Forgottenlands
11-08-2005, 00:19
Before I begin with my plea, I would first like to repost the deal given by Fris:
Here's the deal. I realize that a lot of people have put a lot of thought into a lot of verrrry long posts, but I just don't have the time to read and evaluate them all. If you guys can summarize this into two positions of less than ... say, eight paragraphs each, then perhaps we could evaluate the options realistically.
Work it into a couple of proposals (not necessarily UN format, but 'moderator proposals'). Bullet points would be good. Extensive cross-referencing would be bad. You get the idea.
For all players - this means that as of now, the debate on this matter is over. We've had two very long threads on this - and the latter of the threads has been bumped all week with no debate and with the posts I will be quoting here as the arguments. If you want to argue it further, tough, you've had your chance.
Two people (including myself) came foreward and took advantage of the single post case, I shall post the final arguments in the order they were given. I apologize in advance for neither of us....hit the 8 paragraph requested limit:
1. I agree with part of Hack's ruling, specifically that future proposals seeking to ban weapons are not legal if they do not take into account the UNSA within their proposal text. The author's intent, the membership's opinion, the lack of definition of key terms, and the fact that UN law has precedence over national law; none of those things are even relevant by themselves to the legality of the proposal when it comes to the rule against contradiction -- only the text of the proposal and its relationship to previous legislation is relevant.
2. I disagree with the other part of Hack's ruling that the default status of weapons is "necessary". I believe that weapons don't have a default status of "necessary" (as Hack suggested) or "unnecessary" (as my opponents suggested) in international law because they were not given either of those stati in international law.
My argument is summed up below. It has been edited to be more thorough and flow more logically.
As in most of the other arguments, this discussion is properly centered around what exactly international law is and does.
1. International law is generally considered to be superior to national law in the sense that it takes precedence over national law.
2. As per "Rights and Duties of UN States" national law has what is known as sovereignty over those items left unaddressed by international law.
3. Even without "Rights and Duties," it would be the same situation, as outlined below.
This is very much the natural state of things, and it could be extended further to include colonial, provincial, municipal, or tribal law. In the case of each political entity (and we could include persons here), they are free to manage their own affairs as they please unless a higher authority in the heirarchy has made a binding ruling on those affairs.
In the case of a heirarchical system of law such as we have here, the system generally operates on a very basic and often unarticulated axiom, "that which is not prohibited is allowed". Restated to be appropriate to the context of our discussion this would read, "that which is not addressed in international law is free to be addressed by national law".
Keeping the above in mind, we cannot legitimately say that anything which is not in international law has the force of international law. So in order to define a weapon as unnecessary for the purposes of international law, one has to put that definition in international law. It's really quite a simple equation. Unless it's international law, it's not international law, and therefore it can't have the effect of international law.
1. So what does this mean? It essentially means that in the case of items addressed by international law said law is sovereign, and that in the case of items not addressed by international law the national law is sovereign.
2. Now in the case of the word "necessary" in the UNSA, all this essentially means that until a weapon is stated to be unnecessary in international law (however one chooses to do that), national law is the highest authority regarding the necessity of the weapon. (Caveat: In the case of roleplayed international organizations that are not the UN, the law set forth by the international organization may also be higher than national law.)
As we all know, the current belief held by the moderator community is that the United Nations Security Act makes it so that to pass a weapons ban resolution these days, one must have 5 extraordinary words sitting in their resolution: “$weapon is unnecessary for defense”. This of course is thanks to the last clause in the UNSA which states:
Quote:
Originally Posted by UNSA
DECLARES that all member states have the right to construct and utilize any and all weapons that are necessary to defend their nation from attack, except where previous legislation by this body that is still in effect has placed restrictions on that right.
However, I feel that this ruling is based upon faulty logic. A weapon must be classified as “necessary for defense” for it to be unbannable. There is no attempt made by this resolution to declare who has the right to determine necessity, what the criteria is for weapons to be “necessary for defense” or any method of proving one way or the other what the status of the weapon is. As such, the default value of weapons is undefined.
Many National Sovereigntists have suggested that the nation, therefore, has the default ability to determine necessity. While I admit this is true, I don’t believe this prevents resolutions saying that a weapon is now banned without explicitly saying that it is unnecessary for defense. Why? Because the default value in the scope of consideration by the UN is still undefined. Since the nations are not, in any way, guaranteed the right to determine necessity of a weapon by this or any other resolution (with 2 possible exceptions which I’ll address later), the UN can assume that no weapon is necessary for defense unless stated otherwise. As such, should the UN pass a resolution, any nation that has declared the weapon as being necessary for defense would find itself in contradiction with a UN resolution. The individual nation is responsible to make sure it is not contradicting a UN resolution, not the UN is responsible to make sure it is not contradicting a nation’s laws.
As an example, I would like to use Resolution 61 (Abortion Rights) as a case study. For the purposes of this case study, I will argue that due to the rules regarding House of Cards, should any of my arguments and theoretical laws contradict a resolution other than this one (most likely Resolution 43), they are irrelevant as Resolution 61 is still required to stand on its own. Resolution 61 states:
Henceforth all women shall have the right to choose whether to have an abortion or not, no member nation will interfere with a woman's right to have an abortion.
Let us pretend that before this resolution was passed, Nation X had a law declaring that a person’s life begins at the moment of conception (therefore making fetuses alive). They also have a separate law stating that no person may choose that any other human being may die (therefore making it illegal to choose to have an abortion). If neither of these points are legislated on directly by the UN, would they not have to change at least one of these laws to bring itself so it is not contradicting the UN resolution?
There are two points in UN resolutions that have thus far been brought forth as arguments as to why the nation has the right to determine necessity so that it must be overridden by a UN resolution. The first is the Resolution 49: Rights and Duties of United Nations, Article 2 which reads as follows:
§ Every UN Member State has the right to exercise jurisdiction over its territory and over all persons and things therein, subject to the immunities recognized by international law.
However, I feel that this does nothing I haven’t already argued. A nation is allowed to pass any laws it feels like, “subject to the immunities” of UN resolutions. This is equivalent to saying that no nation may contradict any UN resolution (or more localized international governments in which the nation is a part of). It is not, as some National Sovereigntists have argued, stating that nations have a right to legislate in any area that the UN has not specifically addressed.
The second point is the second last paragraph of the United Nations Security Act, which states:
ENCOURAGES all member states to ensure that they have the ability to effectively defend their sovereign nation from attack in the interest of protecting their citizens.
It has been argued that since we are encouraging member states to “ensure that they have the ability to effectively defend” themselves, we are telling them that they have the right to determine what is “necessary for defense” so that they can accomplish that goal. While I feel that this is not actually provided, I would like to bring forth a point made by Roathin where he differentiated between the word “necessary” and the word “desirable”. If you are ensuring that you have the ability to “effectively defend” yourself, then you are looking at desirability. A nation may feel that a way to effectively defend themselves is to drop a nuke on the enemy capital. However, this nuke is not necessary for the defense of their nation; this nuke is a desirable weapon. As such, I feel that this statement gives the rights of nations to determine a wishlist of weapons, not a list of weapons they need to defend themselves.
Here's the deal. I realize that a lot of people have put a lot of thought into a lot of verrrry long posts, but I just don't have the time to read and evaluate them all. If you guys can summarize this into two positions of less than ... say, eight paragraphs each, then perhaps we could evaluate the options realistically.
Work it into a couple of proposals (not necessarily UN format, but 'moderator proposals'). Bullet points would be good. Extensive cross-referencing would be bad. You get the idea.
For all players - this means that as of now, the debate on this matter is over. We've had two very long threads on this - and the latter of the threads has been bumped all week with no debate and with the posts I will be quoting here as the arguments. If you want to argue it further, tough, you've had your chance.
Two people (including myself) came foreward and took advantage of the single post case, I shall post the final arguments in the order they were given. I apologize in advance for neither of us....hit the 8 paragraph requested limit:
1. I agree with part of Hack's ruling, specifically that future proposals seeking to ban weapons are not legal if they do not take into account the UNSA within their proposal text. The author's intent, the membership's opinion, the lack of definition of key terms, and the fact that UN law has precedence over national law; none of those things are even relevant by themselves to the legality of the proposal when it comes to the rule against contradiction -- only the text of the proposal and its relationship to previous legislation is relevant.
2. I disagree with the other part of Hack's ruling that the default status of weapons is "necessary". I believe that weapons don't have a default status of "necessary" (as Hack suggested) or "unnecessary" (as my opponents suggested) in international law because they were not given either of those stati in international law.
My argument is summed up below. It has been edited to be more thorough and flow more logically.
As in most of the other arguments, this discussion is properly centered around what exactly international law is and does.
1. International law is generally considered to be superior to national law in the sense that it takes precedence over national law.
2. As per "Rights and Duties of UN States" national law has what is known as sovereignty over those items left unaddressed by international law.
3. Even without "Rights and Duties," it would be the same situation, as outlined below.
This is very much the natural state of things, and it could be extended further to include colonial, provincial, municipal, or tribal law. In the case of each political entity (and we could include persons here), they are free to manage their own affairs as they please unless a higher authority in the heirarchy has made a binding ruling on those affairs.
In the case of a heirarchical system of law such as we have here, the system generally operates on a very basic and often unarticulated axiom, "that which is not prohibited is allowed". Restated to be appropriate to the context of our discussion this would read, "that which is not addressed in international law is free to be addressed by national law".
Keeping the above in mind, we cannot legitimately say that anything which is not in international law has the force of international law. So in order to define a weapon as unnecessary for the purposes of international law, one has to put that definition in international law. It's really quite a simple equation. Unless it's international law, it's not international law, and therefore it can't have the effect of international law.
1. So what does this mean? It essentially means that in the case of items addressed by international law said law is sovereign, and that in the case of items not addressed by international law the national law is sovereign.
2. Now in the case of the word "necessary" in the UNSA, all this essentially means that until a weapon is stated to be unnecessary in international law (however one chooses to do that), national law is the highest authority regarding the necessity of the weapon. (Caveat: In the case of roleplayed international organizations that are not the UN, the law set forth by the international organization may also be higher than national law.)
As we all know, the current belief held by the moderator community is that the United Nations Security Act makes it so that to pass a weapons ban resolution these days, one must have 5 extraordinary words sitting in their resolution: “$weapon is unnecessary for defense”. This of course is thanks to the last clause in the UNSA which states:
Quote:
Originally Posted by UNSA
DECLARES that all member states have the right to construct and utilize any and all weapons that are necessary to defend their nation from attack, except where previous legislation by this body that is still in effect has placed restrictions on that right.
However, I feel that this ruling is based upon faulty logic. A weapon must be classified as “necessary for defense” for it to be unbannable. There is no attempt made by this resolution to declare who has the right to determine necessity, what the criteria is for weapons to be “necessary for defense” or any method of proving one way or the other what the status of the weapon is. As such, the default value of weapons is undefined.
Many National Sovereigntists have suggested that the nation, therefore, has the default ability to determine necessity. While I admit this is true, I don’t believe this prevents resolutions saying that a weapon is now banned without explicitly saying that it is unnecessary for defense. Why? Because the default value in the scope of consideration by the UN is still undefined. Since the nations are not, in any way, guaranteed the right to determine necessity of a weapon by this or any other resolution (with 2 possible exceptions which I’ll address later), the UN can assume that no weapon is necessary for defense unless stated otherwise. As such, should the UN pass a resolution, any nation that has declared the weapon as being necessary for defense would find itself in contradiction with a UN resolution. The individual nation is responsible to make sure it is not contradicting a UN resolution, not the UN is responsible to make sure it is not contradicting a nation’s laws.
As an example, I would like to use Resolution 61 (Abortion Rights) as a case study. For the purposes of this case study, I will argue that due to the rules regarding House of Cards, should any of my arguments and theoretical laws contradict a resolution other than this one (most likely Resolution 43), they are irrelevant as Resolution 61 is still required to stand on its own. Resolution 61 states:
Henceforth all women shall have the right to choose whether to have an abortion or not, no member nation will interfere with a woman's right to have an abortion.
Let us pretend that before this resolution was passed, Nation X had a law declaring that a person’s life begins at the moment of conception (therefore making fetuses alive). They also have a separate law stating that no person may choose that any other human being may die (therefore making it illegal to choose to have an abortion). If neither of these points are legislated on directly by the UN, would they not have to change at least one of these laws to bring itself so it is not contradicting the UN resolution?
There are two points in UN resolutions that have thus far been brought forth as arguments as to why the nation has the right to determine necessity so that it must be overridden by a UN resolution. The first is the Resolution 49: Rights and Duties of United Nations, Article 2 which reads as follows:
§ Every UN Member State has the right to exercise jurisdiction over its territory and over all persons and things therein, subject to the immunities recognized by international law.
However, I feel that this does nothing I haven’t already argued. A nation is allowed to pass any laws it feels like, “subject to the immunities” of UN resolutions. This is equivalent to saying that no nation may contradict any UN resolution (or more localized international governments in which the nation is a part of). It is not, as some National Sovereigntists have argued, stating that nations have a right to legislate in any area that the UN has not specifically addressed.
The second point is the second last paragraph of the United Nations Security Act, which states:
ENCOURAGES all member states to ensure that they have the ability to effectively defend their sovereign nation from attack in the interest of protecting their citizens.
It has been argued that since we are encouraging member states to “ensure that they have the ability to effectively defend” themselves, we are telling them that they have the right to determine what is “necessary for defense” so that they can accomplish that goal. While I feel that this is not actually provided, I would like to bring forth a point made by Roathin where he differentiated between the word “necessary” and the word “desirable”. If you are ensuring that you have the ability to “effectively defend” yourself, then you are looking at desirability. A nation may feel that a way to effectively defend themselves is to drop a nuke on the enemy capital. However, this nuke is not necessary for the defense of their nation; this nuke is a desirable weapon. As such, I feel that this statement gives the rights of nations to determine a wishlist of weapons, not a list of weapons they need to defend themselves.