The World Assembly

The World Assembly:

Convinced that crime victims deserve a meaningful role in the criminal justice system;

Committed to affording crime victims the dignity, respect, and access to justice that they are due;

Resolved that criminal proceedings should be conducted to ensure a fair balance between the rights of crime victims and the rights of criminal defendants;

Hereby enacts the following provisions:

Defines the following terms for the purposes of this Act:

• "crime victim" as "a person who as part of a criminal prosecution is alleged to have suffered physical, emotional, or financial harm (actual or threatened) as a result of the criminal conduct of another, who is not simultaneously accused of criminal conduct of their own arising out of the same incident or occurrence." In the event that the crime causes the death or incapacitation of the crime victim, member nations may permit the crime victim's immediate family to exercise the rights afforded under this Act.

• "the accused," as "a person who has been formally charged with a crime based on probable cause that they have committed a criminal offense."

• "critical stage of the prosecution," as "any date or event at which a substantive or procedural element of the case is resolved or decided," including release hearings, hearings relating to the scheduling of trial, pre-trial evidentiary hearings, plea hearings, trials, sentencings, probation and parole hearings, and any other events deemed critical within the relevant national judicial system.

Mandates that member nations shall provide crime victims with the following rights:

1. Notice: crime victims shall be notified in advance of any upcoming critical stage of the prosecution, and shall be duly notified of any important developments in the case;

2. Participation: crime victims shall have the right to be present at any critical stage of the prosecution, to make a statement on the record, and to have that statement duly heard and considered;

3. Protection: crime victims shall have the right to reasonable protection from the accused throughout the criminal justice process, including but not limited to:

   • the right to prevent the accused from accessing the crime victim's address and personal identifying information without a court order,

   • the right to an order restraining the accused and known associates of the accused from harassing, threatening, stalking, or otherwise harming the crime victim,

   • the right to prevent the accused from directly contacting the crime victim outside the presence of law enforcement officers, and

   • the right to be tested at no cost for sexually transmitted infections and other serious communicable diseases if the crime victim may have been exposed to those illnesses during the commission of the crime;

4. Restitution: crime victims shall have the right to seek restitution from the accused through the criminal justice process or through an independent civil action;

5. Representation: crime victims shall have the right to exercise their rights in-person or through a personal representative or attorney. Member nations are encouraged, but not required, to provide crime victims with an attorney;

Urges member nations to provide crime victims with additional rights not enumerated above where those rights would serve the interests of fairness and justice;

The General Assembly,

Seeing bribery as a major problem plaguing poor or developing nations, where major corporations can reward leaders or people in authority for abandoning their nation's interest,

Realizing the enforcing of laws that attempt to protect natural habitat, public safety, and the common good in these nations can be nearly impossible when powerful organizations with extensive resources seek to violate them,

Observing organizations frequently avoid the bad publicity of bribing by contracting third parties, possibly disguised as interpreters or negotiators,

Seeking to improve the ability of poorer or developing nations to protect their people and resources through law,

Defining, for the purposes of this resolution, bribery as the act of offering a gift to any public official, officer, agent, or employee with the expectation the gift will motivate the person to decide to take or not take a specific action, when that action or inaction conflicts with a good faith performance or fulfillment of the officials duties, responsibilities, or privileges of the person's job or positions,

Clarifying there shall be no difference legally between a person or organization directly offering a bribe, and contracting a person or entity which engages in bribery, unless the contracting nation clearly indicated bribery was not acceptable,

Defining, for the purposes of this resolution, gifts as money, assets, favours, services, future employment, or anything which the receiver considers to have value,

Mandates all member states make the act of bribery an illegal action for a business, citizen, or non-state organization or entity to participate in, with heavy fines for organizations found to be in violation,

Forbids the government or government agents of any member state from participating in bribery for monetary gain, or economic interests,

Further forbids government agents from making a good faith performance of their duties contingent on the receipt of a gift,

Declares that the member states shall deem it illegal for an officer or official of the government to accept a bribe,

Strongly urges nations to:

• demand officers and officials report attempted bribes,

• create regulations discouraging or ending the practice of businesses compensating negotiators more or only if a certain end is met in a negotiation as the practice can encourage bribery,

• require disclosure of spending and contracts of major corporations operating within their nation, which may be most likely to participate in bribery within their nation or any other nation, and the investigation of any highly compensated interpreters or negotiators in important negotiations,

• consider requiring the reporting or investigating of the finances of political leaders, to check for suspicious income.

The General Assembly,

Seeking to protect subsistence farmers and small farmers from multinational corporations (MNCs) that seek to maximize their profits at the expense of these individuals, thereby depriving them of their livelihoods and their ability to ensure dignified existences for themselves and their families,

Recognizing that MNCs, through genetic engineering, have developed technologies that try to make independent farmers dependent on the companies in order to maximize profit and to gain monopoly control over the agricultural industry,

Concerned by the possibility of widespread monopolization in the agricultural industry,

Identifying genetic use restriction technology (GURT) as a genetic modification technique that could be used by MNCs as a means to achieving the aforementioned ends,

Noting that this biotechnology produces what are known as terminator seeds or suicide seeds, which are seeds intentionally modified by the MNCs so that the seeds of their progeny are virtually useless and oftentimes unable to grow,

Realizing that the intent of this technology is to make seed saving obsolete and to make it necessary for farmers to buy seeds from the MNCs year after year,

Fearing that terminator genes inadvertently could escape into the general population of food crops, thereby resulting in decreased biodiversity, increased dependence on corporations, and increased world hunger due to the large number of intentionally sterilized seeds,

Aiming, therefore, to restrict GURT in order to protect small farmers from exploitation by biotechnology companies and to prevent genetic contamination of other crops or plants,

1. Defines the following terms for use in this resolution:

1. Variety genetic use restriction technology (V-GURT): a genetic modification technique that renders the seeds of a plant sterile;

2. Trait genetic use restriction technology (T-GURT): a genetic modification technique that leads to plants whose seeds are fertile; but those seeds must be treated with a special chemical (or chemicals), usually one that is produced only by a certain company, so that they will grow properly or so that the plants grown from them fully will express their genetic traits;

2. Requires that all member states ban or strictly regulate V-GURT and T-GURT;

3. Mandates that all companies, corporations, and other such entities that are engaged in GURT and in commerce within the jurisdiction of this Assembly disclose to the World Assembly Food and Drug Regulatory Agency (WAFDRA) all information regarding their activities related to GURT;

4. Bans government funding for any for-profit entity that is engaged in GURT or research of it subject to the provisions of this resolution and other active resolutions enacted by this Assembly;

5. Prohibits the transport across a national border, without preapproval from WAFDRA, of any plant or seed that has been modified using GURT subject to the provisions of this resolution and other active resolutions enacted by this Assembly; and

6. Calls upon member states, in their foreign policies (especially their trade policies) and in their laws regulating the biotechnology industry, to discourage V-GURT and T-GURT in other member states and in nonmember states.