UN Biological Weapons Ban

From NSwiki, the NationStates encyclopedia.
Jump to: navigation, search

History of the Resolution

Overview

This resolution was a proposed replacement to the repealed resolution Elimination of Bio Weapons (#16) and is the second passed resolution of the author, Reformentia. The repeal of the "Elimination of Bio Weapons" resolution was also proposed by Reformentia (the author's first passed resolution), who continued to assert the resolution's eventual replacement (by Reformentia) as the reason for repeal throughout the repeal campaign. This is the third time that a previously repealed resolution has been "replaced", though it is the first time the repeal and replacement were performed by the same nation.

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, though they'd been hinted to since the inception of the repeal. After the passage of the repeal on Jun. 28, 2005, Reformentia placed more emphasis on the replacement proposal. Some later complained that Reformentia took too little time to draft the proposal, citing Reformentia's alleged sense of urgency towards passage as hurting the drafting process. When the proposal was submitted, several nations most having supported the repeal of the "Elimination of Bio Weapons", now opposed Reformentia's replacement and threatened a telegramming campaign targeting UN Delegates that had approved the proposal. Their claims to its inadequacies were disparate, ranged from complaints that it was "too short", to complaints about what it said concerning vaccines and military alliances. Whether by lack of follow-through with telegram campaigns, or overall support (or "political apathy" as claimed by some) enough UN Delegates eventually approved the proposal for it to reach quorum.

Although the proposal had enough approvals to become a resolution and come to the general assembly for vote, the United Nations Security Act (the UNSA) was passed first. The UNSA included language limiting any ban or restriction on weapons to only weapons that were "unnecessary" for national defense, and it was determined by the moderators that Reformentia's proposal violated this restriction. The proposal, in quorum, was deleted by the UN Secretariat after the United Nations Security Act passed.

After a short time and some discussions concerning how to bring the proposal into compliance with the UNSA, the necessary changes were made, a second proposal was submitted, and a second telegram campaign began. Again the proposal was dogged, largely on the forum, by the same questions of haste, inadequacy and overzealousness. This campaign succeeded in reaching quorum, as had the former, and brought the resolution to vote by the General Assembly of the United Nations.

UN Debate

The debate in the UN forum was multifaceted and, at times, barbed. As every forum debate, there were two main groups involved--forum regulars and players new to the forum--and the general tone was against the resolution at vote (this occurs even with the most popular of resolution, simply as a function of inaccurate sampling). A large portion of those new to the forum brought up the issue of vaccines. However, to those who had witnessed past forum discussions on the text, this issue was "old hat", as the resolution seems to provide for that with its allowance of "trace" amounts of biological substances (though little scientific confirmation was done to verify the effectiveness of the 250mg ceiling for "trace" status). Instead, for forum regulars, the debate mainly circled about Clause #5, which banned military alliances with non-UN nations that did not adapt identical biological weapon bans.

There was a widespread consensus among the opponents of the resolution that Clause #5 was, if legal (as UN resolutions were presumed not allowed to affect non-UN nations as this resolution did), an unwise and dangerous step. Most indictments of Clause #5 indictments of the proposal, emphasizing the number of non-UN nations in comparison to the number of UN nations (often summarized as 3 to 1). The argument was that the UN was in no condition to force non-UN nations into their biological weapons ban. It was agreed almost unanimously (even by Reformentia and other resolution-backers, to some degree) non-UN nations would largely ignore this and just cut alliances with UN nations. This was pointed to as creating a dangerous situation for many UN nations. Reformentia fought back via the meta-game, asserting that since most non-UN nations were puppets of UN nations, that UN nations would still be able to force their puppets into the biological weapons ban, and retain their alliance with them.

In the end, some forum opponents to the resolution seemed to declare victory when the resolution passed by the modest margin of but 2000 votes, the rationale being that a close resolution would be easy to repeal (as was seemingly confirmed by the Powerhungry Chipmunks successful repeal of "Ban Chemical Weapons"). Whatever the eventual fate of the resolution, accusations of ideological tyranny (launched, expectedly, from the sovereigntist bloc), lack of compromise, imprudence, as well as various other personal attacks allowed this forum debate to leave a lasting impression, wounds one might say, in some participants. Reformentia never again seemed willing to hear a Sovereigntist's argument, and those who attacked the resolution often became extra-cold when meeting up with Reformentia at a later date.

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 was the first singular NationState to author a repeal of a past resolution as well as that resolution's replacement. 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. With the increased availability and profile of this "Repeal and Replace" function, it is theorized by some that legislation will be more easily passed, as there will be less fear that a replacement or amendment would be impossible to pass in the future. That fear of permanence led to a large portion of the forum and regional disagreements about proposals before and immediately following the introduction of the repeal function. General acceptance of the assumed temporality of resolutions has grown fairly continuously since the first repeal was passed

Additional Materials

Retrieved from "http://archive.nswiki.org/index.php?title=UN_Biological_Weapons_Ban&oldid=101045"