NationStates Jolt Archive

The Republic of Fedoroyna, by his Ambassador Ilan Merchkani, presents onto you all members of the World Assembly, our national draft for an international Animal Welfare Act.

CONVINCED that animals by themselves, as sentient beings and their own significance in our planet and for us inhabitants of it, must be granted proper protection and welfare legislation in order to ban cruelty towards them and avoid animal abuse as much as possible.

WHEREAS animal abuse is understood as any act of violence, torture or infliction of unnecessary pain to an animal, belonging to any species, in which its physical or psychological health and/or life are subject to damage.

WHEREAS animal cruelty is understood as unnecessary and sadistic abusing of animals, for which its physical and psychological conditions are damaged in order to satisfy needs unworthy of such, like clothing, entertainment and.

And in order to PROTECT ANIMAL INTEGRITY and outlaw ANIMAL CRUELTY, we deem for voting the following.

1) All WA Member Nations shall seek animal welfare, recognizing acts of animal abuse and cruelty as crimes both against their natural integrity and against the society as a whole.

2) All WA Member Nations shall ban activities which inflict unnecessary physical or psychological damage on animals such as:

A) Use of animals in research and testing for anything else than medical treatments or animal food industry.
B) Use of animals in circus acts, swimming programs and commercial decoration.
C) Use of endangered animals as means for clothing production, and the exposition of such items in public areas.
D) Use of animals in fighting and confrontation acts.
E) Use of animals in gambling activities.
F) Use of animals in shows with massive attendance.

3) All WA Member Nations are encouraged to seek national animal welfare by enacting legislations on the subject, in order to encourage societies to respect and feel solidarity towards animals and understand that animal welfare shall be treated with the same dedication than that of environmental issues.

Wow this is broad.

First: Do we even have a "planet"? Are there "planets" now?

Second: How does one go about measuring psychological cruelty to animals?

Third: What are you defining as an "animal"?

Fourth: Doesn't this mean you can't step on a spider? Or swat flies? Or call the exterminator to get rid of your ant infestation?

EDIT: Please see this old proposal thread back from the days of the NSUN (Yes I said it!!! I don't care. :tongue:), and see if you can manage to avoid any and all of its glaring mistakes and lapses in judgment: DRAFT: Animal Suffering (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=528792)

We are opposed to this gibberish, most of it is so broad and hazy as to be meaningless but those parts which are clearly interpretable would have far reaching and detrimental effects on huge areas of life quite beyond the presumable intentions of this resolution's authors.

Yours,

Indeed. Hence my suggestion that a previous attempt at such a document be thoroughly read and researched. For instance, there are the sapient non-humans to be considered...

Also, I fail to see how the shearing of sheep is abusive, and I'm vegan.

This will severely damage the (seal) clubbing scene in Quintessence of Dust.

Quintessence of Dust, I forget... were you part of the "debate" on the thread I linked to? I'm worried that any attempt to secure "animal rights" will end up in fluffy PETA bologna and/or suppression of non-human sapients... Do you think it's even possible to make a proposal that doesn't end up in one or both of those places?

I was part of the debate on "Unnecessary Animal Cruelty", and I had some of my concerns listened to, but in the end the author went off the deep end.

Personally, I think an animal cruelty bill - however admirable - is likely to be very difficult because:
- the non-human issue is complex to solve (are werewolves animals?);
- there is no immediate international aspect to much of it;
- as the above proposal demonstrates, a lot of separate issues come in: endangered animals vs. not endangered animals; economy and environment; gambling. Those alone cross at least three proposal categories (Moral Decency, Environmental, Gambling).

I'd also add that, while I fully support national laws against animal cruelty, at the international level the WA has not legislated on:
- malnutrition, hunger, food
- poverty
- homelessness
- clothing

To address animal rights when basic human needs have not been touched seems an odd set of priorities.

I concur. Mayhap we should address those issues first? In a few hours Intellect and the Arts (the nation actually in the WA) could contact you via telegram to discuss what would need to be covered, and actual drafting work would be done by the representative of this nation here on the forums, unless you would prefer to have primary authorship or you can suggest someone else who would be more adept and/or more interested?

Back on topic, however, the issue is indeed complex. There are several definitions that would need to be covered, and it may actually be too complex to fit reasonably within the length guidelines in place for proposals.

So, where's the Category and Strength on this puppy anyway? Moving on the the proposal, we have a problem with 2E as that would require us to shut down our chocobo races, thereby condemning thousands of chocobos to a life where the only thing they have to look forward to is becoming Flibbleite Fried Chocobo. And 2F would seem to ban things like dog shows and you can't tell me that those dogs are mistreated, hell they're treated better than some people.

Bob Flibble
WA Representative

Ursines, Humans and most other sapient peoples are 'animals', aren't they? Wouldn't this measure's ban on violence towards animals therefore bar all WA member-nations from engaging in warfare, even as self-defence against invaders from non-member nations? And prohibit use of the death penalty as a punishment for crimes, no matter how serious the offences concerned?

Ursines, Humans and most other sapient peoples are 'animals', aren't they? Wouldn't this measure's ban on violence towards animals therefore bar all WA member-nations from engaging in warfare, even as self-defence against invaders from non-member nations? And prohibit use of the death penalty as a punishment for crimes, no matter how serious the offences concerned?


O.O.C. those might be good things in some people's books :p

The Republic of Fedoroyna, by his Ambassador Ilan Merchkani, presents onto you all members of the World Assembly, our national draft for an international Animal Welfare Act.

CONVINCED that animals by themselves, as sentient beings and their own significance in our planet and for us inhabitants of it, must be granted proper protection and welfare legislation in order to ban cruelty towards them and avoid animal abuse as much as possible.

WHEREAS animal abuse is understood as any act of violence, torture or infliction of unnecessary pain to an animal, belonging to any species, in which its physical or psychological health and/or life are subject to damage.

WHEREAS animal cruelty is understood as unnecessary and sadistic abusing of animals, for which its physical and psychological conditions are damaged in order to satisfy needs unworthy of such, like clothing, entertainment and.

And in order to PROTECT ANIMAL INTEGRITY and outlaw ANIMAL CRUELTY, we deem for voting the following.

1) All WA Member Nations shall seek animal welfare, recognizing acts of animal abuse and cruelty as crimes both against their natural integrity and against the society as a whole.

2) All WA Member Nations shall ban activities which inflict unnecessary physical or psychological damage on animals such as:

A) Use of animals in research and testing for anything else than medical treatments or animal food industry.
B) Use of animals in circus acts, swimming programs and commercial decoration.
C) Use of endangered animals as means for clothing production, and the exposition of such items in public areas.
D) Use of animals in fighting and confrontation acts.
E) Use of animals in gambling activities.
F) Use of animals in shows with massive attendance.

3) All WA Member Nations are encouraged to seek national animal welfare by enacting legislations on the subject, in order to encourage societies to respect and feel solidarity towards animals and understand that animal welfare shall be treated with the same dedication than that of environmental issues.

I do not thionk the language in Item 2 letter B. What you are saying, is that nations can not use animals for their entertainment. The use of animals in circus, and other forms of entertainment does not do any kind of harm to animals. I move that item be taken out or you provide a explanation of this item.

Wow this is broad.

First: Do we even have a "planet"? Are there "planets" now?

Second: How does one go about measuring psychological cruelty to animals?

Third: What are you defining as an "animal"?

Fourth: Doesn't this mean you can't step on a spider? Or swat flies? Or call the exterminator to get rid of your ant infestation?

EDIT: Please see this old proposal thread back from the days of the NSUN (Yes I said it!!! I don't care. :tongue:), and see if you can manage to avoid any and all of its glaring mistakes and lapses in judgment: DRAFT: Animal Suffering (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=528792)
The Republic of Fedoroyna, and its deep eco-friendly stance, replies to this message with the following:

On Nº1, by definition, countries must have physical boundaries to be bond altogether. Even though the number of countries per region might be excessive, the fact that there is a WORLD Assembly, and regions such as Scandinavia and North Pacific would suggest the fact that we're not flying balls of mud flying out there.

ON Nº2, in the case of mammals and birds, psychological abuse is easily detected. Animal behavior and cognition researchers have found that companion animals such as dogs, cats and develop almost the same psychological pattern of human disorders. Non-human animals, as you may not know of course, have been on the spot for psychology and cognition researchers for about 3 or 4 decades now, and the Republic of Fedoroyna has decided to openly fight animal abuse and cruelty in light of today's knowledge on non-human animal psychology and neurology.

On Nº3, what does the Republic of Fedoroyna define as an animal? I guess that's pretty obvious. Stones are not. Mammals, birds, insects, reptiles, amphibeans, arachnids, nematelmynths, etc.. are. But it's easy to tell that if we're asking for an animal welfare act, we're talking about non-human animals.

On Nº4, if you're vegan you should at least understand that insects, worms and spiders are living animals too. If you don't, I truly don't know why would you be vegan if you don't know anything about animals. On one hand, insects, worms and spiders deserve respect too, for they exist as a part of an environment, which serves from them. The Republic of Fedoroyna, being honest, wouldn't go on banning the use of insects, spiders and worms in human activities, but the use of mammals, reptiles and birds definitely. The fact that you make a distinction between an ant and a whale, beyond obvious, is that we're used to think of the animal kingdom from the most developed animals in evolution to those who are not. And that makes as much nonsense as human eighteenth century tought that black people were animals and females had no soul. What would you define as a scale for those animals who deserve protection and those who don't?

So, where's the Category and Strength on this puppy anyway? Moving on the the proposal, we have a problem with 2E as that would require us to shut down our chocobo races, thereby condemning thousands of chocobos to a life where the only thing they have to look forward to is becoming Flibbleite Fried Chocobo. And 2F would seem to ban things like dog shows and you can't tell me that those dogs are mistreated, hell they're treated better than some people.

Bob Flibble
WA Representative
On 2E, I've known cases of countries who are so stuck in their own veterinarian ignorance that they actually do think that gambling with animals is OK. But defending it? I mean, bu that you're clearly stating that your country is taking a pro-animal abuse stance, right?

ON 2F, I said MASSIVE public shows. Dogs performing tricks don't have massive attendance. Rock concerts, Video Music Awards, fashion shows do. Animals subject to excessive noise, blinding lights and the abuse involved in making them perform (just like in circuses) suffer from deep psychological damage and unnecessary stressful situations in order to make shows "exotic".

On Nº1, by definition, countries must have physical boundaries to be bond altogether. Even though the number of countries per region might be excessive, the fact that there is a WORLD Assembly, and regions such as Scandinavia and North Pacific would suggest the fact that we're not flying balls of mud flying out there.
"Ahem! There are also regions such as, for example, The Pleiades (http://www.nationstates.net/region=the_pleiades)...

On Nº3, what does the Republic of Fedoroyna define as an animal? I guess that's pretty obvious. Stones are not. Mammals, birds, insects, reptiles, amphibeans, arachnids, nematelmynths, etc.. are. But it's easy to tell that if we're asking for an animal welfare act, we're talking about non-human animals.Including sapient non-human animals, such as the majority of my own nation's population?


Borrin o Redwood,
Chairbear, Bears Armed Mission at the World Assembly,
for
The High Council of Clans,
The Confederated Clans of the Free Bears of Bears Armed.


(OOC: If your ambassador looks to find out who's saying this, he'll see a somewhat anthropomorphised [& bipedal] Brown Bear, 8' tall, who's wearing a complete 'evening suit' including a top hat...)

"Ahem! There are also regions such as, for example, The Pleiades (http://www.nationstates.net/region=the_pleiades)...

Including sapient non-human animals, such as the majority of my own nation's population?


Borrin o Redwood,
Chairbear, Bears Armed Mission at the World Assembly,
for
The High Council of Clans,
The Confederated Clans of the Free Bears of Bears Armed.


(OOC: If your ambassador looks to find out who's saying this, he'll see a somewhat anthropomorphised [& bipedal] Brown Bear, 8' tall, who's wearing a complete 'evening suit' including a top hat...)
The Republic of Fedoroyna replies as following:

On Quote Nº1, the Republic of Fedoroyna would like to get acquainted with the cartogeographic system in the game. Any boundaries at all?

On Quote Nº2, our government would love to be informed about what are those living creatures. Somehow, our Republic got stuck in time when unknown species started popping out of nowhere.

I humbly request on behalf of everyone here who has been through this argument more times than any of us really care to think about that the honorable representative from the Republic of Fedoroyna PLEASE read fully and thoughtfully consider the myriad of statements made in the previous debate on this same subject in the document presented earlier. If you do this in earnest and take its contents to heart, it will prevent a great many headaches for all parties involved. In case you have lost the location of this document, I will reiterate that it can be found here (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=528792).

Please, please PLEASE read it. I believe I speak on behalf of everyone here so previously involved when I urge you STRONGLY to heed the aforementioned request. Please do your homework on this, and learn from it.

As the representative from axmanland i couldnt possibly support this proposal as the use of animals in our grand arena is a huge telivized event on a truly epic scale.

however i will piont out that disembowling the disloyal should be considered "enrichment" for all large carnivors.

also the very act of trying to exist in our glowing radioactive/toxic wasteland of an ecosystem could in and of itself be cruelty and after generations of exposeure to the chemical slurry we call water are so violent and brutal they need regular acts of barbaric brutality just to remind them which species is at the top of the food chain.