HIGH COURT OF THE SOUTH PACIFIC
[2106.HQ] LEGALITY OF EMBASSY CLOSURE OPERATIONS AGAINST REGIONS THAT ESPOUSE HATEFUL IDEOLOGIES
SUBMISSION 04 AUG 2021 | JUSTICIABILITY 10 AUG 2021 | OPINION 11 OCT 2021

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QUESTION
Under Article X, Section 3 of the Charter, are members of the military permitted to seize the delegacy of regions which do not explicitly espouse hateful ideologies, and close embassies with regions that do?

SUMMARY OF THE OPINION
It is the opinion of the Court that a region that has embassies with fascist regions but does not itself hold such beliefs cannot be the subject of offensive action. This is consistent with Article X, Section 3 of the Charter, which says that offensive action can only be taken against regions with which the South Pacific is at war and regions that espouse hateful ideologies, as well as the Resolution on Adopting Defending Military Principles and the policies adopted by the Cabinet in recent months. The act of having an embassy with fascist regions, without any further action or more explicit endorsement of fascist principles, is not sufficient to qualify for offensive action.

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CHIEF JUSTICE KRINGLE DELIVERED THE OPINION, SIGNED ALSO BY JUSTICE GRIFFINDOR.

On 04 August 2021 the South Pacific Special Forces participated in the detag of the regions United We Stand and Land of Prosperity. These regions had been tagged by raiding forces and, as part of the detag effort, the SPSF had restored the World Factbook Entry, the regional flag, and the embassies list to their pre-raid state; the goal, presumably, being to erase all possible evidence of the damage done by the tag. General Witchcraft & Sorcery says that, in the course of the detag, it was noticed that both regions had embassies with known fascist sympathisers: United We Stand had embassies with Raluxan Empire and Lardyland, while Land of Prosperity had embassies with Oneid¹. The question then is if the Special Forces may, following a detag, close any existing embassies with fascist sympathisers.

Our starting point should be Article X, Section 3 of the Charter, which says that the Special Forces may not "attack, subjugate, purge, destroy, or vandalize any regions, excepting those regions which espouse hateful ideologies"². The Charter provides a test: it might not be enough for a region to have some sort of connection with hateful ideologies in order for it to qualify for offensive action, perhaps it must itself espouse such ideologies. It is clear then that there are limits to when the Special Forces may conduct offensive operations against a region. Since this case refers to the closure of embassies, which arguably qualifies as vandalism within the context of the Charter, from this point onward the Court will use this term to build its response.

There is the clear cut case of an operation that is from the start intended to be offensive, for example an attack against a region that is well known for espousing hateful ideologies. If its embassies with other regions are closed as part of the attack then, to some extent, the Special Forces has by extension and to a very limited extent vandalised these other regions. This is, however, a clear use of the exception granted by the Charter to operations against "regions which espouse hateful ideologies"³ and, on that note, the Resolution on Adopting Defending Military Principles, which reserves for the region the right to conduct "offensive military operations against hateful regions"⁴. The attack was focused on regions that did espouse hateful ideologies and so any vandalism or effect over other regions are nothing more than incidental, something that was unavoidable rather than an intentional offensive act.

It is less clear cut when a region does not actually espouse hateful ideologies, even if it has certain ties to regions that espouse hateful ideologies. Does that meet the test prescribed by the Charter? Or should the Special Forces err on the side of giving these regions the benefit of the doubt? We would argue that the Special Forces should err on the side of upholding regional sovereignty owing to the fact that the mandate of the military is, first and foremost, the protection and defence of other regions. The Charter expressly says that the military may not attack other regions and, when it does address the possibility of attacks on regions that espouse hateful ideologies, it does so in the context of an exception to the rule. The Resolution on Adopting Defending Military Principles says that the region should "strive to reflect [defending military] principles in our Charter, constitutional laws, and military guidelines"⁵. To the extent that the Special Forces may attack other regions, this is clearly meant to be done only in certain cases where there is no conflict with the region's defender principles.

If evidence is needed to show that this theory holds weight, one need not look further than the policy of the Cabinet towards quorum raiding, the practice of raiding regions whose Delegates have approved disagreeable proposals in the World Assembly. In January 2021 the Cabinet issued a statement in response to accusations by the North Pacific that, in opposing quorum raids of regions that may have approved proposals to the benefit of fascist regions, the South Pacific was being sympathetic to the causes of fascists. In its statement the Cabinet rejected this reasoning and argued that, unless one could "definitively prove that each and every region they invaded was pro-fascist, the South Pacific must go into military operations assuming those raids to be against innocent regions"⁶. We use this example not to argue for or against this policy, but rather to show that the South Pacific, through its executive branch, has interpreted and implemented its defending and anti-fascist principles in a way that is consistent with what is being proposed in this ruling.

In line with the above, a region that has embassies with fascist regions but does not itself hold such beliefs cannot be the subject of offensive action. To act in such a way, even under the goal of indirectly affecting fascist regions, constitutes vandalising an otherwise sovereign region with which the South Pacific has no quarrel and is therefore a violation of Article X, Section 3 of the Charter and a contravention of the principles as laid out in the Resolution on Adopting Defending Military Principles.

It is so ordered.

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FOOTNOTES AND REFERENCES

[1] Witchcraft & Sorcery (2021). [2106.HQ.S] Legality of Embassy Closure Operations. Retrieved from https://tspforums.xyz/thread-9616-post-2...#pid219439

[2] Charter of the Coalition of the South Pacific; Article X, Section 3 (2021). The MATT-DUCK Law Archive.

[3] Charter of the Coalition of the South Pacific; Article X, Section 3 (2021). The MATT-DUCK Law Archive.

[4] Resolution on Adopting Defending Military Principles; Preamble (2021). The MATT-DUCK Law Archive.

[5] Resolution on Adopting Defending Military Principles; Article 2 (2021). The MATT-DUCK Law Archive.

[6] Cabinet of the South Pacific (2021). Statement on The North Pacific’s Accusation of Sanctioning Fascism. Retrieved from https://tspforums.xyz/thread-9150.html