Death by Gnome
The Tale of the General Assembly and the Committee
Written by Maowi
(October 21, Europeia) - The General Assembly (GA) resolution currently at vote, although very short (typically for its author), has been a fairly major point of contention in the World Assembly (WA) of late. This single-mandate resolution by the name of "Ban On Sterilisation Of Minors Etc" aims to ensure that legally incompetent individuals may only be sterilised where absolutely necessary for their long-term health, with or without the consent of the individual's legal guardian. This directive is effectuated through the creation of Institutional Review Boards (IRBs), which are not GA committees but rather independent organisations within member nations. The first clause of the resolution, in which this is decreed, gives no directives as to the nature or staffing of such IRBs, potentially leaving the clause open to abuse by member nations. However, all GA resolutions must of course be considered within the context of the framework constructed by other unrepealed resolutions. One such pertinent resolution is GA resolution 29, Patient's Rights Act, which counts amongst its injunctions the following:
Patient's Rights Act said:
What this essentially boils down to is that as long as a particular medical procedure is both "necessary and beneficial" for a legally incompetent patient according - and this is key - to a "physician or other medical professional," their legal guardian may consent to the procedure on their behalf. By virtue of the resolution at vote having been deemed legal, it must not contradict the Patient's Rights Act; so only physicians or other medical professionals may veto the sterilisation of a minor, and therefore, the IRBs to which the resolution refers must be staffed by physicians or other medical professionals (note that this only applies where the sterilisation of minors and incompetent individuals is legal; where such a procedure is illegal in all cases, the resolution at vote has no effect). It is this interaction which properly establishes the legitimate reliability of IRBs.
The more contentious part of the resolution is, however, clause two. This section allows the WA Compliance Commission (WACC) to "make regulations to clarify upon and enforce this resolution." The WACC is a GA committee - that is, it is a WA-wide organisation, independent of any particular nation, which aids in carrying out a resolution. GA committees are said to be staffed by "gnomes," who are incorruptible, possess complete moral integrity in terms of following the mandates of GA legislation, and therefore complete any task assigned to them in a GA resolution as closely to infallibly as possible. Committees are incredibly useful for writing proposals, insofar as they remove from the author the burden of having to describe their resolution's often lengthy and highly complex implementation and enforcement mechanism. The WACC itself was formed in GA resolution 390, Compliance Commission, in order to ensure consistency between GA laws and member nations' laws, but - as goes for all GA committees - can have more duties assigned to it in subsequent resolutions. What is entirely unprecedented in this resolution is its use of a committee to introduce new legislation. Given GA committees' inherent infallibility, entrusting the finer details of legislation over to them seems perfectly logical. But can this argument not be made for almost any and every topic of legislation? What of the GA then? Is its ultimate logical fate a slow and painful death by committee? If the WA did go in that direction, changes would surely be made before the situation became dire. Yes, letting committees create law is more effective within the fictional world of the GA; but the WA is a roleplay - a huge, elaborate one, yes, but a roleplay nonetheless. In what sort of roleplay is the actual crux of the roleplaying handed over to an abstract body inside the roleplay itself?
Despite these discussions, the resolution at vote is not responsible for making or breaking the idea; it merely allows the committee to take responsibility for clarification - and the form this clarification can legally take is very much open to shaping and restricting by the passage of further resolutions. So we're not at the end of the GA just yet; but now that the issue has been thrust into the limelight and the concept widely broadcast, it merits - no, demands, even - careful consideration.
Resolutions would still be passed, stats would still change ...