General Assembly Resolution # 20
Suppress International Piracy
A resolution to improve world security by boosting police and military budgets.
The World Assembly,
Believing that people should be able to go about their lawful affairs without having to worry about theft, assault or murder,
Recognising that dealing with crimes that occur completely within specific nations and that only affect those own nations peoples is a matter for those nations own governments,
Believing, however, that any crimes that interfere with international trade and travel and/or that cross national boundaries are matters in which the WA has a legitimate interest,
1. Defines the term Pirates, for the purpose of this resolution, as meaning people who are not formally recognised agents of any government (although some of them may have informal links to governments, from whom they receive support in exchange for various considerations, or may be at least partly motivated by loyalty to a cause), unlike Privateers, and who operate in groups to use threats and force to seize vehicles and their cargos and possibly their passengers, and/or crew, as well for personal gain, and who may also use ships or other vehicles as transportation for raids against settlements,
2. Defines pirates as 'international pirates if they operate across national borders and/or attack international trade,
3. Requires that all WA member nations refrain from giving any international pirates safe haven, or markets for their plunder, or any other support for their operations;
4. Requires all WA member nations to do as much as they reasonably can to suppress international piracy within their own territories;
5. Urges and authorises all WA member nations to do as much as they reasonably can to suppress international piracy within any areas (such as international waters) that are not under any nations effective control, and its bases wherever those are;
6. Requires all WA member nations to treat all offences committed during acts of international piracy that occurred outside of their own territories at least as seriously, as they would treat any comparable crimes committed within those territories and against their own people, if the alleged perpetrators fall into their hands, and authorises them to try people for piratical crimes committed elsewhere;
7. Declares that anybody who is accused of having served knowingly as crew aboard any vehicle being used by international pirates, but who can not be linked to any specific offences, shall be subject to appropriate charges of criminal conspiracy and accessory before the fact; and that proof of that service shall constitute adequate proof for conviction on those charges, unless they prove that they were forced into that crew on pain of death and served only as a non-combatant in which case courts may be allowed to acquit them;
8. Defines the knowing provision of unforced support for international pirates to be an act of conspiracy to commit those pirates crimes, and requires all WA member nations to treat such acts as they would conspiracy to commit any other crimes of comparable seriousness, unless that support is
A/ given only to captive pirates, and within the limits of help that can legally be given to prisoners in general, or
B/ given only to ex-pirates, with whom the legal system has already dealt, and is to help them live honest lives;
9. Strongly urges all WA member nations to act at least as thoroughly against any pirates who operate solely within their own territories as they do against international pirates.
Author: St Edmund.
Passed: | |
For: | 5,251 | 60.8% |
Against: | 3,392 | 39.2% |