Ways and Means
A resolution to increase democratic freedoms.
Category: Furtherment of Democracy
Strength: Mild
Proposed by: Jey
Description: The World Assembly,
REALISING that the operations of this World Assembly itself, and of whatever agencies and programs it may establish through other resolutions, will need to be paid for in some way,
RECOGNISING that it is nations themselves (as represented by their governments), rather than the inhabitants of those nations, that hold membership in this Assembly,
UNDERSTANDING that the diversity of economic systems, strengths and traditions amongst those nations, coupled with respect for their governments’ rights, would make any attempts at setting taxes within those nations by the World Assembly highly undesirable;
1. DECLARES that the World Assembly and its agencies and programs shall be funded primarily by contributions levied from its member nations, but does not attempt to specify how those nations’ governments should raise the money concerned;
2. ESTABLISHES the Assembly Budgetary Commission (or ABC), which shall
i. Draw up budgets for the World Assembly, and for its agencies and programs;
ii. Determine how the costs of funding those budgets shall be shared out amongst the member nations in the fairest way possible;
iii. Receive and distribute those funds;
iv. Publish full and accurate accounts, for the WA itself and for each WA agency or program, along with independent auditors’ reports on these, annually;
v. Oversee the financial management of all World Assembly departments, agencies and programs, and the financial affairs of senior staff employed in those operations, in order to minimise corruption, fraud and waste;
3. REQUIRES that all member nations pay their assessed contributions to the ABC promptly and in full, unless the ABC accepts that they are genuinely kept from doing so by emergencies;
4. ESTABLISHES an agency called the World Assembly Arbitration Tribunals (or WAAT), commands this to act justly, and gives it the authority
i. To hear appeals by national governments against decisions of the ABC;
ii. To impose binding arbitration in those cases;
iii. To recover the costs of hearing each case from whichever of the parties to that case it considers appropriate;
5. STATES that any voluntary donations to any WA agencies or programs must be channeled through the ABC, which shall not tell those agencies and programs whom the donors were, except when governments are specifically funding operations within their own territory;
6. RESERVES the right to pass resolutions that would over-rule national governments’ policies on taxation
i. To regulate customs duties, tariffs, and any other taxes and official charges that apply to international trade, for the specific purpose of promoting that trade;
ii. To reduce or end the possible inclusion of unfair discrimination in those policies;
7. ACKNOWLEDGES that full control over all other aspects of the taxation applicable within any WA member nation is and remains a sovereign right for that nation's own government alone;
8. RESERVES the right to grant any WA agency that may be established through any further resolution the authority to charge fees for its services, by specifying this point in that same resolution;
9. URGES all national governments to include some form of democratic process in their procedures for making decisions about budgets and taxation, and to make accurate and audited copies of their accounts (to the extent that concerns of national security makes this possible) available to their nations' peoples.
Author: St Edmund
