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The Shut the Frack Up! Act

Category: Environmental | Area of Effect: Mining | Submitted by: Dark Star Republic

The World Assembly,

Preambling to some extent dependent on eventual character count,

Establishes:

Every nation has the general right to sovereignty over any mineral resources within their sovereign territory.
Defines:

"Mineral resources" as any naturally occurring non-biological resources found in or under the surface or subsurface of land or seabed, including mineral aggregates, rocks, metals and ores, oil, and natural gas;
"Mining operation" as any site of mineral resource extraction;
"Mine operator" as the person with final legal responsibility for a mining operation;
"Mineral rights" as the property rights to extract mineral resources from an area of land or seabed, make use of the land or seabed for such extraction, and any other associated rights;
Declares:

Every nation is required to ensure that every mining operation undertaken within their sovereign territory is officially licensed to a certified mine operator;
No person may be granted a licence as mining operator where they have not first legitimately secured mineral rights for that mining operation;
No mining operator may undertake any mining operation within the sovereign territory of any other nation without first obtaining a licence from that national government;
Every mining operation must only be undertaken following completion and implementation of a transnational environmental impact review (TEIR) to ascertain plausibility of:

air pollution,
disruption of migratory wildlife,
endangerment to protected species and habitats,
groundwater contamination or diversion,
introduction of invasive species,
noise pollution,
seismic disruption,
displacement of persons,
any other transnational environmental impact;
Existing mining operations must undertake completion and implementation of a TEIR as soon as is practically possible without endangering worker safety, causing catastrophic business failure, or exacerbating any ongoing transnational environmental hazards;
Mining operations of such a scale as to have no conceivable transnational environmental impact may be exempted from the requirement to undertake such a review;
Transnational environmental impacts are to be categorised as general (indiscriminately affecting other nations) and specific (having an effect on only certain identifiable nations);
Each nation must take such efforts as are consistent with the general goal of sustainable development and are otherwise legal and practical to redress general transnational environmental impacts from mining operations within their jurisdiction;
Each nation must as soon as possible inform those nations affected by specific transnational environmental impacts, and cooperate in mitigating or redressing them;
Each nation must exercise their jurisdiction over any illegal mining operation that does not meet the terms of this Resolution;
The respective agencies of the World Assembly shall liaise with member nations to provide such assistance as is required in meeting these obligations;
Further declares:

Mining operations are required to comply with non-environmental international law, such as trade, labour and workplace safety laws;
Notwithstanding any requirements under previously passed World Assembly Resolutions still in effect or future attempts to address transnational environmental impact, all other environmental regulation of mining operations is delegated to the absolute prerogative of individual member nations.

This is an excellent blocker on fracking proposals.  In my opinion, real-life buzzwords and topics should be kept out of the WA.  On one hand, it spurs activity by inspiring people to make drafts about them.  On the other hand, the people making the drafts often don't realize 1) this is the World Assembly, an INTERNATIONAL legislature, and 2) -this is a big one- NationStates is not real life.  Real-life statistics, references to current events, "look at how [country X] did it last year!" all means jack shit in the World Assembly. 

Thus, it's perfectly legal to assume that there are some nations that have perfected the science of fracking and employ it effectively and safely with a failure rate approaching the minimum universally possible.  There's no reason to ban or restrict fracking in all nations when there are some that are really good at it.

Official debate thread here.

I disagree, I think debating real world problems is interesting and a good use of the World Assembly.

The Shut the Frack Up! Act

Category: Environmental | Area of Effect: Mining | Submitted by: Dark Star Republic

The World Assembly,

Preambling to some extent dependent on eventual character count,

Establishes:

Every nation has the general right to sovereignty over any mineral resources within their sovereign territory.
Defines:

"Mineral resources" as any naturally occurring non-biological resources found in or under the surface or subsurface of land or seabed, including mineral aggregates, rocks, metals and ores, oil, and natural gas;
"Mining operation" as any site of mineral resource extraction;
"Mine operator" as the person with final legal responsibility for a mining operation;
"Mineral rights" as the property rights to extract mineral resources from an area of land or seabed, make use of the land or seabed for such extraction, and any other associated rights;
Declares:

Every nation is required to ensure that every mining operation undertaken within their sovereign territory is officially licensed to a certified mine operator;
No person may be granted a licence as mining operator where they have not first legitimately secured mineral rights for that mining operation;
No mining operator may undertake any mining operation within the sovereign territory of any other nation without first obtaining a licence from that national government;
Every mining operation must only be undertaken following completion and implementation of a transnational environmental impact review (TEIR) to ascertain plausibility of:

air pollution,
disruption of migratory wildlife,
endangerment to protected species and habitats,
groundwater contamination or diversion,
introduction of invasive species,
noise pollution,
seismic disruption,
displacement of persons,
any other transnational environmental impact;
Existing mining operations must undertake completion and implementation of a TEIR as soon as is practically possible without endangering worker safety, causing catastrophic business failure, or exacerbating any ongoing transnational environmental hazards;
Mining operations of such a scale as to have no conceivable transnational environmental impact may be exempted from the requirement to undertake such a review;
Transnational environmental impacts are to be categorised as general (indiscriminately affecting other nations) and specific (having an effect on only certain identifiable nations);
Each nation must take such efforts as are consistent with the general goal of sustainable development and are otherwise legal and practical to redress general transnational environmental impacts from mining operations within their jurisdiction;
Each nation must as soon as possible inform those nations affected by specific transnational environmental impacts, and cooperate in mitigating or redressing them;
Each nation must exercise their jurisdiction over any illegal mining operation that does not meet the terms of this Resolution;
The respective agencies of the World Assembly shall liaise with member nations to provide such assistance as is required in meeting these obligations;
Further declares:

Mining operations are required to comply with non-environmental international law, such as trade, labour and workplace safety laws;
Notwithstanding any requirements under previously passed World Assembly Resolutions still in effect or future attempts to address transnational environmental impact, all other environmental regulation of mining operations is delegated to the absolute prerogative of individual member nations.

This is an excellent blocker on fracking proposals.  In my opinion, real-life buzzwords and topics should be kept out of the WA.  On one hand, it spurs activity by inspiring people to make drafts about them.  On the other hand, the people making the drafts often don't realize 1) this is the World Assembly, an INTERNATIONAL legislature, and 2) -this is a big one- NationStates is not real life.  Real-life statistics, references to current events, "look at how [country X] did it last year!" all means jack shit in the World Assembly. 

Thus, it's perfectly legal to assume that there are some nations that have perfected the science of fracking and employ it effectively and safely with a failure rate approaching the minimum universally possible.  There's no reason to ban or restrict fracking in all nations when there are some that are really good at it.

Official debate thread here.

Poorly worded and doesn't reflect the fact that fracking is possible while reducing effects on environmental life.

AGAINST

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S4 via Tapatalk

Poorly worded and doesn't reflect the fact that fracking is possible while reducing effects on environmental life.

AGAINST

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S4 via Tapatalk

Actually this is a draft as is marked up at the top. It's part of the new activity rollout in the WA podium. On these particular ones you don't vote against or for you suggest ways that it might be improved either here or on the general assembly forums.
So you say it's poorly worded and doesn't reflect some facts. How would you suggest fixing that?

Eww GA.

But on the other hand, I must applaud the leadership being shown in the area of WA stuff. We have a great WA Ministry!

I disagree, I think debating real world problems is interesting and a good use of the World Assembly.

I think he's saying it's not a great place to debate them because people have a tendency to forget that like some of the nations that you're legislating are made up of like sentient bears with interstellar travel or that not all things should be internationally legislated... Like sometimes things get put up without people really thinking about the differences between real life and Nationstates.
In some ways I agree with him but I do think it's relatively necessary for inspiration, if nothing else. Though I do find it fantastically annoying when I have to look at things which are terribly silly in the context of governing a massively diverse setting of things.

Poorly worded and doesn't reflect the fact that fracking is possible while reducing effects on environmental life.

AGAINST

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S4 via Tapatalk

I don't see this as poorly worded, but there has been some discussion about the use of the word "mineral," which might not include all sorts of underground resources.

Also, the draft is meant to assure nations are free to dictate fracking laws (mostly) independent of the WA. Really, the only requirements here are licensing of mining operators and guarantees of land use rights before drilling can commence. Compared to some other drafts on the floor, its very mild.

And Stark, I agree, it is interesting to see how real-world issues translate to the WA. For example, there was a surge of gun control proposals after the Sandy Hook, CT incident, and after marijuana was decriminalized in Colorado and Washington, we saw similar proposals again. Thats not necessarily a bad thing - the issue is when inexperienced authors flood the floor with proposals ignorant of the rules or in-character gameplay.