[GA] At Vote: War Crimes Tribunal [Complete]

r3naissanc3r

r3naissanc3r

TNPer
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War Crimes Tribunal

Category: International Security | Strength: Significant | Proposed by: Chester Pearson | Resolution link | World Assembly forum thread​
Description: The World Assembly,

RECOGNIZING that war crimes are crimes against humanity,

DECLARING that war crimes are so heinous that the international community as a whole has the responsibility to bring to justice those who are guilty of such crimes,

CONVINCED about the potential abuses of power associated with granting jurisdiction over war crimes to individual nations,

The General Assembly,

Hereby creates the International War Crimes Tribunal (IWCT) tasks it with the following mandate:

To investigate persons suspected of war crimes,

To issue arrest warrants for persons suspected of war crimes if investigations deem the evidence is compelling enough to warrant indictment,

To work with member nations in the trial of suspected war criminals indicted by the International War Crimes Tribunal within their jurisdiction, according to the principals of fairness and impartiality in trials endorsed by the World Assembly.

Compels members to execute warrants issued by the IWTC,

Mandates that members pursue the extradition of persons wanted for war crimes, not under their jurisdictions by all legal means,

Demands member nations that are incapacitated or otherwise incapable of trying and detaining individuals suspected or convicted of war crimes extradite those individuals to a member state capable of or trying and incarcerating those individuals, according to the principals of fairness and impartiality in trials endorsed by the World Assembly.

Co-Authored by: Separatist Peoples
This thread is for both discussion and voting.

When voting, please use one of the following options: For | Against | Abstain | Present

"Abstain" means that you wish for the Delegate to not vote on the resolution at all.
"Present" means that you effectively choose not to participate in this vote. "Present" has no effect on how the Delegate votes.

Posts which do not include an explicit and unambiguous vote are not counted in the tally.
 
This goes to vote in about 2 hours.

I would like to hear from SP, since he co-authored this. However, I am disinclined to support this proposal.

Even though the proposal does not go so far as to assert the right of an international institution to try to war criminals, overriding national jurisdiction, it still creates a tribunal with substantial powers: investigation, indictment, and arrests. All member nations are required to comply with indictments issued by the tribunal.

These are very substantial powers that are taken away from national law enforcement systems. What is worse is, the proposal does little to ensure responsible use of these powers by the international tribunal. For instance, how far can these investigations go? There is no regulation provided at all. How exactly is it determined whom to issue a warrant against? Gut feeling of the members of the tribunal, some established legal procedure? It is also not even clear what the scope of the applicable crimes, though I suppose there's only so much you can put in a resolution.

Moreover, a few in the NS GA thread have pointed out that the proposal conficts to some extent with previous resolutions. However, most of the comments I have found were on an earlier draft, and it's not clear whether they apply to the current draft.

For the above reasons, I am going to cast a preliminary vote Against. As I said, I would like to hear others' views, and SP's in particular as a co-author, and I may reconsider my vote based on what they have to say.
 
Against.

The thing with establishing parallel legal systems is that simply bringing it into existence and dumping an immense amount of power on it does not work. A criminal justice system requires an enormous amount of laws and regulation to function properly, as well as a trained, disciplined and impartial staff of judges and lawyers following well-defined legal codes to the letter to actually enable the carriage of impartial justice. As of the current time, the WA has instituted no such comprehensive legal framework, and as such I concur with r3n's concerns at the moment.

While it is not unknown for new resolutions to conflict with existing resolutions and regulations, whether or not that can be overlooked depends entirely on the severity of the contradiction. Since I have no great quantity of knowledge surrounding that, I cannot reasonably comment on it.

I do however think a WA war-crimes tribunal could be a good idea, but it has to have limits, definitions and boundaries. IF such things can be made, then I would support it, but as it stands this proposal is just too vague and wide-reaching to be effective.
 
I am just going to stay the fact this made it to a vote is extremely sad and a prime example of the lemming effect in the WA.

If this should ever pass Chester needs to just take this back to the drawing board, scrap it and start over it is no where near ready. He rushed it to a vote just for the singular fact that he had to be the person to make the new incarnation of the ICC.

Honestly, the arrogance behind it is a little disturbing, the fact that HE had to push an unfinished proposal to the floor just to stop others that might have put forth a proposal of equal or better quality is reason enough to be oppose this.

But if you need more reason then you should take into account the fact that the name is a lie and it is not even a court, its just a warrant factory that forces your nation to arrest citizens on anything they judge to be a war crime (which by the loose standards of the bill can literally be anything)
 
Sasten:
Against.

The thing with establishing parallel legal systems is that simply bringing it into existence and dumping an immense amount of power on it does not work. A criminal justice system requires an enormous amount of laws and regulation to function properly, as well as a trained, disciplined and impartial staff of judges and lawyers following well-defined legal codes to the letter to actually enable the carriage of impartial justice. As of the current time, the WA has instituted no such comprehensive legal framework, and as such I concur with r3n's concerns at the moment.

While it is not unknown for new resolutions to conflict with existing resolutions and regulations, whether or not that can be overlooked depends entirely on the severity of the contradiction. Since I have no great quantity of knowledge surrounding that, I cannot reasonably comment on it.

I do however think a WA war-crimes tribunal could be a good idea, but it has to have limits, definitions and boundaries. IF such things can be made, then I would support it, but as it stands this proposal is just too vague and wide-reaching to be effective.
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I believe the new GA resolution in queue, On Universal Jurisdiction, does a much better job on this subject. I would be inclined to support that one once it goes to vote.

As LL said, Chester largely pushed this one to vote so that his draft would not be rendered redundant by "On Universal Jurisdiction", which was previously due to go to vote but removed for some rule violation.
 
(Not voting.)

This is poorly written so I'll be voting against, but may switch to abstain depending on the arguments against the proposal.
 
This is now at vote. As I mentioned earlier, I will refrain from producing an IFV, to give SP, as co-author, a chance to present his views on the proposal.
 
I genuinely want to support this. I might have been able to if it had another, hell, week of editing. CP rushed it to vote to beat UD, which was unfortunate.

I still think that the WA needs to have a hand in the trying of criminals against humanity or committers of war crimes. UD allows for a lot of latitude for corruption by member states unwilling to try their own. The WA is, by definition, impartial and incorruptible. So, while I'm hesitant on my very own co-authored resolution, I'm justifiably concerned at the comments supporting UD as an excuse to vote this down.

If I could vote, I'd abstain. This is not as well written as it could have been, and needs more time to be repaired. However, I want to take this opportunity to caution those who support Railana's UD, because it invites corruption not only for war crimes, but for all dealings with those who commit crimes against humanity. WCT only deals with war crimes, leaving a solid option for future legislation on other international crimes wide open.

I hate campaigning for/against legislation not yet brought up, but the two are so intimately connected in the GA right now, its hard not to.
 
Nessuno:
Aye.

Just because there is not much written doesn't mean that is useless.
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While inherently that statement is true in this case that statement is false. In this case it creates a tribunal that is not a tribunal and is actually just a private investigation firm with a large printing press to pop out warrants.

Which is actually about as useless as it really gets. When it gets down to it this has nothing to do with justice or trials it just makes you arrest people and since it has no real clear defined focus it can just print out arrest warrants against anything it wants.
 
I think this looks like a hurried, unfinished product.
Such a body that is suggested here is tasked with a very important and serious mission. In my opinion the description is too general and not concrete enough.
Against.
 
If you're going to create an international body that would prosecute war crimes but then not even define what they are, it's inevitable that it's all going to end up in a catastrophic mess. There's so many other reasons to vote nay, but that one alone is substantial enough to garner a vote against this proposal from me. It's a good idea, but a bad draft.
 
Alta Italia:
If you're going to create an international body that would prosecute war crimes but then not even define what they are, it's inevitable that it's all going to end up in a catastrophic mess. There's so many other reasons to vote nay, but that one alone is substantial enough to garner a vote against this proposal from me. It's a good idea, but a bad draft.
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The entire point of not defining war crimes was so that a continuous list could be made through future resolutions instead of bickering over a list that would have to be totally comprehensive in only 3500 characters!
 
Separatist Peoples:
Alta Italia:
If you're going to create an international body that would prosecute war crimes but then not even define what they are, it's inevitable that it's all going to end up in a catastrophic mess. There's so many other reasons to vote nay, but that one alone is substantial enough to garner a vote against this proposal from me. It's a good idea, but a bad draft.
Click to expand...
The entire point of not defining war crimes was so that a continuous list could be made through future resolutions instead of bickering over a list that would have to be totally comprehensive in only 3500 characters!
Click to expand...
Than that really should be added to the proposal and not left ominous. A simple "War Crimes as defined by active WA Law." or similar would suffice, but it is left in purgatory, what a war crime is, and that a war crime really could be anything.
 
Against

due to the obscurity of the reach, scope, and power of said tribunal, as well the proposal's failure to define terms: incapacitated nations, war crime, compelling evidence.

Luxah's internal ministry however, overwhelmingly supports both our region and the World Assembly in preventing and firmly responding to crimes of war. As a representative, I would be happy to work towards more comprehensive legislation or find existing legislation which could be cited to strengthen and improve upon this document without overburdening it.
 
Separatist Peoples:
Alta Italia:
If you're going to create an international body that would prosecute war crimes but then not even define what they are, it's inevitable that it's all going to end up in a catastrophic mess. There's so many other reasons to vote nay, but that one alone is substantial enough to garner a vote against this proposal from me. It's a good idea, but a bad draft.
Click to expand...
The entire point of not defining war crimes was so that a continuous list could be made through future resolutions instead of bickering over a list that would have to be totally comprehensive in only 3500 characters!
Click to expand...

Lord Lore:
Than that really should be added to the proposal and not left ominous. A simple "War Crimes as defined by active WA Law." or similar would suffice, but it is left in purgatory, what a war crime is, and that a war crime really could be anything.
Click to expand...

I think it's a minor issue. While, as LL suggests, it could have been better to make the language clearer, I think SP is right that it's reasonable to assume it's referencing prior WA legislation. The upcoming resolution "On Universal Jurisdiction" certainly does a better job in this regard, saying 'with respect to any act that constitutes a "crime against humanity" or a "war crime" under World Assembly legislation'.

As I mentioned in the OP, there were several other issues with this resolution. I sent out an IFV recommending a vote against for these reasons.
 
Voting on this resolution has ended.

Thanks to those nations who cast their votes. Your participation is a great help to the region.

This topic has been locked and sent to the Archives for safekeeping. If you would like this topic to be re-opened for further discussion, please contact the WA Delegate, a Global Moderator, or an Administrator for assistance. Thank you.
 
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