Backstage - OOC Forums
EVE-Online RP Discussion and Resources => EVE OOC Summit => Topic started by: Lyn Farel on 20 Jan 2013, 08:45
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The recent debate around that slave raid in the Mandate made me wonder what are the actual laws and regulations connecting the capsuleer world and the baseliner world ?
If some goods for example here, are acquired in space either in agent missions or on the capsuleer market, and then are handled to a baseliner entity like Freedom Extension (which is a premiere since it is usually impossible to do so without the participation of a NPC CCP character), how does that work exactly ? We now have goods coming out of nowhere on the market/regulated space under the authority of the sovereign state (here, the Mandate).
Sounds pretty screwed up in my head right now, can't figure much about it, thus why I am asking, because it is actually very interesting and could lead to nice RP possibilities of holes between different market regulations.
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I'm going adventurous in my reply, so don't take me too seriously as I'm not too sure about it. ;)
In any case, that said, laws apply to the subject that performs the action in the place he's at. So we have two actions, and two subjects, both in the Mandate but under different law sets:
a)Capsuleers buy slaves: CONCORD law applies because they are capsuleers, so buying slaves for them is legal.
b)NPCs get a gift of slaves: Mandate law applies here because they are not capsuleers, and this would be human traficking. So I believe this would be illegal.
Afterall, mechanics-wise, capsuleers can't sell items to NPCs (our market is capsuleer only, or them selling to us).
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Yes, that's the whole can of worms CCP might have opened here : capsuleers transfering stuff to NPC entities (baseliners). It's interesting but quite nebulous in the PF or else.
Also, on b), the issue might be mostly that these slaves come from nowhere. You can perfectly move slaves around since they are not illegal "goods" for the law. However, you can not move slaves around if :
1) They were not freed properly according to the local law (and you have all the papers and accreditations signed for it ?).
2) You are not mandated as a slaver or a Holder (or an Ammatar slave owner).
I am, of course, speculating, but that seems logical for me that way.
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The other thing is, you CAN effectively sell to baseliners unless CCP has removed the NPC buy orders lately?
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I can buy slaves. I then set them free. What various local agencies or governments think is none of my concern. I buy them on the market after all.
When handing them over they would not be slaves but refugees as the Minnies don't accept slavery.
What the Amarr categorize these people as is uninteresting to a capsuleer.
The problem is game mechanics where there is no way to free someone and thus making it legal to move them. This is where CCP came into this particular action.
On the flip side there is no way to enslave say tourists or whatnot. This is something that could potentially involve CCP in a reverse action.
That we can't do this is something I hope be rectified, until then get enough numbers and make your IC case to your faction representative. Or give CCP OOC suggestion on how to rectify it.
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I am not speaking about game mechanisms that do not exist here, like being able to free or enslave NPCs, but that sure would be nice.
I am just trying to figure out how the legal implications surrounding the capsuleer milieu are transfered to the baseliner milieu when there is a transfer of goods between them.
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Yep, that's pretty much the Reason why you haven't had a response yet on your latest post in that thread. Gabriel's pretty sure that the Convoy was 100% above board from a legal standpoint (Up to the Ammatar Border at least, the legality of moving Slaves across the Republic is another matter entirely).
However, he's trying to get confirmation on the Baseliner Aspect before digging a deeper hole for himself. He's EVE-Mailed one of the CONCORD Contacts to see if the situation was under their Jurisdiction or under Local Laws, I'm expecting it to take a while to get a response, partially as the Contact was DED, not SCC so the request may get shunted through a pile of channels before it gets to the right desk for answering it i.e. the CCP guy operating that character may have a lot of other things in their Inbox to handle as well before my Mail even gets read.
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I'll be interested to know what kind of a response you get, as saying that the trade of slaves would fall under local jurisdiction raises some rather iffy questions regarding sell orders open to all capsuleers...
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Yup, that reply will indeed be very interesting. It's a new approach to law that should have been explained since the start, and now we only have vague ideas on how it can be interpreted. So some sort of official reply would indeed be important.
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I'm not certain if this makes it clearer or not. I've included my original Mail to provide Context for the reply.
Mr Darkefyre,
We are well aware of the situation between the Republic and the Mandate.
We have investigated thoroughly, and there has been no breach of law. The Republic sets its own guidelines as to what is considered contraband within its borders, and as such if it wishes to allow Freedom Extension amnesty to repatriate slaves and release them, then it is perfectly within its rights to do so.
Similarly, responsiblity lies with the Ammatar Mandate to maintain and secure its borders. The only time that the Directive Enforcement Department would be required to intervene would be if shots were fired that were in breach of any part of the Yulai Convention.
Regards,
Arve Vesren
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Precidence of Ammatar Law / CONCORD Regulations
From: Gabriel Darkefyre
Sent: 2013.01.20 15:40
To: Arve Vesren
Good Morning,
I was wondering if you would be able to clarify on the Juristictional Aspects of the Stiuation in the linked News Article.
Situation is that Vessels Belonging to Freedom Extention were Contracted to carry Passengers designated under the SCC Market Regulations as Slaves across a National Boundary (The Ammatar Mandate - Minmatar Republic Border). These Passengers were Legitimately in the Custody of Electus Matari prior to the Convoy, were handed into the Custody of Freedom Extension for the Duration of the Trip and returned to Electus Matari's Custody at the Convoy's Destination.
Electus Matari's involvement during the Convoy was restricted to providing a Security Escort for the Freedom Extension Vessels.
Does any aspect of this Situation fall under CONCORD / SCC Juristiction or is this Purely a Matter for Local Laws? The only two contacts I could locate were yourself and Keraimo Hakanuro however it did not seem like it would be a matter for CONCORD Internal Affairs. If it is likewise not a Matter that you would handle, please accept my apologies and I would appreciate it if you could forward this Message to the Relevant Department.
With Regards,
Gabriel Darkefyre,
Electus Matari
Reference Source : https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=2490682#post2490682
Reference News Source : http://community.eveonline.com/news/newsFromEve.asp?of=true&newsTitle=slave-repatriation-convoy-breaches-ammatar-border
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Interesting. I think it makes it clearer for the responsibilities on the CONCORD side.
I think I will mail the Ammatar contact to have clarifications on the responsibilities of the local law.
As I see the thing, what turns it into a headache is that slave transporation has to be mandated by slavers, Holders, or ammatar slave owners according to the only group of people allowed to keep slaves. So, considering that Freedom Extension is probably not mandated by such an owner for the transporation, it would logically make it illegal.
However, we can also see that the contractor is a... capsuleer source ? If that's the case, then a capsuleer is out of local law, so that basically makes the slave owner (the capsuleer) as a big void for the eyes of the local laws. More precisely, the contractor in the eyes of Ammatar law would be... something that does not exist in said law.
Unless we start to take into consideration that capsuleers are out of CONCORD regulations when they go baselining... But here is it baselining ? Not really. Just a foot in both regulations.
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Mmm...
Frankly, this answer still leaves a lot of questions regarding the open market orders. At the same time, I can't exactly fault CCP for not wanting to be specific on that issue, as either way ("There was a violation of Ammatar law in the sale of slaves to a non-licensed entity" vs "the sales to capsuleer entities of slaves is not illegal under Ammatar law") opens up its own can of worms. They're as much caught by this as we are.
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Yep, Clarification on what exactly the Local Laws are for this would definitely help. As you can imagine, as a Member of Electus Matari, I'm likely not on the Ammatar Contact's Good Side so the info request is probably best coming from someone in good standing to have more chance of getting a clearer response.
I'll be running with the Perfectly Legal Angle for now, it fits the Info Gabriel has available to him at this time.
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A couple of points for you.
Firstly, this was not any sort of raid. Talking about it as such OOC starts to look silly (although I completely appreciate the IC reasons). No weapons were fired at any point.
Secondly. All the FE ships had capsuleer pilots. So the passengers were not being passed over to baseliners. Sorry.
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Well, that reply certainly is a starting point. So, to sum it up, "no pewpew = no CONCORD", all the rest they don't care. So, indeed, now it seems like the line to be drawn would depend on the Ammatarr contact, hope you get a reply soon Lyn, this is a very interesting issue altogether and I imagine that, to some degree, CCP must have thought of this legal implications before strating the event, so there should be some sort of appropriate reply by the appropriate event actors. :)
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Arnulf - to clarify something here, were the slaves handed back to EM after the FE freighters reached their destination, or was this effectively a permanent handoff to FE?
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Can clarify that. Yes, the Slaves were returned to Electus Matari.
Accompanied by an armed escort of Electus Matari vessels, the convoy then crossed back into the Republic after docking in the Ammatar system of Sasta, two jumps from the border. It is believed at this time that the convoy took on an estimated 1.325 million slaves before handing them back to a representative of Electus Matari after safe transport back into the Republic
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Secondly. All the FE ships had capsuleer pilots. So the passengers were not being passed over to baseliners. Sorry.
Then I want the ingame possibility to be part of any NPC corp I want. :/
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Ah, thank you, Gabriel. That vastly changes the way I had been thinking about this; the presumption I had been operating on was that the slaves were permanently handed over to FE so that they could be entered into the Republic's repatriation program, with the Electus Matari fleet being there solely to provide escort against any potential interlopers.
Now I understand, this was more a favor TO Electus Matari in that it allowed them to transport slaves to their destination without lolpolice.
Frankly, though, this makes the political situation even more mind-boggling. Cross-border capsuleer trade goes on all the time, often including sensitive or illegal items. To decry this as different is, while factually correct, not really easy to explain.
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Note : I am only forwarding this to you OOCly. As long as my character keeps it for herself, please keep it OOCly too, or ask the same question to the actor in question.
Mistress Farel,
I can indeed serve as a legal authority in this matter.
In this case, these slaves can be considered stolen property, illegally obtained by Electus Matari and Freedom Extension, and forcibly taken from the Mandate against the will of their legal owners.
From what I understand, the slaves were "freed" by Freedom Extension and are currently outside our ability to track and recover. We will, of course, take all legal actions we can against Freedom Extension for their violation of interstellar trade law, but as it appears many of the slaves had been taken by Electus Matari several years prior, figuring out their proper owners is difficult and it appears unlikely we will be capable of being compensated.
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About the recent Freedom Extension transportation of slaves
From: Lyn Farel
Sent: 2013.01.21 20:38
To: Ureber Odmisin
Divine Overseer,
I took the liberty to contact you to get if possible some clarifications on the incident that recently took place in the Ammatar Mandate.
Since it would seem that the lot of slaves involved were handed to the Freedom Storage freighters by a capsuleer affiliated alliance (Electus Matari), it appears that CONCORD considers that the non capsuleer entity, here Freedom Storage, remains bound by the local laws and thus, would have been under Ammatar regulation when flying in Ammatar sovereign space before leaving for the Republic.
Also, as I understand it, legal owners of slaves can either be only slavers or Holders, and so, is the contracting of legal slaves to a transport provider subject to several restrictions to verify that they have really been contracted by a legal owner ? Or do the legal owner have to make the transportation himself ?
And finally, since it would appear that the owner of the slaves in question here was a capsuleer entity, which falls by consequence under SCC regulations, what is the actual status of the slaves in question when they suddenly leave the capsuleer market and return back on the local market ?
I am aware that you are a navy officer but I have not managed to find a suitable contact in the Consulate, and I apologize in advance if I contacted the wrong agent.
Thank you for your time, and best regards,
Farel.
I feel that is rather vague and biased for an answer (heh, not surprising, he works for the Mandate after all xD).
I am not sure what to think of it. If I understand correctly the agent tells that the slaves were "taken" (liberated by EM) years before. Liberated how, though, is another matter. Bought on the capsuleer market ? Or taken differently ?
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Probably a combination of buying in the market and mission running, no?
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That and Donations from other Capsuleers. I'm pretty sure that Direct Purchase from the Market was not used due to the whole "Buying Slaves = Supporting Slavery" thing.
We could probably claim that the Majority of those we Transported were Recent Victims of Blood Raiders / Angels / Sansha so had never been property of a Legitimate Holder. Obviously we'd have no way of Proving that in Game.
Having said that, the thread's pretty much devolved into the usual arguments about the existence of God so personally, I'll be leaving it alone for now.
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Same.
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I just wish there was some way of doing this border running ourselves, instead of relying on NPC's to prevent unwelcome attention from customs.
Of course we can, but it is ridiculously chancy.