UN Biological Weapons Ban

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History of the Resolution

Overview

This resolution is a proposed replacement to the repealed resolution Elimination of Bio Weapons (#16). The repeal of the "Elimination of Bio Weapons" resolution was proposed by Reformentia, who proposed the repeal in order to have their proposed replacement "UN Biological Weapons Ban" make it to the UN floor. This is the third time that proponents for a replacement resolution have managed to repeal and then bring the proposed replacement to the UN floor.

Proposal Campaign

The first drafts for this proposal were submitted to the UN forum at the time of the debate on the Repeal "Elimination of Bio Weapons" resolution. After the passage of the repeal on Jun. 28, 2005, more attention focused on the new proposal. Several nations which supported the repeal of the "Elimination of Bio Weapons" resolution now stated their opposition to its proposed replacement and began a telegraming campaign which targeted all of the UN Delegate that had endorsed the new proposal. They claimed that the proposal was too short. Ultimately this negative telegramming campaign met little success, as many UN Delegates dismissed the claims of the opponents and ended up endorsing the proposal. The UN Delegate from Ficticious Proportions came to the UN and complained about the effectiveness of negative telegram campaigns, asking opponents to the proposal to target UN Delegates that haven't picked a side yet.

Opponents then abandoned their negative telegram campaign to focus on the UN forum debate. There they claimed the resolution needed a longer definition and had too many loopholes. Several of the backers of the resolution stated that they felt that the resolution was detailed enough as presented. The opposition was not successful in preventing the proposal from reaching quorum, as the proposal achieved enough UN Delegate endorsements to reach the resolution queue on Jul 5, 2005.

Although the proposal had enough endorsements to become a resolution, the United Nations Security Act reached the UN floor first. That resolution included language limiting any ban or restriction on weapons to only weapons that were "unnecessary" for national defense, and because the UN Biological Weapons Ban did not explicitly state that bio weapons were not necessary to national defense, the proposal was deleted by the UN Secretariat after the United Nations Security Act passed.

The proposal was then edited to include language that bio weapons were not necessary to national defense and resubmitted.


UN Debate

The UN debate focused on the subject of viruses and vaccines.


Text of the Resolution

UNITED NATIONS RESOLUTION #113
UN Biological Weapons Ban
A resolution to slash worldwide military spending.
Category: Global Disarmament Strength: Strong Proposed By: Reformentia

NOTING bioweapons are an unpredictable and dangerous weapon to ALL parties in a conflict, combatant and non-combatant alike.


DECLARING “bioweapons” are contagious biological viruses, bacteria or microbes with the effect of harming, incapacitating, or killing a person upon infection. Alternately, "vaccines" are neutralized forms of bioweapons individually administered to a voluntary subject to stimulate immune response to those bioweapons, and which pose a negligible (less than 0.5%) chance of causing injury beyond the required immune response or death.


DECLARING a "virus" to be a microscopic infective agent with DNA or RNA guiding its actions.


CONVINCED the possession or use of such bioweapons by any UN or NON UN member nation presents an unacceptable risk to the safety of all nations and are unnecessary to national defense.


TAKING NOTE of the need for nations to develop effective defenses against such bioweapons.


HEREBY RESOLVES:

1. The possession, production, trafficking or use (either directly or through proxy) of bioweapons as defined by this resolution is forbidden to all UN member nations.


2. Exception is made to Article 1 for trace amounts of no more than 250mg of any bioweapons required for the purpose of counter-agent research. Such trace amounts it is the responsibility of any nation researching them to keep secured against risk of any infection to anyone. They are to be so secured within a multi-tier (minimum of 2 tier) quarantined building in that nation, and kept under the highest of that nation’s military security.


3. In any circumstances not covered by Article 2: Any bioweapon proscribed as described in this resolution which at any time is in the possession of a member nation or known to be in the possession of its citizenry must be immediately and completely destroyed through a method which incorporates all possible safeguards against any release of the agent.


4. Though being infected is not illegal, if a proscribed agent is present in an infected individual they must undergo immediate isolation and treatment.


5. UN member nations are proscribed from military partnerships of any kind with any nation known to be using, trafficking, producing or in possession of bioweapons which are proscribed as described by this resolution.


STRONGLY URGES:

6. UN member nations to employ trade sanctions or incentives as they see fit to any nation known to be using, trafficking, producing or in possession of bioweapons which are proscribed as described by this resolution, in any circumstances where the application of such sanctions or incentives would represent an effective means to having that nation abandon such bioweapons.


7. UN member nations issue a formal statement of intent that in the event that a nation/nations employs bioweapons against a UN member nation, forces will be committed to the defense of that member nation, and/or reprisals upon the offending nation/nations. The terms and conditions of such a statement to be left to the discretion of each individual member nation.


Votes For: 8,557
Votes Against: 6,382
Implemented: Mon Jul 23 2005


Gameplay Impacts

The UN Biological Weapons Ban is unique in NationStates gameplay impacts for two reasons: (1) it was immediately impacted by the adoption of the United Nations Security Act while it had already achieved quorum, and thus had its legality questioned, and (2) it is a fairly straight forward example of a resolution author first using a repeal in order to change a previously adopted resolution.

Legality of Resolution

Though the original draft of this resolution had achieved enough UN Delegate endorsements to reach quorum in the proposal queue, the passage of the United Nations Security Act before this resolution made it to the UN floor resulted in the game moderators deleting the proposal. It had already been established by the game moderators that a proposal could be deleted any time prior to reaching the UN floor, but this action affirmed the ruling that if the UN rules were changed after a proposal was submitted but before it reached the UN floor, that it would be subject to the new UN rules.


In this case, the United Nations Security Act included a clause that prohibited the UN from restricted any weapons that were necessary to the defense of UN member states. After a number of discussions between game moderators and active UN forum members, it was decided that for a Global Disarmament resolution to be legal in the aftermath of the United Nations Security Act, that it must include language that suggested or declared the weapons being restricted to be unnecessary to the defense of UN members states.

Example of Repeal / Replacement

Reformentia revised their previous proposal and resubmitted the proposal. Reformentia is the first NationStates player to author a repeal and the actual resolution that repealed the original resolution. Other NationStates players have used repeals to remove existing resolutions, but up until this time, the nation that submitted the replacement resolution was a different player.


This proposal is also considered a classic example of how to use repeals to make changes to previous resolutions. Reformentia's Repeal "Elimination of Bio Wepaons" was promoted as a chance to submit another Global Disarmament resolution. This resolution is the result of that repeal process.


Additional Materials

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