[Laeral]

Hello all,



Please see attached the draft Charter of the League of IDU Nations. In authoring this draft, I've sought to preserve the feel of the real-life UN, including various councils and a Security Council, while also streamlining it for the benefit of RP purposes, particularly in an environment where nations may appear or cease to participate actively at any time. 



I intend to bring this to a vote for ratification by the League one week from today, on Wednesday, July 6th. Please let me know any comments or suggestions below in the meantime!

[Novella Islands]

Art 2(a). - if there isn't going to be an Art 2(b), either move Art 2 to Art 2(a) (and Art 2(a) to Art 2(b)), or move Art 2(a) to Art 3. Or add a new Art 2(b), though with what content, I do not know. Basically, a hanging Art 2(a) is slightly bizarre!

Art 4. "[...] national and subnational level,as well as [...]" - add space after the comma.

Art 6. "[...] membership as described in Article XXX of the Charter [...]" - XXX needs to be replaced with the relevant article. I believe that's referring to Art 11?

Art 8. "[...] nominate a slate of 14 member states [...]" - Why 14 members, as opposed to any other even number? Why not an odd number, to avoid ties where possible (excluding the event of abstention)?

Art 8. "[...] the President shall nominate a slate of 14 member states [...]" - Why have the President nominate and then approve? Why not create a rotating list (surely that's better for IC reasons?). OOC, doesn't change much, I suppose. Not strongly opposed to it, just curious as to the departure.

Art 9. "[...] The Security Council shall have the authority to enact binding resolutions and sanctions as well as [...]" - Add comma after "resolutions and sanctions".

Art 9. "[...] The Inner Council shall comprise the President of the Security Council and four members [...]" - Perhaps "the delegation of the President", as it is their state, not them as an individual?

Art 9. "All substantive business introduced to the Council shall first require the approval of a majority of members of the Inner Council of the Security Council." - A P5 "pre-veto"? I'm not sure this serves a good purpose OOC, and would present problems if it were applied IC (imagine Xiomera an Authoritarian nation getting put on the inner council, nothing substantive would ever make it to vote). Either the Inner Council should have different powers and duties (that don't stifle RP), or should be scrapped in lieu of it just being the SC.

Art 9. "The Security Council shall have the authority to enact binding resolutions and sanctions as well as order the deployment of League Peacekeepers." - No mention about required majority (except later for League Peacekeepers in Art 10). I suppose that hinges on Art 2(a)'s provision for simple majority? Though, should the SC hinge on a simple majority, or should it be a 2/3rds majority?

[Lauchenoiria]

Art 2(a). - if there isn't going to be an Art 2(b), either move Art 2 to Art 2(a) (and Art 2(a) to Art 2(b)), or move Art 2(a) to Art 3. Or add a new Art 2(b), though with what content, I do not know. Basically, a hanging Art 2(a) is slightly bizarre!

Art 4. "[...] national and subnational level,as well as [...]" - add space after the comma.

Art 6. "[...] membership as described in Article XXX of the Charter [...]" - XXX needs to be replaced with the relevant article. I believe that's referring to Art 11?

Art 8. "[...] nominate a slate of 14 member states [...]" - Why 14 members, as opposed to any other even number? Why not an odd number, to avoid ties where possible (excluding the event of abstention)?

Art 8. "[...] the President shall nominate a slate of 14 member states [...]" - Why have the President nominate and then approve? Why not create a rotating list (surely that's better for IC reasons?). OOC, doesn't change much, I suppose. Not strongly opposed to it, just curious as to the departure.

Art 9. "[...] The Security Council shall have the authority to enact binding resolutions and sanctions as well as [...]" - Add comma after "resolutions and sanctions".

Art 9. "[...] The Inner Council shall comprise the President of the Security Council and four members [...]" - Perhaps "the delegation of the President", as it is their state, not them as an individual?

Art 9. "All substantive business introduced to the Council shall first require the approval of a majority of members of the Inner Council of the Security Council." - A P5 "pre-veto"? I'm not sure this serves a good purpose OOC, and would present problems if it were applied IC (imagine Xiomera an Authoritarian nation getting put on the inner council, nothing substantive would ever make it to vote). Either the Inner Council should have different powers and duties (that don't stifle RP), or should be scrapped in lieu of it just being the SC.

Art 9. "The Security Council shall have the authority to enact binding resolutions and sanctions as well as order the deployment of League Peacekeepers." - No mention about required majority (except later for League Peacekeepers in Art 10). I suppose that hinges on Art 2(a)'s provision for simple majority? Though, should the SC hinge on a simple majority, or should it be a 2/3rds majority?

Happy with all your grammar amendments. On the 14 members being random vs nominated, I think the issue is that OOC we could end up with 12 members who are barely active, or 4 puppets of the same person, or other issues like that. The other ideas I need to think about.

[Laeral]

Thanks Novella for the comments! Let me go through them individually:
- Hanging "2a" in Article 2: addressed, by merging 2a with the body of 2
- Grammar on Articles 4 and 6: rectified, thanks!
- Why 14 member states? An even number is appropriate here since the President also serves on the Security Council, so adding 14 members brings it to 15, with no ties possible. The argument can be made that maybe 15 is a bit clunky, but I feel it's always better to err on the side of including more nations for the sake of (potentially) more players and more storylines. Once Security Council RP is up and running, they can certainly find ways to get around players being absent. 
- Why a President-selected list of members of the Security Council? This is for OOC reasons, since it allows for us each year to include the 15 nations that are most active or relevant to RP. Like you mentioned, it also prevents us from including too many puppets of one player or leaving out another player's nations entirely.
- Grammar on Article 9: rectified, thanks!
- Why isn't it "the delegation of the President"? The President is defined in Article 7 as a delegation: "One member state’s delegation shall be selected to serve as President of the League of IDU Nations by an exhaustive ballot of all member states, for a term of one year." 
- On the P5 "pre-veto." I think it's valuable because it replicates some of that sense of "great powers throwing their weight around" that we have in the real Security Council (even as all of the other LIDUN councils are entirely egalitarian) while making it less frustrating than RL (ie, Xiomera or another bad actor can't veto everything unilaterally the way Russia or China can IRL). Security Council business will just have to be approved by at least 3 of the 5 members of that "Inner Council," which changes with each new Security Council. 
- On the requisite majority to deploy peacekeepers: In Article 10, it says that "All votes to deploy or extend the authorization of a peacekeeping mission shall require a two-thirds majority of all voting Security Council members." All other SC votes would require a simple majority, which I think is best just for the ease of play. 

Thanks so much for your comments; they were very helpful!

[Novella Islands]

Why 14 member states? An even number is appropriate here since the President also serves on the Security Council, so adding 14 members brings it to 15, with no ties possible. The argument can be made that maybe 15 is a bit clunky, but I feel it's always better to err on the side of including more nations for the sake of (potentially) more players and more storylines. Once Security Council RP is up and running, they can certainly find ways to get around players being absent. 

Ah, this makes sense! I would recommend that somewhere in the charter, it be noted that the total number of SC members is 15; although it's totally implied the President is an additional seat, it could be perversely interpreted that the President must nominate their own nation as one of a panel of 14.

That, or my reading comprehension is no good

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Why a President-selected list of members of the Security Council? This is for OOC reasons, since it allows for us each year to include the 15 nations that are most active or relevant to RP. Like you mentioned, it also prevents us from including too many puppets of one player or leaving out another player's nations entirely.

Do you feel as if this couldn't possibly be a "rotating list" for IC purposes, but in reality these are OOC selected by hand? Just feels slightly odd for a supposedly democratic organisation... though in fairness, it does mirror the IRL SC's issues of representation!

Not a hang-up for me, just something I thought I'd give one last tilt at convincing for a change.

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On the P5 "pre-veto." I think it's valuable because it replicates some of that sense of "great powers throwing their weight around" that we have in the real Security Council (even as all of the other LIDUN councils are entirely egalitarian) while making it less frustrating than RL (ie, Xiomera or another bad actor can't veto everything unilaterally the way Russia or China can IRL). Security Council business will just have to be approved by at least 3 of the 5 members of that "Inner Council," which changes with each new Security Council. 

Personally, while I do understand the motivations, I'm still not convinced of the necessity of the Inner Council. Gotta admit, though, you sell it better than the IRL SC's veto powers!

Again, not enough of an issue for me to vote against, just voicing mild dissent!

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Why isn't it "the delegation of the President"? The President is defined in Article 7 as a delegation: "One member state’s delegation shall be selected to serve as President of the League of IDU Nations by an exhaustive ballot of all member states, for a term of one year." 

and

On the requisite majority to deploy peacekeepers: In Article 10, it says that "All votes to deploy or extend the authorization of a peacekeeping mission shall require a two-thirds majority of all voting Security Council members." All other SC votes would require a simple majority, which I think is best just for the ease of play. 

Very well!

[Laeral]

Thanks for your comments! I've gone ahead and added text to confirm that the President serves alongside the 14 temporary members on the Security Council.

When it comes to the use of a presidential slate versus a rotating slate of nations on the Security Council, this allows us to avoid the incongruity of having states repeatedly serving on the SC in successive years. I rationalize the somewhat-undemocratic nature of the presidential slate as an IC means of speeding up the voting process and to prompt the president to negotiate and assemble a slate which best represents the diversity of opinions in LIDUN's membership, rather than having a majority in the Internal Affairs committee run roughshod over the minority.

Thanks for your thoughts on the Inner Council! I think it adds an interesting wrinkle and some flavor to the SC RP, but if it isn't serving that, we can simply not pay much notice to it in the RP.

With these comments received, I'll submit a final draft to be voted on!