NationStates Jolt Archive


[ICU-proposal] Is this legal?

Grand Teton
22-12-2004, 22:30
I ran this through the UN forum a while ago, and I think it was Frisbeeteria said it might be a game mechanics infringement. Something to do with article four and changing the currency exchange rates if my memory serves. If a mod could rule I'd be grateful.

Oh, and while I'm at it, does anyone know if the Fair Trade Proposal category is going to make an appearance anytime soon, cos this would fit in that nicely.
UN Resolution: International Clearing Union
Category: Free Trade/(Fair Trade)?
Strength: Strong

We, the UN General Assembly

REAFFIRMING the United Nations’ duty to encourage development and economic growth in all countries.

RECOGNISING that currently, the entire burden of discharging international debt is solely placed on the debtor nation, and any debt relief programmes currently in existence do not have the necessary power.

RECOGNISING that this debt burden leads to a spiral of indebtedness, with severely damaging consequences on all scales, from human to international.

NOTING WITH REGRET that on average currency speculation results in capital entering rich nations, and leaving poor nations, and the problems resulting from this shift contribute to the debt spiral.

HEREBY

RESOLVE to establish a global bank known as the International Clearing Union. Its purpose - to bring balance to world trade.

The International Clearing Union will:
1) Issue its own currency, known as the Bancor, redeemable against national currencies at fixed rates of exchange
2) Use this to measure a countries trade deficit or surplus
3) Give every country an overdraft facility at the bank equal to half the average value of its trade over the past 5 years
4) Provide an incentive for all UN members to have neither a trade deficit or surplus at the end of a year:
a) Any nation using more than half its overdraft allowance (going too far into deficit) over the course of one year will be:
- Charged interest on the overdraft
- Obliged to reduce the value of it’s currency by up to 5%
- Obliged to prevent the export of capital.
b) Any nation with a trade surplus greater than half its overdraft allowance, over the course of one year, will be:
- Charged interest (negative interest) on this total
- Obliged to increase the value of currency by 5%
- Obliged to permit the export of capital

FURTHER RESOLVE that the ICU be a strictly philanthropic organisation, charged with encouraging the development of the world in an equitable manner.

NOTING the above point, and acknowledging that nations generally act in the interests of their own populace, the UN resolves that no governmental staff shall serve in the ICU, and that it shall be staffed in the manner of other NGOs (for example the Red Cross) - by volunteers.

The above will result in: capital being unable to flee from nations in major deficit to nations of major surplus – because it’s movements are blocked in one direction, but not the other – and on aggregate, nations in surplus would spend their money back into deficit nations. The present weakness of the debtor nations would no longer drive them further into dependency.
Cogitation
22-12-2004, 23:48
*sigh* I really need to make the time to get more involved in UN Moderation, again.

The numerical statistics maintained by the game are meant to determine internal conditions within each nation. There really aren't any variables (other than regional residencies, regional banlists, UN memberships, and UN endorsements) that describe international relations; all the variables talk about conditions within particular nations and how the national government relates to the national population.

Since UN resolutions affect these numerical statistics, UN resolutions have to talk about how the governments of UN member nations are required (or, in the case of repeal proposals, how they are no longer required) to relate to their national populations.

"Nudity shall be legal in all UN member nations." [Human Rights; increases personal freedoms]
"Gambling shall be legal in all UN member nations." [Gambling: Legalize]
"Abortion shall be prohibited in all UN member nations." [Moral Decency; decreases personal freedoms]
"Businesses in all UN member nations must ensure a safe working environment for their employees." [Social Justice; decreases economic freedoms]
"National-level elections must be held in all UN member nations every three years." [The Furtherment of Democracy; increases political freedoms]

Notice the common theme: The UN is telling its member nations how to regulate, or how not to regulate, its people. This "International Clearing Union", at first glance, seems to be regulating how UN member nations interact with each other, and there really aren't any proposal categories for that, since it's not simulated.

The two proposal categories that affect economic freedoms are "Social Justice" and "Free Trade". The first reduces freedoms while the second increases freedoms. Note, however, that these are the freedoms of the people. Are businesses state-owned or privatized? Are there minimum wage laws? How heavily regulated are businesses? Are there regulating agencies like the real-life Securities and Exchange Commission (http://www.sec.gov) or Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (http://www.fdic.gov)? ...or is it strictly a caveat emptor ("buyer beware") market? How heavily involved is the government in the economic affairs of its people?

...

/me rereads the proposal and stops to "Think about it for a moment."

Okay, looking this over, the proposal seems to say that the governments of UN member nations must allow or prohibit certain kinds of economic activity, depending upon the circumstances. This will probably translate into national governments regulating the people (reducing their economic freedoms) to enforce this resolution, should the resolution pass. Thus, I think it should be "Social Justice". The Most Glorious Hack is heavily involved in Moderating the UN right now, so I'm going to ask him to weigh in on this.

I'm letting my above ramblings remain as they should hopefully provide a clue into how these Mod judgments are made.

--The Modified Democratic States of Cogitation
"Think about it for a moment."
NationStates Game Moderator
Mikitivity
23-12-2004, 00:05
From the proposal:

FURTHER RESOLVE that the ICU be a strictly philanthropic organisation, charged with encouraging the development of the world in an equitable manner.

This closely follows the Social Justice category, which in your [Cog] notes in the proposal categories sticky had the following:

"Creating a Food and Drug-Administration in all UN member nations, or creating a Securities and Exchange Commission in all UN member nations is imposing a mild form of Economic control, and therefore a mild reduction of Economic freedoms ..."

Adam Island recently had a similar Social Justice proposal to create a UN Food and Agricultural Organization but was given "Voice of Mod" and the proposal deleted. Personally, I think somebody should make sure he wasn't giving a formal warning, as his proposal (I can repaste the exact text) really to me came across as a Social Justice proposal based on the above quote ...

If we are leaning to calling this ICU proposal a Social Justice (in that it does admit to wanting to help developing nations) because it ratches down on economic freedoms, we might be opening the door to revisit at least the decision against the FAO.


Cog, I do understand and appreciate the difference between internactions between nations and interntal onto themselves ... and perhaps the advice that was given to Adam Island might apply here. Namely, this proposal might need to wait on the table with Adam Island's FAO and the second half of my International Disaster Relief proposal.

Bottom line, in the past few months a number of players are independently creating resolutions that basically are about promoting international aid or as you described it regulating the interactions between nations.

I certainly would love to see an international aid resolution category.
Grand Teton
23-12-2004, 23:43
Thanks, both of you. I was thinking free trade because I was talking about levelling the playing field, and giving the poor nations a chance to compete equally; but yeah, currently this would best fit under social justice, albeit on a larger (more international) scale then most. I'll wait and see what Hack thinks, and keep working. It's still in the early stages though.
Mikitivity
24-12-2004, 06:29
Thanks, both of you. I was thinking free trade because I was talking about levelling the playing field, and giving the poor nations a chance to compete equally; but yeah, currently this would best fit under social justice, albeit on a larger (more international) scale then most. I'll wait and see what Hack thinks, and keep working. It's still in the early stages though.

The mods are always the final judge. :)

Do keep in mind that the (soon to be) current HIV/AIDS resolution is a social justice resolution, but it also uses "leveling" the playing field as its justification.

Also to my knowledge NationStates does not simulate long-term economic development. :(


I do have a suggestion ... if you are making an example of the Red Cross, call it the "International Red Cross" or "International Red Cross Organization". We had a resolution which created it, and a few other resolutions make references to this NationStates created body. :)

Showing continuity in our resolutions is a nice thing to do.
Grand Teton
24-12-2004, 13:22
Consider it changed.