Office of World Assembly Legislation

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Office of World Assembly Legislation
Seal for the Office of World Assembly Legislation & the Director of the Office of World Assembly Legislation
Flag of the Office of World Assembly Legislation & the Director of the Office of World Assembly Legislation

Emblem of the Office of World Assembly Legislation
Office overview
Formed18 March 2020; 4 years ago (2020-03-18) (de facto)
20 February 2021; 3 years ago (2021-02-20) (de jure)
Jurisdictionthe South Pacific
StatusActive
HeadquartersOffice of World Assembly Legislation Offices - tspforums.xyz & Discord
Director responsible
Deputy Director responsible
Key document

The Office of World Assembly Legislation is a permanent executive Office within the Government of the South Pacific. It is responsible for the facilitation of WA decisions within the South Pacific. The Office is currently composed of approximately fifteen members of staff, led by the Director of the Office of World Assembly Legislation (often abbreviated to OWL Director).

History

In the February 2020 Cabinet election, Roavin was elected as Prime Minister on a platform which, among other pledges, promised the creation of a South Pacifican World Assembly department in the form of a Cabinet initiative.[1][2] Shortly thereafter, on February 20th, the new Cabinet, in cooperation with Delegate Aumeltopia, created a new, then-private Discord server to build up this new department.

Founding

Roavin provisionally named Concrete Slab ‒ who was independently active in running unofficial forum threads on new WA proposals at the time[3] ‒ head of the department, with the title of Secretary. Together, the Cabinet, Delegate, and a few other select individuals went to work, and soon the name Office of WA Legislation (OWL) was picked from a list suggestions made by Aumeltopia.[4] Due to real-life issues, Concrete Slab privately tendered their resignation to Roavin on the 6th of March, and Agalaesia was appointed as the new Secretary on the 15th. Three days later, OWL was announced to the region, and the server made publicly available.[5]

At this time, there was no public voting yet to determine the Office's recommendation, with the Discussions and Opinions for Voter Education (DOVE) dispatches being written ad-hoc following short internal discussion and coordination with the Cabinet. However, it was quickly decided that allowing the citizenry to directly influence the Delegate's initial WA vote through a preliminary poll would stir the public's interest in OWL. Thus, Secretary Agalaesia announced the launch of voting via Discord using reactions on the 8th of April. By suggestion of Aumeltopia, the option to cast one's vote via a post on the Regional Message Board was tested in early June of 2020; for these purposes, the The South Pacific WA Voting Center region was founded.

Stabilization & Growth

On the 28th of June, 2020, USoVietnam was announced as Agalaesia's successor. A new staff recruitment campaign launched, and voting was completely switched over to the Voting Center RMB from then on. USoVietnam mainly focused on creating a stable enough environment for someone else to take over as Secretary, and succeeded in creating a large enough roster of engaged staff members to regularly publish voting recommendations based on the RMB vote. After this stabilization had taken place, USoVietnam relinquished the position of Secretary in favor of Aumeltopia, who had recently stepped down from the Delegacy following the conclusion of the July 2020 Delegate election. Around this time, senior staff member anjo began development of the OWL Bot, which was tested together with Aumeltopia in a hidden channel for a few months.

Structurally, not much changed for the most part of Aumeltopia's tenure, until the separate OWL Discord server was archived and all OWL activity moved to the main TSP server during the merging procedure for all then-separate executive servers.[6] Once this was completed, Aumeltopia resigned, as they didn't feel up to the duties of the position anymore and had already discussed with the Cabinet on their successor. Accordingly, anjo was appointed as OWL Secretary on January 3rd, 2021.[7] At this point, the OWL Bot was also finally released for regular use by OWL staff.

Formalizing OWL

On the 26th of January, Jay Coop introduced a proposal to the Assembly of the South Pacific which would establish OWL as a Cabinet Ministry (with an accordingly elected Minister) and create a World Assembly Act outlining its general workings in law.[8] While the vast majority of legislators agreed that OWL had been a success in what it was created to do, a sizeable minority opposed the codification of OWL in the form of a Ministry, criticizing its relatively monotone process and lack of direct policy-making.[9] As the proposal went to vote and it looked like it would pass at first, Sandaoguo introduced an alternative proposal to the Assembly, which proved more popular with those opposing Jay's proposal yet still acceptable to those supporting it, leading to some Aye voters on the at-vote solution to flip their votes in the spirit of the South Pacifican consensus democracy.[10][11] Ultimately, Jay's solution was defeated at vote, garnering only 54% support, 6 percentage points short of the three-fifths supermajority required for amendments to the Charter of the South Pacific.[12]

Sandaoguo's alternative went to vote soon after and was passed on the 21st of February, 2021, by a 82% majority, formally establishing OWL as a permanent executive Office with a Prime Minister-appointed Director and creating the World Assembly Act (which was largely based on that contained in Jay's original proposal) in regional law.[13]

Reform Efforts

After anjo had been appointed Director of the Office of World Assembly Legislation by Sandaoguo (who had just been elected Prime Minister in the February 2021 Cabinet election) directly thereafter on February 21st,[14] OWL continued to operate without structural changes. Following the June 2021 Cabinet election, anjo was confirmed in his office by Prime Minister Witchcraft and Sorcery.[15] However, inactivity within OWL senior staff and subsequent failure by OWL to produce voting recommendations on time led to discussion on possible OWL reforms, first within the Cabinet,[16] and then forwarded to the Assembly.[17]

Anjo and Concrete Slab Directorates

Director anjo began to coordinate reforms with OWL staff during this period and started with their implementation, such as moving the debating of proposals to Discord. Ultimately though, he failed to finish them due to time shortages after his election as Chair of the Assembly in the August 2021 Chair of the Assembly election,[18] and subsequently resigned the office a few weeks before the October 2021 Cabinet election.

The new Prime Minister, HumanSanity, asked for people interested in the office to apply to them, and selected Concrete Slab as the next Director on the 20th of October, 2021.[19] Concrete Slab quickly went to work, completely re-discussing possible reforms internally with OWL staff and putting together a masterplan for them; however, their tenure ended early with them resigning, expressing a desire to re-focus their time away from NationStates altogether.[20]

Jay Coop and BlockBuster Directorates

HumanSanity appointed Jay Coop as the next Director. Jay likewise began quickly moving forward with internal discussion, cementing and furthering the new Discord discussion and voting procedure and changing up the format of OWL recommendations to not feature opinions from foreign regions anymore. After a promising start, with recommendations published on time again and reforms beginning to take shape, Jay too resigned due to real-life issues and burnout.[21]

HumanSanity decided on BlockBuster2K43 as Jay's successor on January 23rd, 2022. BlockBuster2K43 began his tenure with a thorough purge of inactive staff and a public staff recruitment effort, clearing up the (senior) staff roster and taking in several new staffers. Furthermore, he formally divided staff duties by founding the Bureau of Discussion & Voting Affairs and the Bureau of Writing & Recommendation Affairs as official sub-departments of OWL. He resigned from his position as Director on the 28th April 2022 after real life events would have hindered his ability to faithfully and successfully execute the roles and responsibilities of the office of the Director.

Functions

The Office of World Assembly Legislation is primarily responsible for the facilitation of internal discussion on WA proposals in the South Pacific and subsequently writing and publishing a voting recommendation. The staff of OWL help to lead debate and organize the voting by WA member nations within the South Pacific.

Procedure

OWL procedure has generally followed a model of concurrent discussion and voting, with all South Pacificans invited to present their opinions on the WA proposals up for vote, and eligible voters casting their ballots on these proposals accordingly.

Once a proposal that is likely to reach the voting floor of the World Assembly has been submitted, an OWL discussion will be opened. Today, this takes the form of a Discord thread in the #wa-updates channel of TSP's Discord server, accompanied by a ping to all users subscribed to OWL notifications. The opening post of discussion will usually note title, author, and (if applicable) co-authors of the proposal, as well as a link to the on-site proposal and its drafting thread on the NationStates forums, should one exist. Concurrently, voting gets opened, for which the instructions are included in the opening post of the Discord discussion ‒ nowadays, once casts their vote by using the appropriate Discord reaction on the opening post.

The writing of a recommendation usually begins once the voting result gets clear or the relevant WA proposal reaches the WA voting floor, whichever happens earlier. OWL's stance on a proposal is determined by an absolute majority vote, with the stance being the most-voted for option from For, Against, Abstain, and No Recommendation, provided that at least half of all votes were for that option. Otherwise, OWL will take the No Recommendation stance. A staff member will then author an Office Analysis, describing and scrutinizing the respective WA proposal from the decided-on viewpoint.

Once all parts of the recommendation have been determined, they are put into the OWL Autoformatter, which creates the necessary formatting BBCode for an on-site Dispatch based on the provided input,[22] and the result is then published as Dispatch on NationStates.

Director of the Office of World Assembly Legislation

Main article: Director of the Office of World Assembly Legislation

The Director is the head of the Office of World Assembly Legislation. It is an appointed office, serving at the pleasure of the Prime Minister of the South Pacific.

They are responsible for the day-to-day maintenance and running of the Office. Furthermore, communication between staff members of OWL, member nations of the South Pacific, the Delegate of the South Pacific, and members of the Cabinet is one of their core duties. The Director is usually responsible for posting and pushing out the WA recommendation debated and voted by members nations of the South Pacific, although OWL senior staff can execute parts of these as well.

External links

References

  1. ↑ Results. Tsunamy, 14 Feb '20. Retrieved 2 Feb '22.
  2. ↑ #Roa4PM - mā pango, mā whero ka oti te mahi 2.0. Roavin, 5 Feb '20. Retrieved 2 Feb '22.
  3. ↑ World Assembly Center: General Assembly. TSP forums. Retrieved 2 Feb '22.
  4. ↑ Naming ideas. Somyrion, 22 Feb '20. Retrieved 2 Feb '22.
  5. ↑ Announcement. Somyrion (on behalf of the Cabinet, Delegate, and OWL Secretary), 18 Mar '20. Retrieved 2 Feb '22.
  6. ↑ [DISCUSSION] A New Unified Discord Server. Roavin, 28 Jun '20. Retrieved 3 Feb '22.
  7. ↑ New Appointment : OWL. PenguinPies, 3 Jan '21. Retrieved 3 Feb '22.
  8. ↑ World Assembly reform. Jay Coop, 26 Jan '21. Retrieved 3 Feb '22.
  9. ↑ RE: World Assembly reform. Sandaoguo, 7 Feb '21. Retrieved 3 Feb '22.
  10. ↑ OWL ministry alternative. Sandaoguo, 7 Feb '21. Retrieved 3 Feb '22.
  11. ↑ The Southern Journal - Interview with Anjo. Rabbitz (for the Ministry of Media), 19 Mar '20. Retrieved 3 Feb '22.
  12. ↑ Announcement of Voting Results. CoA Purple Hyacinth, 12 Feb '21. Retrieved 3 Feb '22.
  13. ↑ Announcement of Voting Results. CoA Purple Hyacinth, 21 Feb '21. Retrieved 3 Feb '22.
  14. ↑ Feb. 2021 Cabinet Inaugural Address. PM Sandaoguo, 21 Feb '21. Retrieved 3 Feb '22.
  15. ↑ Cabinet Inaugural Address, June 2021. PM Witchcraft and Sorcery, 21 Jun '21. Retrieved 3 Feb '22.
  16. ↑ Discord discussion re OWL + talk more here. Witchcraft and Sorcery (for the Cabinet), 9 Jul '21. Retrieved 3 Feb '22.
  17. ↑ Assembly Discussion on OWL Reform. Witchcraft and Sorcery (for the Cabinet), Assembly of the South Pacific, 22 Aug '21. Retrieved 3 Feb '22.
  18. ↑ Certification of Results: August 2021 Chair of the Assembly election. EC Kris Kringle, 26 Aug '21. Retrieved 3 Feb '22.
  19. ↑ [COMMUNICATION] Cabinet Inaugural Address, 10/2021. PM HumanSanity, 20 Oct '21. Retrieved 3 Feb '22.
  20. ↑ OWL Director Appointment: Jay. PM HumanSanity, 9 Nov '21. Retrieved 3 Feb '22.
  21. ↑ OWL Director Appointment: BlockBuster2k43. PM HumanSanity, 23 Jan '22. Retrieved 3 Feb '22.
  22. ↑ OWL Autoformatter. Somyrion, 2020. Retrieved 3 Feb '22.
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