This adds a section to the charter for declaring war because it’s poorly defined as is. Suggestions are always appreciated since I’m pretty inexperienced at lawmaking.
Amendment to the Charter:
XI. DECLARATIONS OF WAR
Establishing a procedure for declaring an official state of war.
(1) The Assembly shall have the sole power to declare war and conclude peace.
(2) A declaration of war shall require a three-fifths supermajority of legislators voting to pass.
XII. RECALLS AND MOTIONS OF NO CONFIDENCE
…
XIII. THE ADMINISTRATION TEAM
…
XIIIV. AMENDMENT PROCESS
…
XIV. GREAT COUNCILS
Amendment to the Legislative Procedure Act:
1. Legislative Rules
(1) Any legislator may propose a bill, resolution, or appointment, which will be debated and refined collectively in the Assembly under the guidance of the Chair.
(2) To be brought to a vote, a specific draft of a bill, resolution, or appointment must
receive a motion to vote by a legislator,
receive a second by another legislator,
be affirmed to be in proper formatting by the Chair, and
have been at debate for a minimum period of time equivalent to the length of its voting period.
(3) General laws, amendments, resolutions, and appointments will remain at vote for three days. Constitutional laws, constitutional amendments, resolutions dealing with matters of constitutional law, declarations of war, and treaties will remain at vote for five days.
(4) General laws, amendments, resolutions, and treaties require a simple majority of those voting to pass. Appointments, unless otherwise specified, require a simple majority of those voting to pass. Constitutional laws, constitutional amendments, and resolutions dealing with matters of constitutional law, and declarations of war require a three-fifths supermajority of those voting to pass.
Draft 2
XI. DECLARATIONS OF WAR Establishing a procedure for declaring an official state of war.
(1) A declaration of war may be initiated by the Prime Minister and ratified with a three-fifths majority vote of the Assembly.
(2) A state of war may be recognized when the Prime Minister or Assembly determines that a region has initiated hostilities against the Coalition or its allies. A state of war may only be recognized in response to an attempted invasion, coup d’etat, or otherwise attack on the Coalition or its allies, or to fulfill explicit treaty obligations.
(3) States of war shall be sustained until the Prime Minister or Assembly declares the cessation of the state of war or the signing of a peace treaty, with the approval of the Assembly.
XII. RECALLS AND MOTIONS OF NO CONFIDENCE
…
XIII. THE ADMINISTRATION TEAM
…
XIIIV. AMENDMENT PROCESS
…
XIV. GREAT COUNCILS
Draft 1
XI. DECLARATIONS OF WAR Establishing a procedure for declaring an official state of war.
(1) An official state of war may be declared by the Prime Minister and ratified with a three-fifths majority vote of the Assembly.
(2). A state of war can only be declared in response to an attempted invasion, coup d’etat, or otherwise attack on the Coalition or its allies, or to fulfill explicit treaty obligations.
(3) If it is determined to be in the best interests for the safety of the region, the Prime Minister, with the consent of the Council of Regional Security and a three-fifths majority approval from the Assembly, may concede some of their powers and authority to the Admiralty after a state of war is declared.
(4) The Prime Minister may authorize the military to attack a region that the Coalition is actively at war with or an ally thereof. Authorizations of military force must be approved by a simple majority of the Assembly.
(5) States of war shall be sustained until the Prime Minister, with three-fifths approval of the Assembly, declares the cessation of the state of war.
“(5) States of war shall be sustained until the Prime Minister, with three-fifths approval of the Assembly, declares the cessation of the state of war .or the signing of a peace treaty, with the approval of the Assembly.”
There is exactly one situation where the typical assignment of the powers of the region are shifted, and that’s the case of an attack on our region. And in this case, the powers go to the CRS (who are appointed to be trusted) rather than the Admiralty (who are appointed to be military leaders). Nope.
In our (post-2016) system, the Cabinet is very deliberately left out of the regional security equation. This puts it back in. Nope.
This is unnecessary, as the corresponding provisions already exist. Also, in case of an actual war, you really don’t want to have to go through the Assembly every time.
Why would you remove the Assembly’s ability to cease war on its own? Why does this have to go through the Prime Minister?
Why is this even necessary? What does this even achieve?
In addition to what Roavin said, which I fully agree with, why are we sticking it in the Charter? If I was to support this, I’d be much more inclined to support a general law.
As a fundamental matter, declarations of war are very serious business and authorize the government to take actions they would otherwise be prohibited from doing. For that matter, it should at least be a constitutional law, and preferably in the Charter.
This might sound rich to some folks coming from me, but — Drew, I appreciate you taking initiative on identifying a perceived problem and proposing a potential solution, and I hope you won’t be too discouraged by the hyperbole and expletives.
As far as I can tell, our treaties reference the state of ‘war’ frequently, but our own laws only ever reference the concept three times:
The Charter states that ‘war’ is one purpose of creating an official military.
Charter X(3) authorizes offensive military operations on “regions against which the Coalition has declared an official state of war”
Criminal Code 2(1) defines treason as, among other acts, “aiding […] any entity against which a state of war exists.”
I’d agree that this seems poorly defined as is. What does it mean for the Coalition to declare war? Who gets to declare it on behalf of the entire Coalition? Is a declared war different from a state of war?[1] Maybe your initial draft has prompted some knee-jerk reactions, but I do think there is something worth addressing here.
As a somewhat contemporaneous example, TNP for instance recognized that a state of war existed but did not technically declare war last October. ↩︎
It feels like we’re almost doing too much here, especially with this tidbit above. This is just an extra layer of bureaucracy. I trust the Assembly in making the right decision when it comes to ending wars—nothing has to go through the PM’s desk.
While the PM does not have to be a legislator anymore, I’d hope that they at least communicate with the Assembly if they want to “cease the state of war.”
It’s an extra layer of bureaucracy to have the Prime Minister end war and then have the Assembly approve that request. If the PM wants to end war, they should just bring it up in the Assembly and have the body vote on it. If the PM isn’t in the Assembly, they should just get someone else to bring it up in the Assembly. No need to also create a two-step process when we have a fairly simple one-step process.
That being said, @Banexet, Pronoun is right - don’t be discouraged by me taking a dislike to your proposal.
I agree that it’s worth addressing the matter of declaring war, but I don’t think we necessarily need special machinery beyond that, because at the end of the day, we have all the tools we’d want as-is. The military can be used, and in case of a security scenario, the CRS has quite a few powers it can use. We don’t need to then make a separate (probably unconstitutional) process that puts the entire region into the hand of people that are, in a roundabout way, political appointees rather than our existing trusted regional security infrastructure.
Or, in better and less words than mine, what Kris said:
I agree that it would be helpful to clarify the process for declaring war given how frequently it is referenced in treaties and other legislation. But perhaps we could go with something relatively simple. Potential draft is below; I’m curious to hear everyone’s thoughts.
Amendments to the Charter
XI. DECLARATIONS OF WAR Establishing a procedure for declaring an official state of war.
(1) The Assembly shall have the sole power to declare war and conclude peace.
(2) A declaration of war shall require a three-fifths supermajority of legislators voting to pass.
XII. RECALLS AND MOTIONS OF NO CONFIDENCE
…
XIII. THE ADMINISTRATION TEAM
…
XIIIV. AMENDMENT PROCESS
…
XIV. GREAT COUNCILS
Amendments to the Legislative Procedure Act
1. Legislative Rules
(1) Any legislator may propose a bill, resolution, or appointment, which will be debated and refined collectively in the Assembly under the guidance of the Chair.
(2) To be brought to a vote, a specific draft of a bill, resolution, or appointment must
receive a motion to vote by a legislator,
receive a second by another legislator,
be affirmed to be in proper formatting by the Chair, and
have been at debate for a minimum period of time equivalent to the length of its voting period.
(3) General laws, amendments, resolutions, and appointments will remain at vote for three days. Constitutional laws, constitutional amendments, resolutions dealing with matters of constitutional law, declarations of war, and treaties will remain at vote for five days.
(4) General laws, amendments, resolutions, and treaties require a simple majority of those voting to pass. Appointments, unless otherwise specified, require a simple majority of those voting to pass. Constitutional laws, constitutional amendments, and resolutions dealing with matters of constitutional law, and declarations of war require a three-fifths supermajority of those voting to pass.
What about “A state of war may only be recognized in response to an attempted invasion, coup d’etat, or otherwise attack on the Coalition or its allies, or to fulfill explicit treaty obligations”?
Yes, that is what the proposed amendment means when it refers to the power to “conclude peace.” I didn’t set a specific vote threshold for that though. To my mind, it could be handled through our normal treaty process, which would require only a simple majority to pass. Making it harder to declare war than to reach peace struck me as a prudent safeguard.
I’m not opposed to inserting language like this, though I’m not really sure what the enforcement mechanism would be. It’s hard to imagine the Court scrutinizing–and perhaps invalidating–a declaration of war for failure to comply with these requirements.
Forgive me if I’m unaware of some sort of diplomatic nomenclature but wouldn’t “conclude peace” literally translate to “end peace?” Shouldn’t it be “conclude with peace” or something along those lines?
Ah, sorry if that was confusing. It is, I guess, a term of art or diplomatic nomenclature, referring to a nation’s power to end hostilities by concluding a peace treaty. We could spell out the treaty part more if it’s too ambiguous as written.
We have the ability to declare war under the current charter, nor is there an evident need for clarifying its provisions.
Further, the South Pacific has not declared war in a very very long time (not since before I got here) and I don’t foresee it happening in the near future.
