Fwurg

[Stuiter]

As I am not good with legal language I need some help with setting up the document.

I added the Union and faction law. The rest is the same.

Declaration of sentients rights

Article 1.
Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or intergalactic status of the faction or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.

Article 2.
Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

Article 3.
No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel or degrading treatment or punishment.

Article 4.
Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the Union and faction law.

Article 5.
Before the law all without any discrimination are protected. All are entitled to protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.

Article 6.
Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.

Article 7.
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

Article 8.
Everyone is entitled in full fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.

Article 9.
(1) Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence.
(2) No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offence, under national or intergalactic law, at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offence was committed.

Article 10.
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

Article 11.
(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each faction.
(2) Everyone has the right to leave any world, including his own, and to return to his world.

Article 12.
(1) Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other factions asylum from persecution.
(2) This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the Union.

Article 13.
(1) Everyone has the right to a nationality.
(2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.

Article 14.
(1) Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.
(2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.

Article 15.
Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.

Article 16.
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Article 17.
(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.
(2) No one may be compelled to belong to an association.

Article 18.
Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and intergalactic co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each faction, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.

Article 19.
(1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.
(2) Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.
(3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.
(4) Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.

Article 20.
Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.

Article 21.
(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, death, disability, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
(2) Parenthood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.

Article 22.
(1) Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.
(2) Education shall be directed to the full development of the sentients personality and to the strengthening of respect for sentients rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all worlds, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the Union for the maintenance of peace.
(3) Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children. When the child is old enough it can choose for themselves.

Article 23.
(1) Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.
(2) Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.

Article 24.
Everyone is entitled to a social and intergalactic order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.

Article 25.
(1) Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible.
(2) In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in society.
(3) These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the Union.

Article 26.
Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any Faction, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.

Article 27.
Depending on race some of the rights might be applied in a different way. The following acceptations are in order:

[Brend]

There's a double colon at the bottom. Is there something missing at the bottom?

Also, you might want to state what you want the document to say -- we can't read your mind. I'm guessing you want to mirror Earth's declaration with some changes? So we need to know what changes...

[Stuiter]

Yes this is the Earth Human rights declaration.
I want an okay of everybody of the text, so we can grap this up and not start a discussion about the exact writing.

I left the addational items out, as this is discussed in de slave discussion.

[Mercury]

One issue with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is that it is basically a western view of a singular race which being the dominant power it has been able to make the de facto standard. However, not all cultures, especially when dealing with entirely different species spread out over a galaxy, will agree on these western, human values.

In this, I do not think the problem is the exact writing or the specific words chosen - it is that on a deep, conceptual level, cultures may disagree with this proposal.

Looking at this, perhaps it is important that you specify exactly what you are trying to accomplish.

Are you trying to set up a code by which nations can be judged from a moral perspective? A law which nations have to obey, or face penalties? Are you trying to set up a generic "this is our intent, but we know that it probably won't work that way and we don't mind as long as the generic goal is clear"?

One suggestion I might make is that instead of making this into a Union law, the Hiocans negotiate bilaterally with individual Union members, setting this up as a treaty (same as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights)

Many worlds would comfortably sign the treaty as is, or with minor changes to take their race/culture into account, but I doubt for example the Veolian Commonwealth would, as they simply don't recognize core western values such as that everyone is born equal and that all lives matter. You can even offer more advantageous trades with nations who follow the sentient rights treaty.

This solution has the additional advantage that it allows players to play their worlds as they please, and that it doesn't require a lot of debate - if nations disagree, they simply don't enter into the treaty.

[Elmer]

My senator proposed to build up this treaty from the ground on purpose and not start with a complete proposal which need an eternity to adjust, but sadly he has been ignored so far :(

I think that it will be best to set this act up for every faction to sign as a treaty, and not make it a Union law. If we want this to make it to a law than it requires an eternity of debate before everyone agrees. And the content then will probably be very slim.

[Stuiter]

I have already remove most point that will not make it in FWURG. Equality was in the optional points, which are now not taking into account.

A law would be great, but that will not make it. So we can make this a treaty.

But now I am really tired of this and I want now to know if this is okay and get this trough the Senate.

[Brend]

I have already remove most point that will not make it in FWURG. Equality was in the optional points, which are now not taking into account.

A law would be great, but that will not make it. So we can make this a treaty.

I think you greatly underestimated the diversity of cultures and ideologies of members worlds of the Union.

The original declaration of Universal Declaration of Human Rights took two years to draft, and that just after the whole world crawled out of the Second World War -- so everyone was in a good mood for broadcasting a message of global peace and understanding. But even so, if you look at the people that drafted the declaration you will see that, with the (debatable) exceptions of the USSR, China and Chile, all drafters are from countries from the western world.

You set yourself an enormously ambitious goal with wanting to push this derivative of the Declaration of Human Rights through the senate of an alien government in a universe where humans are not all that well-represented. Some cultures of Union worlds are very like contemporary cultures, such as the Astrian culture or the Hiocan Culture; others resemble everything from the Republic of Rome, to the ideal of Communist China, to the Objectivism of Ayn Rand, to the Rashtrakuta dynasty of ancient India.

Getting all these worlds, with all these different cultures, to agree on a single declaration of Sentient Rights is a herculean task. If I may make a sports analogy, you treat this topic like it is the 100 meters sprint, but I think it has more in common with a marathon.


To get a Universal Declaration of Sentient Rights in the Union, the Hiocans will have to get acquainted with the different cultures in FWURG. Not only saying that they want to work together, but showing that they understand the ideals and philosophy of other worlds and cultures -- then they can start working together with other representatives to draft the declaration itself.

Doing this from the ground up will be more work than copy-pasting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but it will also be much more interesting. Instead of getting negative feedback because worlds do not like your proposal as it is now, you can get positive feedback and political goodwill because worlds will feel included. Worlds (and their players!) will feel invested in this new declaration, which is a declaration they made together feel validated by, instead of a declaration that was imported from another universe where their cultures never existed.

But now I am really tired of this and I want now to know if this is okay and get this trough the Senate.

This is not okay, and the Veolians will put a lot of effort into trying to block this proposal. They take issue with all or part of articles: 5, 8, 11, 12, 16, 17(2), 19(1), 19(2), 20, 21(1), 22(1), 22(3), 23(2).

[Mercury]

Stuiter, I don't think we understand what you want. Why are you trying to get this declaration "through the Senate" and why do you think that is necessary to make it work as a treaty?

You don't need approval from the Senate for your trades, and neither do you need approval from the Senate to make a treaty with other nations. Treaties are between individual nations.

Thus, you'd be best off by going to, say, the ACA, and offering to sign this treaty with them. Once they sign, you have 2 worlds (the Hiocans and the ACA) who follow this treaty. You can then approach a third faction and do the same, and so on.

That way, the Senate needn't be involved in it, and you can simply ignore the Veolian objection, since they aren't involved in the treaty.

[Brend]

I would like to note that the Veolians are perfectly willing to discuss a Universal Declaration of Sentient Rights; but not this one.

If you approach them without a predefined set of rights, they would be happy to discuss and start establishing common ground!

[Elmer]

I agree what Brend and Mercury say and actually have nothing new to add.

[Stuiter]

Okay, I will go for an optional Treaty.