NationStates Jolt Archive

Anti-Personnel Landmine Deactivation and Destruction Treaty
A resolution to slash worldwide military spending.
Category: Global Disarmament
Strength: mild
Proposed by: Isamora
Description:

World Assembly members need to provide security to their citizens and allies in times of war against aggressive internal and external threats such as terrorism and rogue nation-states. Wars are often brutal and civilians on both sides of the conflict are always the helpless victims that make up roughly 70% to 90% of all casualties in any conflict, particularly a international conflict.

World Assembly members unlike rogue nation-states or terrorists try to cut down on inflicting civilian casualties either their own or the enemies to ensure that even though they are attacked by such cowardly enemies they do not conduct themselves and their militaries to the levels of rogue states and terrorist organizations.

Anti-personnel landmines are a destructive weapon targetting an enemies forces. But this weapon usually targets innocent civilians especially children who think it is a toy. And this weapon still remains in effect long after the conflict is over.

Definition:

Landmines are an incinery explosive device that are manufactured to be placed on the ground and to be deceiptive so that it is not seen and deactivated by enemy forces. It is intended to explode when triggered by an operator or in proximity to a vehicle, person, or animal. Landmines are commonly used to ensure that the opposing force cannot use the area for its’ tactical advantage.

Resulting Effect:

Anti-personnel landmines are controversial as they remain operational after the conflict is over usually resulting in the killing and injuring of civilians civilians and travel and cultivation of certain ariable lands impassable and unusable for decades. When nations try to remove these hidden weapons of destruction it is dangerous work for landmine operators, slow work and extremely costly to the respective individual government.

Article 1 § The World Assembly shall thus map out "cold" conflict areas where all landmines have been deployed by World Assembly Member State's forces in conflict with internal and external threats.

Article 2 § The World Assembly shall thus ask Member States to volunteer specially trained landmine deactivators to go to these "cold" conflicts and educate as many civilians as they can on the dangers of landmines and where they are currently located with up to date maps as stated in Artile 1§.
1) These volunteers will be called the Landmine Deactivation Unit or LDU.

Article 3 § These (LDU) volunteers will then target anti-personnel landmines as they are the most threatening to civilian populations especially children. The LDU volunteers will deactivate and then safely destroy deactivated landmines in these cold conflict areas.

Article 4 § The World Assembly shall thus HALT the trade and distribution of anti-personnel landmines to arms dealers, non World Assembly Members and terrorist organizations classified as such by the World Assembly.

Article 5 § The World Assembly shall thus REDUCE the number of anti-personnel landmines within each members arsenals in the next five years.

Article 6 § The Landmine Deactivation Unit will receive only volunteers and funding from willing World Assembly members that want to contribute to the ending of anti-personnel landmines.

Article 7 § The World Assembly shall thus never send volunteers to a conflict-zone unless it is "cold" for personnel safety as well as the threat of landmines being planted in areas thought deactivated by LDU teams.

Cold conflict referred to as a conflict where both parties have ceased all hostile activities and where there is a lasting peace treaty between all parties.

The first problem I have with this proposal is the anecdote pretending to be a preamble.

The second problem is that it indirectly bans the use of a rather common, and useful, weapon. I would suggest that you take the route of mandating that landmines be collected, deactivated, or destroyed after war. That would certainly be an admirable goal.

Lastly, you've taken an odd approach to writing this proposal. "A Declaration on Rights and Duties of WA States" is the exact title -- capitalization and all -- of Resolution #2. Most proposals use "The World Assembly:", or some other variation. I personally prefer the style of writing one giant pseudo-sentence -- "The World Assembly shall thus:" then spell out what the resolution does using a series of verbs (ESTABLISH, BAN, MANDATE, etc). Doing it that way would mean that the rather odd and repetitive phrase "Every WA Member State" would not be needed.

Also, decide on a time period for Article 3. I suggest using "within the next five years".

Once revisions are made to bring the proposal up to par, I'll get in to the reasons why I either support or deny it. Right now, though, I'm just interested in creating a viably debatable proposal.

Dr. Bradford Castro,
Ambassador to the World Assembly
from the Commonwealth of Glen-Rhodes

I have updated my resolution.

Personally I think there should be a blanket ban on anti-personnel landmines as the risks of civilian fatalities outweigh the benefits in warfare.

On a PERSONAL note I really DISlike proposals that TRY to cover UP their textual inadEQUacies through random AND EXCESSive cApItAlIsAtIoN.

Second, your proposal conflates anti-personnel landmines with anti-vehicle landmines, and within these subsets conflates victim detonated and command detonated weapons. We would absolutely support a ban on non-command detonated anti-personnel landmines, but see little reason to ban other types.

The LDU is the best part of the proposal. Perhaps you could see if you could borrow something from the UN Demining Survey's mandate (http://www.nationstates.net/page=UN_past_resolutions/start=149) to improve its scope.

-- Samantha Benson
Congressional Liaison, Office of WA Affairs
Quintessence of Dust, Delegate of Wysteria

The LDU is the best part of the proposal.
Although defining it as "a special military and police unit", as the current draft does, renders the proposal illegal under the 'No WA Army/Police' rule...

I have updated the draft again. I have reworded Wiki quotes as I was using for a source that the good ambassador just pointed out in the below post. I think it is now complete and I am closing this thread and starting a new one with revised proposal as it is entirely different from beginning thread.

(Non-official opinion): You will need to remove the sections of text you have simply copied verbatim from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_mine).

Article 1 § The World Assembly shall thus map out "cold" conflict areas where all landmines have been deployed by World Assembly Member State's forces in conflict with internal and external threats.
I am not keen on spending WA funds on doing something that a responsible member nation bloody well should have done already. I'd suggest requiring members to map out these areas as they deploy landmines in them, and clearly mark minefields on the ground as well to minimise civilian casualties. Where the WA has to do this because the member nation couldn't be arsed, it should be clear that the member nation will be paying for it.

--
Cerys Coch, stockpiling coal for Christmas

Yeah, I have a few comments on the version you've submitted, disregarding for the moment the rather inappropriate preamble. I'm making these comments because I'm concerned your submission is going to hurtle to quorum.

You define landmines as 'incinery...device[s]'. Nevermind the grammar, what on earth does 'incinery' mean? Do you mean 'incendiary'? (Landmines are not incendiary weapons anyway, but it's the closest word I can think of.) You also define landmines as being placed 'on the ground', meaning any landmine placed beneath the ground is exempt! And you have, apparently deliberately, refused to differentiate between command detonated and victim detonated weapons. Why? The issue has been raised before and instead you simply ignored it and presented a new draft. This is a discussion forum: some discussion is generally expected.

The grammar of your proposal is generally so poor that many of its clauses are unreadable, but my best effort at interrogating it:

1. This clause excludes landmines that were deployed in a situation in which conflict never arose. (For example, two countries are posturing, one sets landmines in readiness, but war never erupts after a diplomatic settlement is realized.) It's also unclear what 'member state soil' refers to: does it mean on the soil of the party seeking help, or the party who deployed them, or any member state? And what is the valence of 'assist': is it required for member states to accept this help? Does the WA have to seek permission first? And, again, from who: the nation that deployed the landmines or the one whose soil they're on?

2. First, I'm a little confused by your use of 'volunteer'. If I'm going to waltz into a minefield, someone's damn well going to pay me to do it. Second, you use the word cold in quotation marks. What do you mean by this: that they're not actually cold? How cold does a conflict have to be to qualify? Furthermore, a cold conflict is generally one that continues, just without any armed encounters. A conflict that is actually decisively over would not normally be called a cold war. You define a cold conflict only at the end of 5, but in a grammatically ambiguous way and in such a way, as stated, as is not normally commensurate with being a cold conflict.

3. The mechanics of the demining are dreadfully unclear. You omit the single most obvious precaution: posting warning signs. Surely you've seen those 'Danger: Landmines' signs? They don't sprout out of the ground: someone has to go in and post them. Why the LDU is not charged to do the very first action with regard to landmine safety escapes me. Your description of the demining process also sheds no further light on the problem of under what circumstances the LDU is allowed to operate: do they need the permission of the country the landmines are in or not?

4. Your repeated use of 'thus' is confusing, because it makes less than zero sense. I think you mean 'completely not thus'. The grammar gets even worse in this clause. You also do not prohibit the construction of mines, a rather baffling omission, or the sale of landmine parts or assembly instructions. Remember, very basic landmines are quite easy to make. And, not that there could possibly be an answer to this question, out of interest why 'over five years'?

5. This clause makes the whole matter even more confusing, especially by saying that member states that 'voluntarily' acquiesce in the elimination of landmines, which arguably renders the whole proposal illegal.

This is an abjectly terrible proposal, and to submit it after one day of drafting, at a time of the year when representatives with more family and social life than myself are away, is downright irresponsible.

-- Samantha Benson
Quintessence of Dust, Delegate of Wysteria

Edit: Buggeration, I posted in the wrong thread. Sorry.

Good points you bring up un punctuation and other mistakes. So far it has 29 votes but I am unsure if it will make it. If it doesn't I will redraft and take in most of the concerns you have listed.

I may have posted the proposal too soon however, I wanted to gage the reaction by delegates to the proposal. So far it is an important issue. If it fails to reach the voting stage or if it fails when W.A members vote I will re-edit it like I am taking my time with my Old Growth Forest proposal.

Just to point out, funding for LDU is from volunteer states and even though it is not stated the volunteers get paid from the funding raised. I have put in volunteer as it is illegal to ask member states to contribute people, military -police or otherwise to World Assembly organizations

The other point in article one in education, posting signs for landmine zones is one of the educational objectives.