[At Vote] [ga] Prevention Of Hate Crime

[Astrobolt]

General Assembly Resolution

Prevention Of Hate Crime

A resolution to improve worldwide human and civil rights.

Category: Civil Rights

Strength: Significant

Proposed by: The Ice States

Whereas hate crime is a malum in se which member nations have a duty to protect their citizens against; and



Whereas the repeal of "The Charter of Civil Rights" has left an ominous silence regarding protections against hate crime;



The World Assembly enacts as follows.

1. Any violent or non-violent criminal act against an individual motivated by that individual's real or perceived holding or lack of an arbitrary and reductive characteristic, including but not limited to ethnicity, gender, race, religion, culture, disability, social background or sexuality, shall be classified as a hate crime in every member nation.
2. Where it can be shown, to the same standard otherwise required to show guilt for the relevant act, that an otherwise-criminal act was of the nature criminalised by Section 1, that fact must be treated as an aggravating factor in sentencing or other enforcement of the criminalisation of said act. Member nations must prohibit advocacy of violence criminalised by Section 1. Nor may any criminal law in a member nation discriminate in its criminalisation of an act based on a real or perceived arbitrary, reductive characteristic of the victim of that act.

This is the discussion thread. To cast your vote, go HERE

[Jabberwocky]

I think that the syntax is unwieldy and clumsy, and that that contributes to a lack of clarity. However, based upon the spirit of the proposal rather than the wording, I'll vote FOR.

[icethousand]

Happy to answer questions as author

[Pantso]

For those who are curious, "malum in se" (as I understand it) refers to acts that are "inherently immoral" (for example murder or rape). Effectively this resolution argues that committing a crime against another *because* the victim has some arbitrary and irrelevant characteristic like skin color, sexuality, or religion, is itself inherently evil above and apart from the actual crime.

Frankly the Republic of Pantso is inclined to believe this argument has merit and will recommend For.

[neislands]

What constitutes as a motive for hatred is left too much to interpretation. The prohibition of so called "hate speech" is an affront to anyone who holds the concept of free speech close to their hearts. Anything can be labeled as hate speech on extremely shaky ground. Preventing hate crime is a good thing, don't get me wrong, but there has to be some criteria for what is considered a hateful motive.

If the bill was more concise and did not force countries to restrict speech because some of it wasn't nice, I would vote FOR.

I'm voting AGAINST it.

[Pantso]

Jan 25, 2024 23:11:59 GMT -5 neislands said:

What constitutes as a motive for hatred is left too much to interpretation. The prohibition of so called "hate speech" is an affront to anyone who holds the concept of free speech close to their hearts. Anything can be labeled as hate speech on extremely shaky ground. Preventing hate crime is a good thing, don't get me wrong, but there has to be some criteria for what is considered a hateful motive.

If the bill was more concise and did not force countries to restrict speech because some of it wasn't nice, I would vote FOR.

I'm voting AGAINST it.

The resolution does not ban speech of any kind; it increases the severity of a crime when the motivation is hatred against the victim based on arbitrary and inherent characteristics like gender, ethnicity, skin color, etc. It doesn't even make hate speech itself a crime unless that speech would otherwise be a crime by itself; i.e. "I'm going to kill you!" is a threat to someone life and is illegal in many nations; "I hate <racial slur> and I'm going to kill you!" might be classified as hate crime because it's a crime and is clearly motivated by the person's hatred of "<racial slur>".