I would be interested in a mandatory summit, as proposed by Unibot. This allows for discussions between executive officials with a more in depth knowledge of how the alliance is doing, and what specific steps should be taken to strengthen it, something the Assembly is not in a position to do.

I still oppose Clauses 1.2 and 1.3. There is no real reason to include them, especially since we should not vow to recognise specific officials, but rather anyone legitimate holding the office. Who that official happens to be is irrelevant, and has no place in treaty text. I don't even understand why those clauses were included in the first place.

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I have no experience with treaties in NS. Please enlighten me as to why this is necessary and/or important.

Treaties? While not as onerous as RL treaties, they are a sign of formal ties between regions and their governments. Using treaties you can map out huge webs of alliances - something Unibot has done in the past, as has Astarial and Belschaft - and these alliances can often wield large amounts of political power and influence. The South Pacific is a feeder and commands one of the largest number of votes in the World Assembly, Spiritus is also a highly influential defender region.

This treaty includes a clause for mutual defence, in the event that either of us come under invasion - unlikely in our case, but possible in Spiritus'. I questioned the logic of having the clause as they have an active founder, but they cited that there sometimes problems with their founders activity. In addition, we also have an intelligence sharing clause, which requires us to report threats against the other to the relevant officials.

Standard recognition of governments is a standard clause. Joint military operations is also a fairly standard clause. The renewal clause is not as common, and only a select few regions normally use it, the most prominent of them being Equilism to my knowledge, which is where the original template that this treaty is based on comes from (my own work).

The signing ceremony was a request from Spiritus' side as a means to replace an event with Spiritus that we've been planning for sometime via the MoRA but has not happened.

Full support, except 4.4

Can I ask why?

There appears to be a lot of focus on the possible negatives, which gives the appearance of people either not understanding the inclusion of the clause or simply choosing to undermine a relationship before it even officially begins. Whilst I understand the argument that TSP politics has been transient in recent months - seeing generations change - that does not mean we are going to throw alliances under the bus as any one who done that deliberately without valid reasons would be eviscerated by the Assembly. As it stands such a clause allows us to choose whether we want to continue the relationship after a year and is a decision for both legislatures - it's not just our community which can change in a year, theirs can as well. We can cross that bridge when it comes to it but I've found that anything that encourages our region to reach out and engage more with our various allies is a good thing, and if the government ministry - RA - which is meant to handle these events doesn't, then it's a question for the Assembly and the Cabinet to find out why.

Does the duck importation clause affect any of our other treaties? Because that could be an issue...

(Seems an odd thing to include, this sort of stuff makes the whole thing seem a bit jokey, rather than a serious diplomatic document)

Spiritus seems a pretty good region, no real issue with having a treaty with them. Others have already expressed my bigger concerns with the current version of this. They can probably be worked around though.

That clause is meant to be lightly humoured and is not something I would normally put in a treaty. The duck importation does not affect any current document besides this one and they are mostly based on the Executive Orders thread by Kris when he was Delegate - he was involved in the creation of those clauses.

I would be interested in a mandatory summit, as proposed by Unibot. This allows for discussions between executive officials with a more in depth knowledge of how the alliance is doing, and what specific steps should be taken to strengthen it, something the Assembly is not in a position to do.

I still oppose Clauses 1.2 and 1.3. There is no real reason to include them, especially since we should not vow to recognise specific officials, but rather anyone legitimate holding the office. Who that official happens to be is irrelevant, and has no place in treaty text. I don't even understand why those clauses were included in the first place.

The Assembly is in the most powerful and influential position out of all of us: it is the legislature of this region. It is imperative that the Assembly is given the vital choice to decide on whether alliances continue or do not. A renewal gives them that chance, and at the same time, it allows the cabinet to meet their opposite numbers in Spiritus and feed back to the Assembly about how their talks went in preparation for a vote on the treaty renewal.

Clauses 1.2 and 1.3 are adapted from the original template and the FA officials involved in the discussion from both sides liked their touch and felt they didn't detract from the document. Who am I to decline a request from a possible ally who is willing to work with us?

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1.) I'm with Kris on Articles 1.2 and 1.3.

2.) Articles 3.4 and 3.5 are obviously unnecessary, but as long as we don't take them seriously I don't mind.

3.) I could go either way with Article 4.4 or Unibot's mandatory summit idea. Personally, I like a clause that forces us to sit down with our allies just to let them know they aren't forgotten.

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The Assembly is in the most powerful and influential position out of all of us: it is the legislature of this region. It is imperative that the Assembly is given the vital choice to decide on whether alliances continue or do not. A renewal gives them that chance, and at the same time, it allows the cabinet to meet their opposite numbers in Spiritus and feed back to the Assembly about how their talks went in preparation for a vote on the treaty renewal.

On the contrary, The Assembly can revoke a treaty at any time - we don't need a twelve month long reminder of that fact. We're not being "given the vital choice to decide whether alliances continue," we already HAVE that vital choice.

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This wouldn't be the first time TSP has entered into a Treaty with an expiration date.

I see nothing wrong this clause and like the fact that we would be sitting down in a year from now to evaluate where are relationship stands. I feel this would have been useful in some of our other now defunct Treaties.

(This post was last modified: 03-03-2015, 06:44 PM by Sandwich Territories.)

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I agree that the re-ratification lines are a problem. That's not standard in a treaty like this at all, and gives so many outs that it makes the treaty useless. Why would we trust each other in the first place, if we want to have an annual opening to throw out the relationship? It's not a good signal to send.

I also dislike the way this is written between governments, and not regions. The South Pacific is signing this treaty, not the government, and certainly not the Delegate. I would request a change to remove 1.2 and 1.3.

Lastly, the legal requirement that we raid, even if it's a Warzone, is a total no-go for me. I'm not sure why anybody thought that was a good idea to include in a treaty.

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I agree that the re-ratification lines are a problem. That's not standard in a treaty like this at all, and gives so many outs that it makes the treaty useless. Why would we trust each other in the first place, if we want to have an annual opening to throw out the relationship? It's not a good signal to send.

If we cross your logic with Unibot's argument that the Assembly can revoke a treaty whenever, the next assumption is that all of our treaties are useless.

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They clearly are. -sigh- I don't know why I ever thought this would be a good idea as the Assembly is so opposed to it.

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This wouldn't be the first time TSP has entered into a Treaty with an expiration date. 

The only one was the UDL agreement - and it wasn't a treaty, it was a security agreement and I wouldn't consider the political circumstances surround the consideration of a replacement UDL-TSP treaty to be a shining moment in TSP local politics in our legislature. 

I see nothing wrong this clause and like the fact that we would be sitting down in a year from now to evaluate where are relationship stands. I feel this would have been useful in some of our other now defunct Treaties.

I would favour a mandatory summit, but this goes beyond that - this is a required re-ratification. An automatic legislative affair. 

(This post was last modified: 03-03-2015, 06:44 PM by Sandwich Territories.)

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I agree that the re-ratification lines are a problem. That's not standard in a treaty like this at all, and gives so many outs that it makes the treaty useless. Why would we trust each other in the first place, if we want to have an annual opening to throw out the relationship? It's not a good signal to send.

If we cross your logic with Unibot's argument that the Assembly can revoke a treaty whenever, the next assumption is that all of our treaties are useless.

That's an inherent power of any sovereign region. That's why you don't signal that unilateral dissolution is a regular possibility, more like a regular probability given TSP's past with defender treaties. It's a strange message to send, and had I been the negotiator, I'd be questioning if Spiritus didn't have faith that we'd be a good ally in a year's time.

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