Treaty Repeal Clarification Bill

Praetor

Praetor

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Praetor#6889
A while ago (two years), there was a discussion of the laws around repealing a treaty are unclear. Of course, I immediately took prompt action as you can see as two years later I am now submitting this bill for consideration by the Regional Assembly.

Treaty Repeal Clarification:
Article 2 of the Constitution shall be amended to:

Article 2. The Regional Assembly:
1. Resident means any person with a nation in the region of The North Pacific.
2. The Regional Assembly will consist of all citizens.
3. Requirements for citizenship will be determined by law.
4. The Regional Assembly may enact, amend or repeal laws by a majority vote.
5. The Regional Assembly may remove a government official from office by a two-thirds majority vote.
6. The Regional Assembly may revoke treaties with foreign powers, subject to the terms of the treaty, by a two-thirds majority vote.
7. The number of votes required to achieve quorum for any vote of the Regional Assembly except elections will be determined by law.
8. The Regional Assembly will elect a Speaker every four months by a majority vote.
9. The Speaker will administer the rules of the Regional Assembly. Where no rules exist, the Speaker may use their discretion.
10. Abstentions cast in the Regional Assembly will not be used to determine the result of any vote, but may be used for quorum and all other purposes.
11. The Speaker may appoint deputies to assist them in the execution of any of their powers and duties. Appointment of deputies may be regulated by law and the rules of the Regional Assembly.
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Article 2. The Regional Assembly:
1. Resident means any person with a nation in the region of The North Pacific.
2. The Regional Assembly will consist of all citizens.
3. Requirements for citizenship will be determined by law.
4. The Regional Assembly may enact, amend or repeal laws by a majority vote.
5. The Regional Assembly may remove a government official from office by a two-thirds majority vote.
6. The Regional Assembly may revoke treaties with foreign powers, subject to the terms of the treaty, by a two-thirds majority vote.
76. The number of votes required to achieve quorum for any vote of the Regional Assembly except elections will be determined by law.
87. The Regional Assembly will elect a Speaker every four months by a majority vote.
98. The Speaker will administer the rules of the Regional Assembly. Where no rules exist, the Speaker may use their discretion.
109. Abstentions cast in the Regional Assembly will not be used to determine the result of any vote, but may be used for quorum and all other purposes.
1110. The Speaker may appoint deputies to assist them in the execution of any of their powers and duties. Appointment of deputies may be regulated by law and the rules of the Regional Assembly.
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Currently, it is not specified in the Legal Code how treaties are enacted or repealed. The Constitution does specify that:
Article 3. The Delegate and Vice Delegate:
3. The Delegate may negotiate treaties with foreign powers. No treaty will come into effect unless approved by a two-thirds majority vote of the Regional Assembly.
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It does not specify the procedure for repealing a treaty.

The Regional Assembly Rules do not mention treaties at all. The Standing Procedures do:

Treaty Ratification Procedure:
  1. The Delegate, or an Executive Officer designated by the Delegate to do so, may introduce a proposal to exercise the power of the Assembly to ratify, or to revoke ratification of, a treaty by creating a thread in the Regional Assembly forum or Private Halls subforum.
  2. The Delegate, or the Executive Officer, may call for a vote on the proposal by posting "motion to vote", or a functional equivalent in the thread.
  3. During the five days after a vote is called for, the Delegate, or the Executive Officer, may make amendments to the treaty being considered. This period, hereafter referred to as Formal Debate, may be shortened at the request of the Delegate, or the Executive Officer. Once Formal Debate has ended, the treaty may no longer be amended, and the Speaker will schedule a vote to begin no fewer than two days hence.
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The Standing Procedures are however determined by the Speaker and are insufficient to determining the procedure for repealing treaties, this should be determined by the Regional Assembly.

Additionally, the Standing Procedures limits treaty revocation to the Delegate or an Executive Officer designated by the Delegate to do so. While it makes sense to limit treaty proposal to the Delegate or the aforementioned Executive Officer as it requires negotiation with foreign powers, treaty revocation does not necessarily require such.

The North Pacific has not had many treaty repeals, in previous cases, treaty repeals were proposed by the Delegate and received two-thirds support to take effect based upon the interpretation of the law. However, in both the Osiris and the Balder repeal, there were discussion on our unclear process to repealing treaties and who could do it and how.

This resolution clears up any uncertainty.
 
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Looks good to me. My only concern is that we discussed importing the Standing Procedures into the RA Rules. Many people would argue that it's up for the Speaker's interpretation. How is this any different?
 
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I agree with your goal of making the treaty repeal process clearer.

I am not sure I agree that the RA should be able to repeal a treaty without the delegate's support, since that could have just as big an effect on our foreign affairs as negotiating and signing one does.
 
Dinoium:
Looks good to me. My only concern is that we discussed importing the Standing Procedures into the RA Rules. Many people would argue that it's up for the Speaker's interpretation. How is this any different?
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Who are these many people? To these unidentified individuals I would note that a treaty repeal is significant and we would not want to leave the process up to Speaker's discretion.
King SillyString:
I agree with your goal of making the treaty repeal process clearer.

I am not sure I agree that the RA should be able to repeal a treaty without the delegate's support, since that could have just as big an effect on our foreign affairs as negotiating and signing one does.
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All of our treaties form part of our laws. For us to have a law which the RA is not able to repeal without the Delegate proposing the repeal is rather puzzling. The Delegate will still maintain influence as they have veto power (which can be subsequently overruled by the RA). Limiting repeals of treaties to ones with the Delegate's support unnecessarily limits our democracy.
 
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Praetor:
The Delegate will still maintain influence as they have veto power (which can be subsequently overruled by the RA).
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The Delegate can only veto proposals to alter the Legal Code, which treaties do not touch.
 
The exact legal status of treaties has never been clearly defined to be honest. If a treaty conflicted with something in the legal code, it is not clear which one would have to yield.

A broader treaty reform bill might make sense, given that.
 
Praetor:
Who are these many people? To these unidentified individuals I would note that a treaty repeal is significant and we would not want to leave the process up to Speaker's discretion.
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I was orginally referring to me and COE in Amendments to the Rules of Regional Rules. However, after considering your response, I come to realize the two are significantly different and would like to redact my previous comment. This seems to me though other than that.
 
I would support adding a clause to the Delegate section of the Constutition, such as:
4. The Delegate may revoke treaties with foreign powers, subject to the terms of the treaty. No revocation of a treaty will come into effect unless approved by a two-thirds majority vote of the Regional Assembly.
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This mirrors the language of adopting treaties, and is consistent with our current practice of treating the revocation of the treaty as adopting a "null" treaty that supersedes the previous document.
 
Having a bill to clarify how treaties stand relative to the Legal Code does make sense—however, I am inclined to leaning towards having a separate bill for that. I don't think treaties need a broad reform—I think there are just two aspects which could clarification.

I have modified the language—COE's language is better.

I have not added in the necessity for the Delegate (or an Executive Officer designated by the Delegate to do so) to revoke the treaty. I maintain my prior points regarding the unusuality of laws repealable only with the initiative of the Delegate (or an Executive Officer designated by the Delegate to do so).

Should a citizen attempt to repeal a treaty without the Delegate's support they would have trouble passing it. Requiring 2/3rds support is a high barrier (rightly so) and without the support of the Executive, I would find it rare for treaties to be revoked.
 
I think delegate involvement should be necessary for the same reason that it's necessary to enter into a treaty - the executive branch handles our foreign affairs directly, albeit with the oversight of the citizenry. When foreign powers deal with our government, they need to know that they are talking to someone with the power to act. If an ally needs assurance that their alliance with us will continue, the word of the delegate needs to have force behind it so that we can be a trustworthy actor on a inter-regional level.

To be clear, I'm not saying that the delegate's opinion on foreign policy matters more than the citizenry. Rather, I'm saying it's unnecessarily difficult for the delegate to explain to someone "Your treaty won't be repealed because it would take a 2/3 majority to do so, and I don't think there's anything close to that level of opposition to the treaty, especially since I am still in favor." Much better, in my opinion, is for the delegate to be able to say "I am the only person who can start the repeal process, and I'm not going to do that, so rest easy."

Conversely, if a third party had a problem with one of our allies, and felt that we ought to dissolve our treaty with them, they should have to go through the delegate to make that happen. It is wildly inappropriate to give them an avenue to campaign directly to the citizenry to get a treaty repealed.

While I do feel that the citizenry should have the final word if a treaty is adopted or dissolved, we should not interfere with the foreign policy decisions of the executive, except to remove the delegate if their performance is unsatisfactory.
 
I think this highlights an issue with the current status of the RA in that it is disjointed from ministry functions and does not have a means to know about foreign affairs other than joining and then being a integral part of FA governance. If you want citizens to actually know whether to repeal a treaty or not then there needs to be some means to keep them updated and educated on the issues. In my opinion, Foreign Affairs as a ministry is very centralized as common ambassadors so no more than send out publications. There is no actual diplomatic deliberations involving the staff as it is more a Delegate, FA Minister, and maybe senior diplomat affair. I would love to support this legislation if we also bridge that gap I have been talking about between the RA and the Delegate's government. This actually has revealed itself as a problem in this case of delegate involvement in the repeal of treaties.
 
This bill does not remove the power for the Delegate to act. I don't think it would be difficult at all the Delegate to have those conversations—I think that would underestimate the ability of the government officials of regions with which we have treaties to understand the politics involved in a repeal.

No Delegate is able to provide assurances to foreign powers that their treaty will not be repealed. Any such reassurances are temporary given the term limits on the Delegate. I think the barrier of 2/3 remains significant enough the RA won't go about repealing treaties willy-nilly.

Any third parties attempting to use the RA to advance their own agenda would be spotted quite quickly I imagine and I would find it hard to believe the RA would be willing to support someone who is attempting to use TNP to further another region's agenda.
 
Since I happened upon this thread just now I may as well pop in and say I have no problem with this bill. Cheerio, lads~
 
I know it's a bit of an old thread, but I figured I'd give you an opportunity to revive it if you so wished @Praetor before I archived it. Reply here or ping me on Discord and I'll archive it or leave it open.
 
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