Tinisian Positions on UN Resolutions

[The Union of Tinis]

[The purpose of this thread is to make public the vote and reasoning for the vote of the Union of Tinis in all UN resolutions from this time forward. If Tinis is ever no longer the UN delegate to the region, I hope who ever takes that responsibility continues this thread. Also praise or criticism is always welcome.]

Adoption and IVF Rights

The Union of Tinis votes AGAINST this resolution. Tinis always decides its vote first on what the resolution requires, and secondly on what the resolution 'URGES' and 'ENCOURAGES', since the creation of requirements is binding and the rest is not. In this resolution, Section 1 mandates adoption rules for inside a member nation. Though the Union of Tinis would greatly like to have good adoption rules in all nations in our world, in the interests of protecting self determination we find this requirement violates national soverighty without creating sufficent benefits in doing so that encourages the growth of democracy. If the resolution only handled international adoptions as it does in Section 2, then the Union of Tinis would happily support this resolution. But alas, it does not. Thus the resolution fails the self determination test.

Now I forsee in the future some nations being confused by my government's self determination test. The self determination test is simple, if a rule or regulation in a UN resolution encourages the abilities of the citizens of a member nation to fully excercise their right to determine their laws and who runs their government, and to know weather or not their government is doing a good job. As such, Tinis will support some resolutions that might at first seem to 'interfer' with this condition. But in these rare cases, my government is voting not to control the populations of foreign nations, but to give them the tools needed to control their own governments. Things like voting rights, freedom of speech, and social equality before the law all fit in this category. With out voting rights, a people can not say how to run their own government. The same goes for speech. And social equality before the law works against rules and conditions that exclude people who have every right to have a say in their government.

And Adoption and IVF Rights does not meet that last part. It comes close, but not quite. The ability to adopt does not constitute a block to a person's ability to change their government.

But, Tinis will not be using this rule for resolutions of a purely international nature. Nor in some cases when the self determination doctrin allows for a for vote wil Tinis always vote for as sometimes other factors come up. But we would like to know the federation's thoughts on these matters.

[The Union of Tinis]

Promotion of Solar Panels

The Union of Tinis votes AGAINST this resolution.

My government has taken this position for three reasons. The first being unreasonable control of national laws, the second being the selectivity of the initiative, the third being that the resolution contains out right falsehoods.

The sovereignty problem is very obvious. Requiring an end to fossil fuel use in its entirety is unreasonable to the extreme. The Union of Tinis gets 95% of its electrical power from wind, water, and nuclear power sources. The remaining 5% is mainly made up of several alternative energy sources such as geothermal, but also by burning ethanol, natural gas, and coal. We are working to phase out the gas and coal portions and are very quickly nearing that goal. So there is no doubt about my government's commitment to the environment. But that being said, there are several specific uses of fossil fuels that we do not plan to phase out in the near term. Personal transport vehicles run off of battery power charged by our countries power grid, but certain emergency vehicles and heavy machinery of certain types only use gasoline. There are also remote parts of Tinis where in the winter the locals burn coal, among other things like wood, for heat. Out right banning these things is completely unreasonable. And this is in Tinis, a nation which prides itself on environmental cleanliness. For nations that don't care at all its an even greater intrusion into their civil law!

The selectivity is very disturbing. Only solar panels are to be installed in all homes and businesses? Sure this makes for a rather strong electric network as each node can self sustain up to a certain point, but some parts of my home land, and many places in other UN nations are unfit for solar power. This makes this resolution, besides short sighted in only requiring solar panels, but also economically foolish. Why purchase solar panels for homes that only get an hour of sunlight a day on average? Or businesses that would benefit more from putting up wind turbines? A poorly thought out move on the writer's part.

Finally, the statement "4) The burning of fossil fuels is one of the factors that depletes the Ozone Layer, which in turn melts the polar ice caps." is FALSE. The ozone layer is depleted not by CO2, but such nastiness as CFCs which are very rarely a by product of fossil fuel use (and if it is, there's something wrong with the refinery you got your fuel from). And on top of that, the creation of ozone holes does not lead to global warming. Ozone holes create patches where ultraviolet light from the sun can reach the surface in greater quantities than normal. Global warming occurs by a general increase in CO2, methane, and water vapor in the atmosphere trapping heat. The writer of the bill may be trying to use scary buzz words to fool the casual voter into thinking the issue of the ozone layer and global warming are directly related, when they are not, in order to drum up more support. This is dishonest and such lies should not be enshrined in the United Nations.

Thank you.

[gbwt]

The Furry Nation of The Great Big Wet Thing would like to fully support Tinis in it's decision and all reasons for UN resolution Promotion of Solor pannels. The Furry Nation of The Great Big Wet Thing also votes against this resolution.

[Baradun]

The Dominion of Baradun will agree with the Tinisian stance because of the poor planning and outright falsitudes contained in this matter. However we will go on record as saying that the distributed power-grid is a very good idea. Since Baradun relies mostly on Fusion power this is mostly defunct regardless, but it would be very good for outlying areas that cannot justify the expense and power-generation of these.

We will also go on record as saying that, while emergency may require the power-boost of fossil-fuel engines there are many designs that would make the heavy machinery the currently uses hydraulics obselete, but that is a technical discussion for another time.

Baradun will vote with the representative on this resolution.

[The Union of Tinis]

Despite the sudden increase in No votes for R 122, it has passed. But not all is lost. The Union of Tinis is even now working with other UN delegates to push a repeal of R 122 forward. With any luck, we'll get enough approvals for the repeal to hit the floor. We've already contact a few large regions that we are aware were against the resolution and have asked for their delegate's support and for help in spreading the word.

As usual, the response thus far from the UN floor has been less than helpful, as usual. Calls for going with their own version of the repeal and no offers of support. But perhaps the common theme even there that R 122 was a bad resolution will give us some approvals.

[gbwt]

Regardless of future resolutions, the Furry Nation of the Great Big Wet Thing has withdrawn from the NSUN immediately after the passage of resolution 122. Even if this resolution is repealed, it is doubtful that we will rejoin the NSUN.

---Official Transcript---
We inform the United Nations that The Furry Nation of the Great Big Wet Thing will no longer participate in its corrupt, hollow debates. From this moment forward, our nation is on its own.

[The Union of Tinis]

After much consideration, the Union of Tinis has voted For Resolution 123, Labeling Standards.

There is some concern in my government that it intrudes unduely in national affairs. On the other side, the structure of the resolution is so that it is easy to circumvent the more unsetteling portions of the resolution so that all the requirements only apply to internationally traded foods. In which case, the resolution only applies to international relations and it thus not affected by the soverighty position.

Since the health of the world, most importantly, the Furry Federation is important to Tinis, we support access to health information, including proper labeling of food. Thus, having no applicable reason to appose this resolution, we support it.

And its a whole lot better than the previous one.

[gbwt]

We agree with The Union of Tinis in their decision, and support it, even though it is now irrelevant to our nation. We have had to pass similar laws for various reasons.

[The Union of Tinis]

Repeal Promotion of Solar Panels

This was an easy decision for my government, mainly because the arguements against it have already been enumerated and the repeal reflects the decision we made last time. As such, the Union of Tinis is FOR the repeal.

[The Union of Tinis]

The Union of Tinis has voted FOR the repeal of Resolution 5. Two reasons, the origional resolution was poorly written and failed to define what a 'region' was in the sense of DVDs. As such it could potentially violate the national soverighty principal. So its kind of a no brainer to oppose 5 by voting for this repeal.

[gbwt]

The Furry Nation of the Great Big Wet Thing fully and completely supports the new Fossil Fuel Reduction Act.
This resolution is a vast improvement over the previous attempt, and has much improved definitions of resolutions, goals, and enforcement.

[The Union of Tinis]

After much deliberation, Tinis has come to agree with the councilor from the peninsula. We have cast our vote FOR the Fossil Fuel Reduction Act.

With the passage of resolutions 111 and 112 by this council there is less of concern about soverighty violations by the UN against members of our federation. So despite the compliance guidelines potentially dipping in to that area, the federation has seen it fit to protect us in the UN from any outragious violations as was seen recently with the solar panel fiasco.

Thus we are free to use other criteria to evaluate this resolution. The resolution seeks to combat the international problem of global climate change and has laid out a detail guide to do such. It does not seek to eliminate all fossil fuel use, but restrict it to a set level based on each nation's previous pollution levels.

Now, for nations such as Tinis which has a long record of good enviromental stewardship, that ceiling isn't very high. But because the rate is only a two percent decrease a year, upgrading and improving, and even replaceing, our few petrolium and coal based power sorces and vehicles will not be much of a challenge. Thus though the final level of pollution via fossil fuels at the end of the fourty five years will be almost non-existant, it is easily reachable in that time frame.

The resolution also lays out a reasonable method of enforcement and for assisting nations that are unable to meet the requirements on their own. Coupleing that with the bonus of increase aid if compliance is met at the end of the period, means that this resolution has a proper safety structure built into it.

Thus it is my governments opinion that this resolution is beneficial and well built. Thus we approve it.

Also. Seeing as soon we'll have an election for Direct of Drafting, pending at least one nomination of course, the Union would like this director to be judge this resolution as having merit and to craft a similiar version for the federation. The UN representation in the federation is a minority by far, but pollution is a problem tha crosses boarders. Rivers cross boarders, bringing unpleasant surprises to nations that keep their rivers clean. Smog floats over boundries to cover neighbors in a thin haze. A fossil fuel directive would go a long way to reducing some of these problems. Thank you.

[gbwt]

Peaninsual would like to voice it's disapproval of th Worldwide media Act.

This act, if i understood it correctly, would take all media digital media, and ban its production in favor of a single type of media. This is would be detrimental to business if they would have to alter their media formats, and drive many out of entirely. Also, this act would make it easier for media to be copied, and distributed illegally; counter-productive to part 4 of the act.

we urge our Federation representative and all UN nations within the federation to vote this act down.

[The Union of Tinis]

Worldwide Media Act

The Tinisian position on this resolution is AGAINST. Though we disagree with the Penisulan delegate as to the exact reason. The act would not ban a variety of media types but instead ban "regional systems". Of course their definition of regional system is overly broad and effectively bans any method to prevent the use of legal media of any type from being transported, either via physical copying, illegal import, or internet transmission to a foreign nation. I suspect that the author, this Richardian peoples, do not know the scope that their resolution is taking on with the current language. Very counter productive to the goal of halting information piracy.

It is Tinis' position that nations have the right to establish what ever guidelines they wish for media types and to enter into agreements with other nations voluntairly as a single issue agreement as to weather to establish a common media standard. This would alow the nations involved to work togeather to stop piracy. The UN, as a body, is to large to regulate this type of system. On top of this, this resolution will furthur undermine the UN's credibility with non-UN nations and UN nations that take moderate stances.

[gbwt]

The nation of Peaninsula (GBWT) comends Tinis's decision, but notes that it looks as though this will be another poor descion on behalf of the majority of voting united nations. Such dreadfuly ill thoughout acts in such proximity cements Peaninsula's descision to remain outside of the world wide UN.