two racial groups we can order them life imprisonment.

We can do this because every people from every racial group have all the human rights."

This proposal was proposed by:
The Democratic Republic of Iglesian
Archipelago

As murder is currently illegal in most countries to begin with, we must assume that the Iglesian Archipelago is proposing a Resolution that imposes additional punishments for committing a crime in which race was a motivating factor?

If such is the case, Salzland opposes, because we feel that treating any race differently is itself a form of racism. Motive certainly weighs in upon sentencing, and is within an individual judge's discretion certainly, but altering criminal codes to mandate separate punishments based solely on race is unacceptable to our country.

Additionally, we would request that the Iglesian Archipelago please re-write their Resolution to be a tad more understandable, so that further debate is less-confused. (Specifically, fix sentences like "Killing that people is a major crime.")

Killing is already legal no? But are you trying to say that we should have specific laws for racists? I would be in favor of a proposal like this, no racism would be allowed in any nation, and they would deserve prison.

1. We execute people who are convicted of murder. This proposal would therefore force us to treat murderers more leniently if their crimes were racially motivated, which presumably wasn't its author's intention.

2. This proposal totally fails to consider the possible situations (such as legitimate acts of war) that may lead people to kill members of other racial groups for reasons other than racism.

3. This proposal totally ignores the possibility of any kinds of 'racist' acts other than killing. Why?

4. You submitted this proposal in the 'Human Rights' category: With its emphasis on punishment it actually belongs in the 'Moral Decency' category instead, and is consequently illegal as it currently stands.


Alfred Devereux Sweynsson MD,
Chief Observer at the World Assembly
for the government of
The Kingdom of St Edmund.

Firstly, to define racism as only the act of killing someone from a different ethnical origin is, in our opinion, too narrow a description. A murder commited under those circumstances is not neccessarily race related and a racist action is not necessarily murder.

The Grand Duchy of Punta Gordina defines racism as a doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement. In our view, the prevention of racism cannot come through this type of legislation, it has to come through what we call education, from our teachers and more importantly our parents.

Therefore, The Grand Duchy of Punta Gordina can not support this proposal.

Andreas Richter
Minister of Justice
The Grand Duchy of Punta Gordina