The Osiris WA Office

Treize Dreizehn · Post by **Treize Dreizehn** » Sat Jan 18, 2014 10:00 pm

So I created a puppet tonight for the region to begin submitting crowd sourced legislation to the WA. We've discussed it on IRC and a lot of us like the idea of Osiris as a region submitting legislation, and I'm going to help us move forward on the project.

One of the more recent repeals I passed was Repeal "Cultural Heritage Protection" . The primary flaws of the piece were the ability to protect from military action any site labeled a cultural heritage site.

I was hoping we could work on a replacement. But I don't want to go and draft up something right away without getting input. Let me just say, whatever we come up with should probably delegate the designation of sites to a committee, rather than set rules for what a site is. And it should ensure that sites which are protected from military action(if that's the path we choose), are also illegal sites for housing military assets.

Another idea would be to create a "library" of sorts, where WA member nations catalog the various sites in all nations.

There are numerous tacks to this we could take. My personal preference is the least invasive. So let's get started.

Treize Dreizehn · Post by **Treize Dreizehn** » Wed Jan 22, 2014 9:04 pm

*poke* Don't make me find you people on IRC. You know I will.

Treize Dreizehn · Post by **Treize Dreizehn** » Thu Jan 30, 2014 12:59 pm

Here's my first pass at a draft.

Cultural Site Preservation wrote:The World Assembly,

Recognizing the abundance of sites with cultural significance within member nations and the need to preserve them for future generations,

Acknowledging the World Assembly as the perfect medium for this purpose,

1. Hereby creates the World Assembly Trust for Cultural Heritage(WATCH),

2. Empowers the WATCH to perform the following actions:
a. Designate sites as culturally relevant,
b. Create a library including, but not limited to, visual, verbal, and literary works that pertain to culturally relevant sites,
c. Recommend specific preservation practices to nations for their culturally relevant sites,
d. Fulfill requests by nations to assist in the preservation of sites when the nation in question is unable to do so,

3. Urges nations to follow the preservation recommendations of the WATCH,

4. Encourages all nations to make a good faith effort to preserve their culturally relevant sites, and to assist other nations in the preservation of their culturally relevant sites,

5. Mandates that nations shall make a good faith effort to avoid unnecessary damage to sites the WATCH has deemed culturally relevant,

6. Further mandates that nations shall not willingly use culturally relevant sites to house military or intelligence assets,

7. Exempts sites from the protections and requirements of sections 5 and 6 when those sites' cultural significance is tied to their current use as a military or intelligence asset.

Venico · Post by **Venico** » Thu Jan 30, 2014 5:09 pm

Hmmm what if the culturally relevant site WAS a military asset. Such as old AA guns and cannons and the like from previous wars? Also why is Watch fully capitalized as WATCH every time?

Treize Dreizehn · Post by **Treize Dreizehn** » Thu Jan 30, 2014 5:12 pm

Hmm, I hadn't thought about that. I'll need to work that detail in.

As for WATCH, that's how acronyms are supposed to be handled. You capitalize it every time.

Venico · Post by **Venico** » Thu Jan 30, 2014 5:24 pm

Oh, I didn't even realize it was an acronym...my apologies. Head is fuzzy. I'll give it another read over in a bit.

Abacathea · Post by **Abacathea** » Thu Jan 30, 2014 9:56 pm

Recognizing that there are many sites in this World Assembly which possess significant cultural significance,

I really dislike the wording on this, "in this World Assembly" is... clunky.

Believing that such sites should be preserved for posterity,

I'd like to see these both amalgamated, perhaps something to the effect of:

Recognizing the abundance of sites of cultural significance within member nations and the need to preserve them for future generations.

Understanding that the World Assembly may encourage such preservation efforts,

Suggested:
Recognizing the World Assembly body as the perfect medium for this purpose

My assessment of the remainder is this, there's a potential legality issue here, primarily because everything else is essentially an encouragement clause, even the singular mandate, which means this act solely creates a committee for all intensive purposes.

I'd like to see the language toughened here, and the committee referred to as WATCH rather than "the WATCH".

Just my thoughts on the matter.

Venico · Post by **Venico** » Fri Jan 31, 2014 6:03 am

"for all intensive purposes" intents and purposes*

And I kind of agree Aba that this all is rather optional in a way. However after reading it through I can't see a way to make things mandatory without being unreasonable. We can't mandate nations follow WATCH recommendations. However one thing I thought of (now I'm not a WA guy so if this is crazy let me know) was providing funds to nations to help preserve the site. This would give nations more incentive to follow recommendations without making it mandatory.

Treize Dreizehn · Post by **Treize Dreizehn** » Fri Jan 31, 2014 8:07 am

Venico BrightAxe wrote:Fri Jan 31, 2014 11:03 am"for all intensive purposes" intents and purposes*

And I kind of agree Aba that this all is rather optional in a way. However after reading it through I can't see a way to make things mandatory without being unreasonable. We can't mandate nations follow WATCH recommendations. However one thing I thought of (now I'm not a WA guy so if this is crazy let me know) was providing funds to nations to help preserve the site. This would give nations more incentive to follow recommendations without making it mandatory.

There is the WA General Fund. I'll see about what I can do.

Treize Dreizehn · Post by **Treize Dreizehn** » Sun Feb 02, 2014 6:24 pm

Here's my newest draft:

Cultural Site Preservation wrote:The World Assembly,

Recognizing the abundance of sites with cultural significance within member nations and the need to preserve them for future generations,

Acknowledging the World Assembly as the perfect medium for this purpose,

1. Hereby creates the World Assembly Trust for Cultural Heritage(WATCH),

2. Empowers the WATCH to perform the following actions:
a. Designate sites as culturally relevant,
b. Create a library including, but not limited to, visual, verbal, and literary works that pertain to culturally relevant sites,
c. Recommend specific preservation practices to nations for their culturally relevant sites,
d. Fulfill requests by nations to assist in the preservation of sites when the nation in question is unable to do so,

3. Urges nations to follow the preservation recommendations of the WATCH,

4. Encourages all nations to make a good faith effort to preserve their culturally relevant sites, and to assist other nations in the preservation of their culturally relevant sites,

5. Mandates that nations shall make a good faith effort to avoid unnecessary damage to sites the WATCH has deemed culturally relevant,

6. Further mandates that nations shall not willingly use culturally relevant sites to house military or intelligence assets,

7. Exempts sites from the protections and requirements of sections 5 and 6 when those sites' cultural significance is tied to their current use as a military or intelligence asset.