Mutual Covenant
互约
When there is no superior with force overhead, and none is set up, how do covenants count among many parties? This paper asks five things: where new binding comes from; how, once consent has been given, it binds the parties; how far a covenant reaches; how dealings with states outside the system count; and how accession is reckoned. Several matters in the Three-Borders Cooperation System run through the whole paper: the Stonegorge Commonwealth joins with the written consent of all members, the DRP having delayed its consent for five months along the way; a new protocol on the Gorge Water fails because one party refuses to sign, the acknowledged notification obligation stands as before, and after a flood release questions are put under it; the NUT concludes a separate commerce agreement with the Plateau Federation, which is outside the system, and a clause on "not taking part in multilateral measures" is struck out; the north that has split off from the Republic of the Sandbars applies to join and does not obtain the consent of all members, and in a hypothetical case it takes its place as an observer member. Without a superior, new binding can come only through the consent of all parties; a covenant counts through each party's own law or through a procedure the parties have acknowledged, produces no "we," and does not grow into a third legislator; with no superior overhead, binding too can only be lateral. Within the system all states have equal status, and influence is not converted into votes. A covenant settles this one matter, carries nothing across the line, and covenants only as far as function requires. With states outside the system, things count by what all parties recognize; a covenant a member concludes separately is its own act, and the system does not veto it. Accession is a new covenant, and a league presupposes no center; line-crossing under way at first accession can be a reason for withholding consent, and an observer member's seat is a suggested rule; admitting one side of a split is a covenant and also an act, with three guardrails. Along the way the paper interfaces with Vattel and Grotius, and at the end it converses with Kant's Perpetual Peace (Zum ewigen Frieden): they agree that accession is voluntary and that size does not alter status, and they part over the center. The paper has eight propositions (XZ1 to XZ8), each stated at the end of its section and listed together at the end.
Writing Declaration: This paper was co-drafted with Claude (Anthropic). All intellectual decisions, framework design, and final editorial judgments were made by the author.
Introduction
In the spring of Year 14, the Stonegorge Commonwealth (Stonegorge) applied for accession: its Chief of the Commonwealth delivered the application to the Secretary-General of the Three-Borders Cooperation System.
The system had been formed the year before. In the spring of Year 13, three states, the United City-States of Ends (UCSE), the Nation Union of Telos (NUT) and the Democratic Republic of Purposes (DRP), signed the Three-Borders Compact (hereafter the Compact) at Three Borders, a border town of the NUT, and with it came the Three-Borders Cooperation System (hereafter the system). Article 2 of the Compact reads: "All members have equal status. Each member has one vote in the Conference of Members." Its clause 2 adds: "This Compact establishes no organ above the members." The Compact, the organs of the system and the laws of the states alike are examples set up by this series; the articles this paper cites serve only as facts, and this series does not claim that they are the best design.
Article 7 of the Compact divides voting into three classes. (a) New binding: amending the Compact, setting up further common procedures, admitting new members, and concluding new agreements in the system's name require the written consent of all members. (b) Putting questions on existing matters, opening procedures and adopting records are decided by a majority of the members not concerned, and the member questioned does not vote on that item. (c) Measures within a common procedure are likewise decided by a majority of the members not concerned, and a member that does not take part in a given measure must explain its reasons publicly to the Conference of Members. Stonegorge's way in was (a).
Stonegorge lies on the southern shore of the Mirror Sea, with about eleven million people. At its eastern end the Mirror Sea opens onto the outer ocean through the Stonegorge Strait; this is the Mirror Sea's only sea route to the outer ocean, and both shores belong to Stonegorge. The Plateau Federation, on the northern shore of the Mirror Sea, has about one hundred forty-five million people; it is outside the system and borders none of the members; its maritime trade, and its Mirror Sea Fleet going to and from the outer ocean, all pass through this strait. In Year 14, about seventy percent of Stonegorge's fuel was imported from the Plateau Federation, and its external clearing went mostly through the Mirror Sea Clearing Network run by the Plateau Federation's Federal Clearing Bureau.
In the same month the application went in, the Plateau Federation's Ministry of Foreign Affairs declared: "The security of the Stonegorge Strait bears on the lifeline of the Plateau Federation. The Plateau Federation does not accept Stonegorge's joining a bloc that takes the Plateau Federation as its presumed target." The Federal Clearing Bureau wrote to three Stonegorge banks that it would "conduct a compliance review" of their clearing. At a press conference the Federal President said: "A commonwealth of eleven million has the same single vote in that system as a republic of sixty-two million. That system was not built by weight."
The UCSE and the NUT gave their written consent that same spring. The DRP's Foreign Ministry wrote to the Secretary-General: "The Republic's consent must be deliberated by the People's Assembly." In the summer, the Plateau Federation and the DRP signed a long-term fertilizer contract, for five years, at a price fifteen percent below the previous year's market price. Members of the People's Assembly from the DRP's northern districts said in the Assembly that the contract "has nothing to do with the Stonegorge matter"; other members said that "the timing is no coincidence." The UCSE's permanent representative proposed in the Conference of Members that questions be put to the DRP on the relation between the fertilizer contract and the DRP's delay in consenting. The Secretary-General, who held DRP citizenship, recused under Article 8 of the Compact, and the Deputy Secretary-General for Common Procedures acted in that capacity. The Deputy Secretary-General's written opinion was: "Admitting a new member is a new covenant. Whether a member consents to a new covenant is that member's own affair, and is not among the 'existing matters' on which questions may be put under Article 7(b)." The UCSE withdrew its proposal.
In the autumn, the DRP's People's Assembly consented to the admission by 352 votes to 221, with 27 absent. Stonegorge's Fundamental Law requires treaties to be ratified by two-thirds of the Commonwealth Chamber; the Chamber has one hundred eighty seats, so two-thirds is one hundred twenty votes; the Commonwealth Chamber ratified by 121 votes to 59. Stonegorge became the fourth member, with one vote in the Conference of Members. At the first Conference of Members after its accession, the Chief of the Commonwealth said: "We have not come to ask anyone for protection; we have come to sit in this chair."
In this matter, there was no one overhead. No organ could give consent on the DRP's behalf, and no organ could make up those one hundred twenty votes for Stonegorge's Commonwealth Chamber. Yet the matter was not a blank either: there was a Compact, the Compact said how admission was to be made, and once Stonegorge was in, that Compact bound it too.
The question of this paper is this: when there is no superior with force overhead, and none is set up, how do covenants count among many parties? Where new binding comes from; once consent has been given, how it binds the parties; how far a covenant reaches; how dealings with states outside the system count; and how accession, the admission of one side split off from a state included, is reckoned.
The Prequel has already cleared the ground: the system is not a superior, nor a body that authorizes the use of armed force, and it has no force over its members (the Prequel, §§1–3); with no superior overhead, binding too can only be lateral (the Prequel, §7). This paper goes on from that sentence: of the lateral forms of binding, the first is the covenant.
The paper proceeds in ten steps. It first says that a covenant requires the consent of all parties and produces no third legislator (§1), and that states have equal status in a covenant (§2). It then says how far a covenant, once made, reaches: settling one matter does not settle everything (§3); it carries nothing across the line (§4); it covenants only as far as function requires (§5). Then it turns outside the system: how a covenant that a member concludes separately with a state outside the system is reckoned (§6). The three sections after that are on accession: accession is a new covenant, and a league presupposes no center (§7); when a state splits, whether the system can admit one side of it (§8); when one side applies carrying line-crossing that is under way, what the members can do besides consenting or not consenting (§9). At the end the paper converses with Kant (§10): in Perpetual Peace he envisaged a league that expands by the voluntary accession of other states, and envisaged its center as well.
The way of reading follows the Prequel, §11: the construct takes the ought, the position takes accountability, the person takes his own law; for states outside the system this paper writes no ought, only how the system and its members deal with them. The division into the normative layer, the rule layer and the judgment layer also follows that section; this paper says which sentence falls in which layer only where it uses them.
§1 A Covenant Requires the Consent of All Parties and Produces No Third Legislator
On Stonegorge's application, who had the say?
The Compact gave one answer: admitting a new member requires the written consent of all members (Article 7(a)). This answer must itself be questioned. Since the system has a Conference of Members and a Secretariat, why can a majority not admit Stonegorge, or the Secretary-General not determine that the DRP's delay has gone past a reasonable period?
The matter falls first on the people of Stonegorge: whether to join is decided for them by the Commonwealth Chamber, and among them are those represented by the fifty-nine seats that voted against. It falls also on the people of the three states already in the system: once a new member comes in, what changes is the common arrangement they are in. No line is crossed here; what is to be looked at is how new binding arises. The rules the parties already have in hand are these: Article 1 of the Compact says who the members are; Article 2 says that all states have equal status; Article 7(a) requires new binding to have the written consent of all members, and (b) lists putting questions on existing matters separately; Stonegorge's Fundamental Law provides that treaties must be ratified by two-thirds of the Commonwealth Chamber; the DRP's constitution provides that treaties are ratified by a majority of the People's Assembly.
The Conflict Treatise has dealt with a question of the same shape. When two first-person laws have reached an arrangement, it says: "Consensus does not automatically generate a third first-person legislator." The two may have a standing rule from then on, "but that rule's binding force must pass separately through each party's own law, or come from a procedure both have acknowledged. It is not a third law above the two." (Conflict Treatise §24) The Theory of the State extends this sentence to two states: treaties and common procedures can acquire binding force within their scope of application, and "they bind both parties through each party's own law, or through a procedure both parties have acknowledged." (Theory of the State N24)
Here one more step is taken, from two states to many (own undertaking). The step goes through for the same reason as the Theory of the State's: the ground of that sentence lies not in "two" but in "nothing above." Binding can come only from each party in its own right, or from a procedure all the parties have acknowledged; and that there is no superior with force overhead, and none is set up, is exactly the definition this series gives of a system of cooperation (the Prequel, §6). With more parties, "nothing above" does not change. So among many states, new binding can come only through the consent of all parties: the Compact itself and its amendment, new common procedures, accession and re-accession all fall here.
What all parties consent to is not only binding, item by item; it can also be a procedure. The Compact has questions, records and common measures decided by a majority of the members not concerned (Article 7(b) and (c)). This does not conflict with "the consent of all parties is required": the prior consent to have these classes of matters decided by majority is itself a covenant, which each state acknowledged under its own law when it ratified the Compact. The UCSE ratified it by the joint session, the DRP by the People's Assembly, and the NUT by a decision of the Council for External Affairs to sign and two readings in the Assembly of the Union. The binding force of a decision made by majority comes from this prior covenant, not from the majority itself.
What is done in the system's name is likewise traced back to the positions and votes that made it. The Theory of the State Prequel wrote: "So this series does not write 'the state wants,' 'the state believes' or 'the will of the state'; it writes that persons in positions make the decision and that it takes effect in the state's name" (the Theory of the State Prequel, §1). Here the subject term is changed from the state to the system: what is done in the system's name is traced back to the member states that voted in the Conference of Members, and further back to the positions in each of them that cast that vote (own undertaking). Article 3 of the Compact, which requires documents issued in the system's name to state the organ that made them, the votes cast and how each member voted, is one way of writing this requirement. Landing, too, is in each member. The Theory of the State says that "external routes exist, but they land in this state" (Theory of the State Paper 1, §5); the system does not enforce, and whether its decisions land depends on whether the positions in each member act on them under their own law.
When a member hands a matter to a common procedure, what it hands over is likewise only the procedural adjudication of that one matter. Of handing a disagreement to the outside, the Conflict Treatise says: "What is ceded is the procedural power of adjudication over disputes about action, not the constitutive power over one's own law." (Conflict Treatise §27) The original speaks of a person handing a disagreement to an external procedure; here it is extended to members handing matters to the system's common procedures (own undertaking): the Conference of Members can vote on a measure, but cannot change a member's own law on its behalf. So the covenant does not grow into a third legislator. Can many covenants, and many rounds of mutual examination, accumulate and grow into a common legislator? Institution Theory stopped at this point: "What the same passage goes on to ask, namely whether mutual recognition and mutual examination can grow into common legislation, this series does not answer." (Institution Theory Z39) This series answers the question at its close (Paper 8, XZ55); here it says only that no single covenant, and no single procedure, grows into one.
That making a covenant requires consent does not mean that the covenant's ground lies in consent. The Law Series Supplement says: "consent is not the source of law. Collision is the source of law. Consent is a favorable condition for its operation." (Law Series Supplement §7.3) States need covenants with one another because they cannot exit from one another: rivers, sea routes and clearing are tangled together, and the remainder that collision leaves cannot-not be dealt with. Consent is the condition on which a covenant can operate, not the source of the matters the covenant has to deal with. So a covenant must do one more thing before it is more than a consensus. Law Series P1 distinguishes two things: consensus is "a shared view on some matter, which may involve cannot-nots but need not produce a negative boundary or questioning structure"; law is "a questionable, modifiable, negative boundary" (Law Series P1 §7). If a compact records only what the parties are all willing to do at this moment, it is a consensus; only when it writes down what may not be done, how to question and how to amend, does it begin to resemble law.
Nor can the covenant here be written thin on the strength of "one can exit." Law Series P4 writes of the top layer, where exit is feasible: "An interstellar constitution is essentially consensus plus exit, not coercive law." (Law Series P4 §2) Article 25 of the Compact also permits exit, but what can be exited is a compact; the Mirror Sea and that river cannot be exited. A covenant between states is a covenant made when they cannot exit from one another, not the consensus plus exit of the case where exit is feasible; that an arrangement can be exited does not mean that this layer can be thin.
Put the steps above together, and the result is the sentence the Prequel only declared and left to be argued here: with no superior overhead, binding too can only be lateral (own undertaking). Binding comes from two places: covenants made with the consent of all parties; and the questioning, recording and withdrawing of cooperation by peers. It does not come from a superior. The upstream does not have this sentence: the Theory of the State wrote only as far as a single state's outward side, and did not write where binding among many states comes from; this series sets it up on the strength of its definition, and only under that premise.
One further thing follows. If a covenant was signed by a colonizing party on behalf of the party it ruled, and that party later became independent, the covenant is not, as a matter of course, an acknowledged covenant for it: it did not at the time consent through its own law (own undertaking: Theory of the State N24 says binding passes through each party's own law; here it is extended to the case where a party at the time had no law of its own to pass through). This sentence points the same way as this series' main line of anti-colonization. The details of succession are handed to specific law; this paper sets up no such case.
Back to Stonegorge. Under Article 7(a) admission required the written consent of all members, and each of the four parties gave its consent through its own law and positions: the UCSE and the NUT gave written consent in the spring; the DRP through the People's Assembly, by 352 votes to 221; Stonegorge through the Commonwealth Chamber, by 121 votes to 59, one vote more than two-thirds.
The DRP delayed for five months. Since making a covenant requires consent, a party can delay, and can also withhold; this is the cost of covenanting, not a failure of the covenant. The system cannot give consent on the DRP's behalf. Had the Secretariat gone over the People's Assembly and counted the DRP as consenting, it would have fallen into the class marked out in the Prequel, §2. Force is substituting one's own judgment for the other party's judgment on its own affairs. What would be substituted here is the DRP's judgment on this one matter, whether to admit Stonegorge; the system has no such force, and sets none up.
Of the Deputy Secretary-General's written opinion, this section uses only one point: it kept a new covenant and existing matters apart. Whether the DRP consents is a decision it makes on new binding; consent cannot be given on its behalf by way of a procedure for opening existing matters. What the Deputy Secretary-General drew in this matter was the scope of what Article 7(b) takes up; it did not declare every act connected with this consent exempt from questioning. What the DRP did under binding it has already acknowledged can be questioned without its consent; that is another proposition, set up in Paper 2 (Paper 2, XZ10). Acts under covenants already acknowledged, and acts in actual pressure or exchange, are each questioned on their own grounds. Whether there was any relation between the fertilizer contract and the delayed consent, this paper does not judge; the contract is written of again in Paper 3, and whether it used trade to press a member is checked against the boundary of Paper 4 (Paper 4, XZ25).
The fifty-nine votes in the Commonwealth Chamber must be recorded too. Stonegorge's consent was given through Stonegorge's own law; 121 votes reached the one hundred twenty, and the consent stood; it does not thereby become the consent of all the people of Stonegorge. A covenant produces no "we": the positions that voted against, and the people they represent, go on questioning this decision through Stonegorge's own channels, and their votes stay in the record. The next section returns to this layer when it writes of one state, one vote: in the system those who vote are members' positions, and the weight of persons lies in each state's own law.
It may be said that the consent of all members lets any one state block everything, and the system is thereby paralyzed. The weight of this objection is that, with the DRP alone delaying, Stonegorge waited five months, and through those five months its three banks still held a letter saying a "compliance review" would be conducted. But the consent of all members governs only new binding. The Compact keeps three classes of matters apart: new binding requires the written consent of all members; putting questions on existing matters, and recording, go by a majority of the members not concerned; common measures are decided by majority under the prior covenant (Article 7(a), (b) and (c)). How the three classes are written is an example; what matters is the separation itself: a party holds consent to a new covenant, and does not hold the power to shut the door on existing matters. The separation is there precisely so that the system is not paralyzed; Paper 2 goes on from here.
Here one thing is left that a covenant cannot resolve. The pressure Stonegorge bore during the five months of delay, the letter its three banks held saying a "compliance review" would be conducted, the system's covenants cannot stop; this account lies with the party applying the pressure, and Paper 4 writes of it.
XZ1 A covenant requires the consent of all parties and produces no third legislator. Without a superior, new binding (the Compact and its amendment, new common procedures, accession and re-accession) can come only through the consent of all parties. Consensus does not automatically generate a third first-person legislator; binding force must pass separately through each party's own law, or come from a procedure the parties have acknowledged (Conflict Treatise §24; Theory of the State N24). Once consent has been given, a covenant binds the parties through each party's own law, or through a procedure the parties have acknowledged. A procedure the parties have consented to in advance can have everyday matters decided by majority; this prior consent is itself a covenant, which each state acknowledges under its own law. What is done in the system's name is traced back to the positions and votes of the member states that made it (the Theory of the State Prequel, §1). Making a covenant requires consent; the covenant's ground does not lie in consent (Law Series Supplement §7.3). With no superior overhead, binding too can only be lateral: through the consent of all parties, through the questioning, recording and withdrawing of cooperation by peers, not through a superior (own undertaking). A covenant signed by a colonizing party on behalf of the colonized party is not, as a matter of course, an acknowledged covenant for the party that later becomes independent: that party did not at the time consent through its own law; the details of succession are handed to specific law (own undertaking). The Conflict Treatise originally speaks of two first persons, the Theory of the State extends it to two states, and here it is extended to many states (own undertaking).
§2 States Have Equal Status; Influence Is Not Converted into Votes
What the Federal President said described something real. Stonegorge has about eleven million people, the DRP about sixty-two million, the Plateau Federation about one hundred forty-five million; inside the Conference of Members, Stonegorge and the DRP have one vote each. The system really was "not built by weight." The question is: ought it to be built by weight?
This series answers: within the system all states have equal status. Differences of influence are facts: population, output, military strength and clearing networks are all there, and this series acknowledges them as they are; only, these differences are not turned into differences of status. By design, influence is not converted into votes or vetoes, and voting is not monopolized by a state with great influence.
Why not convert it? Power Theory has set out a structure in the voting of a community: "imagine a community in which 51% coalesce permanently on every issue and 49% lose across the whole of history, and the equilibrium does not occur." The minority's vote, as "a legitimate forward or counter operator," "is forever legitimate in the state machine and is never downgraded" (Power Theory P3 §VI.2). The original speaks of voting within a community; here it is extended to states, and the subject term is changed to the members' votes (own undertaking). That example already gives two conditions: permanent coalition, and losing across the whole of history. A state with great influence acquiring extra votes or a veto does not by itself prove that both conditions already hold: more votes do not mean always having a majority, and a veto does not mean being able to carry one's own position. What this paper takes that example to ask is this: would extra voting positions leave the other members' counter-judgments without effect in the common procedures over the long run? That this series does not convert influence into extra voting positions is a normative choice, the choice that all states have equal status, and it is not proved by that example; one state, one vote does not guarantee equilibrium, nor does it thereby rule out every other failure.
Two working examples can be set side by side. The charter of interstellar civilizations in Appendix A of How Is Institution Possible (Foundational Paper 6; cited as F6) says: "Each member civilization has one vote." (F6, Appendix A, Article 10(b); a working demonstration; used only as an example) Article 2 of the Compact is likewise one member, one vote. Both are examples; this series does not claim that one member, one vote is the only way to write it; what must be kept is that direction: influence is not converted into votes or vetoes.
One state, one vote speaks of the status of states with respect to one another; it does not say that the people of two states weigh the same. This must be stated precisely, or one will read into it an unfairness to persons. Those who vote in the Conference of Members are the DRP's Foreign Minister and Stonegorge's Chief of the Commonwealth: members' positions; a member is an address of attribution, not the subject that is protected (the Prequel, §11). The weight of the sixty-two million people of the DRP lies in the DRP's own law, in the six hundred seats of the People's Assembly; the weight of the eleven million people of Stonegorge lies in the one hundred eighty seats of the Commonwealth Chamber. The system does not count heads a second time above these two layers.
That influence is acknowledged as it is, and not turned into votes, does not mean that influence has no effect either. The Plateau Federation opposed Stonegorge's accession: it issued a statement, wrote that it would review Stonegorge's banks, and said the system was "not built by weight." These are acts by a party outside the system toward an applicant state; its weight lies in these acts, and Papers 4 and 5 check it against their respective boundaries; this section does not judge. This section says only that this weight does not get into the votes of the Conference of Members.
It may be said that one state, one vote gives the people of a populous state the same vote as the people of a less populous one, which is unfair to persons, and that seats should be allotted by population. The weight of this objection is that it starts from persons, and this series says that the subject protected is always the person. But while population can be one reason for allotting seats, allotting seats by population does not by itself decide how representatives are produced, what powers the common organ has, or whether its decisions are implemented directly, going over the members. Allotting seats by population changes the article on the equal status of states; only if its decisions went over the members and were addressed directly to persons would it be heading toward a legislator above the members (§1). In the system this series takes the arrangement under which members have equal status, and does not convert influence or population into extra voting positions; whether an arrangement has already become a legislator above the members is still checked separately by the criterion of the Prequel (the Prequel, §§2 and 3). When the Compact was drafted there was such a text: in the winter of Year 12, an adviser proposed setting up a "Three-Borders Joint Assembly" with seats allotted by population, and the drafting conference did not adopt it (the Prequel, §3). That was the decision of that drafting conference, and it is not proved by the one item of allotting seats by population alone. The weight of persons stays in each state's own law; in the system those who vote are members' positions.
It may also be said that a state with great influence can dominate all the same, and that one state, one vote is only for show. The weight of this objection is greater still: beyond the votes, the clearing network, fertilizer and fuel are all at work, and the fertilizer contract was signed in exactly the months of the DRP's delay. The part that votes cannot stop is checked through questioning, recording and withdrawing cooperation (Papers 3 and 4). Positions in the common procedures are not monopolized by a state with great influence either. Speaking of external adjudication, the Conflict Treatise says: "A third party selected unilaterally by the stronger side may be only an extension of that side's power." (Conflict Treatise §27) The original speaks of a person handing a disagreement to a third party; here it is extended to positions in the system (own undertaking). The Compact writes it this way: the Secretary-General is chosen by the Conference of Members with the consent of all members, "is not to be a person of the host state," and recuses in matters concerning the state whose citizenship the Secretary-General holds (Article 8). When the DRP delayed, the Secretary-General recused precisely because of holding DRP citizenship.
Compared with the tradition, this section connects at two points. In the Preliminaries of The Law of Nations, Vattel writes of the equality of nations. He says: "Power or weakness does not in this respect produce any difference." (The Law of Nations, Preliminaries, §18, per the English translation edited by J. Chitty, read against the two online texts at constitution.org and the Lonang Institute; the French original was not obtained; tier B) And again: "A dwarf is as much a man as a giant; a small republic is no less a sovereign state than the most powerful kingdom." (same section) The common question is whether states of unequal strength are equal in the dealings between states. They agree that strength or weakness does not alter a state's being a sovereign state. They part at the next step: from this Vattel goes on to the conclusion that whatever one state may do, any other may equally do (same work, Preliminaries, §19, in one online text only; paraphrased); this series does not take this step, and says only that within the system all states have equal status, and that by design influence is not converted into votes or vetoes.
In The Rights of War and Peace, Grotius distinguished equal from unequal treaties. A league in which one party stands lower in dignity, he says, goes by the name of an injunction, or an injunction annexed to a covenant; he cites Demosthenes as saying that all nations ought to guard against forming such leagues, "as approaching too near to servitude" (The Rights of War and Peace, bk. II, ch. 15, §5, trans. A. C. Campbell, Project Gutenberg EBook #46564; that edition is an abridged translation, and the Latin original has not been checked; tier B); when the privileges of the lower party are unduly depressed, such engagements "may be called injunctions or commands rather than treaties" (same chapter, §6; same source). At this layer, this series connects: a "covenant" in which one party's status is pressed down comes near to a command. Yet he himself registers unequal treaties as a lawful kind: "Unequal treaties may be made not only between the conquerors and the conquered but also between mighty and impotent states, between whom no hostilities have ever existed." (same chapter, §7; same source) Within the system this series sets up no such kind: all states have equal status, and influence is not converted into votes or vetoes. This is a division of scope: he asks what kinds of treaty states may make with one another; this series asks with what status the parties make covenants in a system with no superior. Kant's Second Preliminary Article also speaks of the size of states; it is placed in §10.
This section leaves one thing: influence that comes in by routes outside the system, the clearing network and the fertilizer contract, which votes cannot govern. These are recorded, and questioned in Papers 3 and 4.
XZ2 States have equal status; influence is not converted into votes. Within the system all states have equal status; differences of influence are facts and are not turned into differences of status; by design, influence is not converted into votes or vetoes, and voting is not monopolized by a state with great influence. The minority's vote is always a legitimate vector; a permanently coalesced majority keeps diachronic equilibrium from occurring (Power Theory P3 §VI.2; the original speaks of voting within a community, here extended to states; own undertaking). One state, one vote speaks of the status of states with respect to one another, not of the people of each state weighing the same: in the system those who vote are members' positions, and the weight of persons lies in each state's own law. F6, Appendix A, Article 10(b): one member, one vote (a working demonstration; used only as an example). A state with great influence applying pressure to keep a state from joining is that party's act toward this state, checked under Papers 4 and 5.
§3 Settling One Matter Does Not Settle Everything
Once a covenant is made, what has it settled? This question is seen most clearly on a river.
The Cloud River comes down from the NUT's North Uplands, enters the UCSE, and reaches the sea at Rivermouth City. The two states had long had a Cloud River Water-Sharing and Flood Notification Agreement. In Year 8 the NUT built the High Gorge Reservoir upstream, and the two states fell into dispute over flow and data; in the spring of Year 9 the UCSE requested arbitration, and in the winter of Year 10 the arbitral tribunal made its award: during the filling period the dry-season flow at the Eagle Gap gauging station is to be no less than one hundred sixty-five cubic meters per second; upstream hydrological data are to be transmitted downstream within one hour; "The source of the exceedance at Willow Ferry is not a matter governed by the Agreement; this tribunal makes no finding on it." Both states complied with the award within Year 11, and the NUT has transmitted data every hour since the spring of Year 11. For the course of this matter and the judgment of it, see Theory of the State Paper 5, §1.
The Gorge Water is another stream. It rises in Stonegorge's Southern Hills, flows southwest into the NUT's Northern District, and joins the Cloud River above the High Gorge Reservoir. The hydrological station at the border is on the NUT's side, and is called the Gorgemouth gauging station. On the Gorge Water stands Stonegorge's Gorge Water power station, completed in Year 11 and built with a loan from the Plateau Federation's Federal Development Bank. Once Stonegorge had joined, the Cloud River flowed through three members.
In Year 14, the Secretariat set up a "Things Held in Common" working group to draft a Cloud River Basin Protocol, with three items: real-time data on the Cloud River and the Gorge Water to be transmitted to the Secretariat's Cloud River data station and made public to the three states; the dry-season flow at the Gorgemouth gauging station to be no less than forty cubic meters per second; the Cloud River Joint Commission to be enlarged to two members from each of the three states. At the signing session in the spring of Year 15, the UCSE and the NUT signed, and Stonegorge refused. Stonegorge's permanent representative produced Article 22 of the power station's loan contract: "Operational data of the power station shall not be provided to any third party without the written consent of the lender." The permanent representative also said that the Water Committee of the Commonwealth Chamber considered forty cubic meters per second "too high in years when the power station is filling its reservoir." The Federal Development Bank replied to Stonegorge: "The Bank does not consent." Under Article 7(a) of the Compact the protocol required the consent of each party concerned; Stonegorge did not sign, and the three-party protocol did not come into being.
In the summer of Year 15, the UCSE and the NUT signed instead a bilateral Supplementary Protocol on Cloud River Data: the NUT's hourly data were to go to the Cloud River data station at the same time, and the inflow of the Gorge Water across the border, measured by the NUT at the Gorgemouth gauging station, was to be transmitted along with them. The Conference of Members agreed, with the consent of all members, that the Secretariat would run the data station; the DRP is not a Cloud River riparian state, and in the vote it consented as well.
That same summer, a gate at the Gorge Water power station failed, and an emergency release was made. Stonegorge notified the NUT only forty minutes after the release began. At the Gorgemouth gauging station the flow rose within two hours to nine times its usual level; the High Gorge Reservoir spilled, two villages in the NUT's Northern District were flooded, and one person died. Downstream, Apple City issued a flood warning on the basis of the Gorgemouth data forwarded by the data station, nine hours before the flood crest arrived. The NUT requested that questions be put to Stonegorge on the existing notification obligation under Article 5 of the Compact; the Conference of Members opened questioning by 3 to 0, Stonegorge not voting. Stonegorge answered: the gate failure was an accident; advance notification was "not possible in the time"; Article 22 of the loan contract covers only operational data, not notification after the fact. The record is public. In the winter of Year 15, Stonegorge and the NUT bilaterally set up an arrangement for advance notification of releases by telephone; operational data are still not provided.
This matter falls on the people of the Gorge Water and of the lower Cloud River: the two flooded villages in the NUT's Northern District, the one person who died, and the area around Apple City that relied on the warning. It falls also on the people of Stonegorge: the Water Committee of the Commonwealth Chamber said that forty cubic meters was too high in years when the power station is filling its reservoir, and that side of the cost falls on Stonegorge's side; this series writes no ought for them. There are two lines to look at. Toward the other members as constructs, Stonegorge keeps the covenants it has already acknowledged, of which the notification obligation of Article 5 of the Compact is one; new binding, such as this protocol, requires the consent of each party concerned. Toward the people downstream whom its acts reach, it follows the unified sentence of the Theory of the State (§4). Before this, what already stood on the Cloud River was that arbitral award, one hundred sixty-five cubic meters per second and data within one hour; and Article 5 of the Compact, which Stonegorge acknowledged when it joined.
What must be told apart is which matter has been settled and which has not.
The Conflict Treatise gives a measure: "Consensus does not ratify the past. It closes out this one incompatibility now; it does not rewrite what either party did before." (Conflict Treatise §24) The Theory of Government stated its other face within a level of government: "Decisions can be final: a particular matter can be answered and closed. Positions cannot be final: no position may monopolize the power to shut the door" (Theory of Government G36). The Theory of the State applied the two sentences to arbitration between two states: "The decision is final in the case; the positions that implement it are not final, each lying under a channel it cannot itself close, and the road of arbitration itself lies under the two states' renewed acknowledgment and amendment" (Theory of the State Paper 5, §1). The Conflict Treatise originally speaks of consensus between two first persons, and the Theory of Government of positions within a level of government; here they are extended to covenants, votes and common procedures among many states (own undertaking). Extended here, the meaning is this: a covenant, or a vote, settles this one matter; it does not close the case on questioning under way, nor rewrite the account from before. The decision of a common procedure is final in the case; the positions that implement it are not final.
Read with this measure, the matters on the Gorge Water come apart one by one.
The old award settled two things: the flow of the Cloud River, and data. Its item (3) said expressly that the exceedance at Willow Ferry was not within its remit; the tributary Gorge Water was not within the old agreement or the old award either. What was settled before does not reach new matters; that is just what "settling one matter" means.
The Cloud River Basin Protocol is a new covenant. Under Article 7(a), if Stonegorge does not sign, it does not come into being. The bilateral supplementary protocol the UCSE and the NUT signed instead settles only the one matter of data between the two states, and does not bind Stonegorge.
But Article 5 of the Compact, which Stonegorge has already acknowledged, does not lapse because the new covenant failed. What the NUT asked about after the release was exactly this article: an existing notification obligation, and notification only forty minutes after the release began. The questioning the Conference of Members opened asks about a matter that has already happened, under binding already acknowledged; asking it does not require Stonegorge's consent. This is set up in Paper 2 (Paper 2, XZ10); how far Stonegorge's answer must go before it counts as answering the matter it was asked about is also written there.
The arrangement for notification by telephone in the winter of Year 15 settles notification from then on: at the next release, a telephone call in advance. It does not settle the account of that release: two villages flooded, and one person dead. That account is recorded as Paper 3 records: acts are recorded and attributed to the positions and persons that performed them (Paper 3, XZ17, XZ18).
Here one confusion must be guarded against. An agreement that settles one matter is not the same as a truce that has stopped the fire yet cannot return to peace. The War Treatise says that a truce "looks like peace; in substance it permanentizes the wartime state and keeps cultivation under the continuous suppression of wartime logic." (War Treatise §20) It speaks of after a war; here only its measure is borrowed: what has stopped without being settled cannot be taken as settled. Nor is a string of agreements, one after another, yet law. Law Series P3 writes of the case where two sides share one continent and cannot exit from one another: "But between the two factions there is no law, only intermittent peace agreements (consensus) and cyclical wars (showdowns)." (Law Series P3 §6.2) The same section also says that this cycle stops only when "law emerges." Emergent law requires a questionable, modifiable negative boundary (the Prequel, §8). On the Gorge Water, the protocol Stonegorge refused to sign did not become such a boundary; Article 5 of the Compact, and the questioning opened under it, are such a stretch.
It may be said that, since the new covenant failed and the old covenant cannot reach new matters, Stonegorge blocked the data with a single "no signature," which is as good as having no covenant. The weight of this objection is that the power station's operational data, which the downstream side wanted most, were still not available in the winter of Year 15. But "not signing" can block new binding; it cannot block acknowledged covenants, nor questions on the acts already performed under them. Article 5 stands as before, questioning is opened all the same, and the forty minutes are recorded all the same. What the covenants reached and what they did not reach are kept apart as they really are.
Here one thing is left. Operational data are still not provided; Apple City's warning used only figures measured on the NUT's side, and came nine hours early. This incomplete covenant gave the downstream side nine hours, and did not give the power station's own operational data. Both are recorded.
XZ3 Settling one matter does not settle everything. A covenant, or a vote, settles this one matter; it does not close the case on questioning under way, nor rewrite the account from before (Conflict Treatise §24; Papers 3 and 7). Decisions can be final; positions cannot (Theory of Government G36): the decision of a common procedure is final in the case, and the positions that implement it are not final (Theory of the State Paper 5, §1). When a new covenant fails, the covenants the parties have acknowledged do not lapse on that account; an agreement that settles what comes after does not settle the account of the earlier matter. The Conflict Treatise originally speaks of consensus between two first persons, and the Theory of Government of positions within a level of government; here they are extended to covenants, votes and common procedures among many states (own undertaking).
§4 A Covenant Carries Nothing Across the Line
The previous section asked how much a covenant settles; this section asks what a covenant can require. If a covenant would require a member to cross the line upon those its acts reach, does that stretch count?
The Theory of the State answered this for a single state's outward side: "where a treaty would require this state to cross the line upon those its acts reach, that stretch is one a treaty cannot carry across the line (own undertaking)." (Theory of the State Paper 5, §2) The reason lies in this state's own law: a treaty binds this state through this state's own law, this state's law contains the line, and the line is not within the authority of a treaty. Here the subject term is changed from a single state's treaties to the system's common arrangements and to covenants between members (own undertaking). The step goes through because the system's covenants likewise count only through each state's own law (§1); a covenant that passes through a party's law cannot carry anything across that party's line. Where a common arrangement would require a member to cross the line upon those its acts reach, that stretch the covenant cannot carry across the line.
Two kinds of arrangement run into this most often. One is return and sharing. Theory of the State Paper 3 wrote of the return protocol between the UCSE and the DRP: "that the compact exists does not reduce the several things the UCSE owes these fourteen at its door." (Theory of the State Paper 3, §5) Return arrangements between members, and arrangements for sharing admission, likewise cannot reduce the several things owed to those who arrive at the door. Article 4(2) of the Compact requires of each member that those who come to its door are not pushed back to a place where they would face killing, torture or detention without trial; Article 12 says: "Sharing does not decide for those who arrive where they are to settle." These two articles are examples, and they say one and the same thing: what is shared is each state's share, not persons.
The other is things held in common. Rivers, data and dealings are held in common among members, but how they are used is for the parties to consent to. Stonegorge's refusal to sign the protocol, and how it gave notice before and after the release, are its acts, checked against the covenants it has acknowledged and the unified sentence. The unified sentence is the Theory of the State's: "Those whom this state's acts reach and who have no way to avoid them by exiting are, as regards those acts, in this state's interior; the five oughts apply each on its own conditions" (the Theory of the State Prequel, §8). The people of the two villages in the NUT's Northern District whom the release reached are, as regards this act, in Stonegorge's interior; they do not thereby acquire membership of Stonegorge; but among the five oughts Stonegorge owes them, the first and the fifth do not vary with relational thickness: its acts cross no line, and they have a road within reach by which to ask. This sentence is cited here only at the level of a single state; its extension to the system level is in Paper 2, §6. That notification came only forty minutes after the release began is the matter asked about under the acknowledged Article 5, and it too is in Paper 2.
Article 22 of the loan contract is a separate matter. It is a covenant Stonegorge made with a bank outside the system, and it is Stonegorge's own act (likewise §6). It governs operational data; what the acknowledged Article 5 requires is notification, which the contract cannot reach. Stonegorge itself answered in just this way: Article 22 "covers only operational data, not notification after the fact." One more step is taken here: where a covenant outside the system would require a member to cross the line upon those its acts reach, that stretch likewise cannot be carried across (own undertaking: the Theory of the State originally speaks of treaties between states; here it is extended to a contract between a state and a party outside the system). A contract governs what it covenants; it cannot reach the several things the signing party already owes to others.
Handing over and judicial assistance also come under this article. States concluding covenants on extradition and judicial assistance with one another is ordinary cooperation, a matter for the parties to consent to; this series does not treat it as something suspect. What cannot be carried across is only one stretch: where a covenant would require a state to hand a person over to a place where he would face detention without trial, that stretch the covenant cannot carry across the line. The Republic of the Sandbars (the Sandbars), outside the system, can serve as a contrast: between the UCSE and the Sandbars there is a Treaty on Extradition and Judicial Assistance, concluded 8 years before Year 1, under which there is no extradition for "political offenses"; between Stonegorge and the Sandbars there is no covenant on extradition. With a covenant or without one, the stretch that cannot be carried across is the same. What becomes of those who cross the border from the Sandbars when they reach the door is judged in Paper 6 (Paper 6, XZ38).
The sentences of this section fall differently across the three layers (for the division into three layers, see the Prequel, §11). The stretch that cannot be carried across is in the normative layer: it does not diminish with a covenant, nor does it depend on any covenant's writing it down. How treaties are written, for instance the clause of no extradition for "political offenses," for instance Article 4(2) of the Compact, are examples, in the rule layer, and this series does not claim that they are the best way to write it. What place counts as one where a person would face detention without trial, and whether a given request is granted, are left to the judgment of those in positions and to specific law, in the judgment layer.
It may be said that a covenant is consented to by the parties, so the parties can of course also consent to handing over and to return; if even with consent it cannot be carried across, what use is a covenant? The weight of this objection is that it holds to exactly the article of §1: a covenant requires the consent of all parties, and once consented to, it counts. But a covenant counts through each party's own law (§1), and the first ought each party owes those its acts reach, that its acts cross no line, does not diminish with a covenant (the unified sentence). What the parties can consent to is what can be done within their own law; the line-crossing stretch was never within the range any party's law can give, and consent cannot supply its ground. The use of a covenant lies within the line: sharing, dealings, handing over and assistance all count within the line.
Here one thing is left: the concrete determination of whether to hand over, and whether to return, lies with positions, and the account falls on the positions and persons that made the decision. This paper does not make this judgment for them.
XZ4 A covenant carries nothing across the line. Where a treaty would require a state to cross the line upon those its acts reach, that stretch a treaty cannot carry across (Theory of the State Paper 5, §2). The system's covenants likewise cannot carry it across: where a common arrangement would require a member to cross the line upon those its acts reach, that stretch the covenant cannot carry across; return or sharing arrangements between members cannot reduce the several things owed to those at the door (Theory of the State Paper 3, §5). A covenant a state makes with a party outside the system is the same. The original speaks of a single state's treaties; here they are changed to the system's common arrangements, covenants between members, and covenants between a state and a party outside the system (own undertaking). Things held in common between members (rivers, data, dealings) are for the parties to consent to: a state's refusing to sign an expanded agreement is its act, checked against the covenants it has acknowledged and the unified sentence. Handing over and judicial assistance belong to ordinary cooperation: states concluding covenants on extradition and judicial assistance with one another is a matter for the parties to consent to; the stretch of a covenant that would require a state to hand a person over to a place where he would face detention without trial, the covenant cannot carry across; the details are handed to specific law (Paper 6, XZ38).
§5 Covenanting Only as Far as Function Requires
The Cloud River Basin Protocol had three items. Which items should a covenant write in, and in how much detail?
At the general level of institutions, F6 gives a principle of minimization: "Within the stated aims of handling, protective floors and feasible conditions, what need not be borne by shared rules should not be taken into institutional requirement; a new rule must state which problem it solves and at what cost." (F6 §3.2, Proposition V) The original speaks of the rules of an institution; here they are changed to common arrangements among many states (own undertaking). Changed in this way, it reads: each of the system's arrangements states which matter it solves and at what cost; what need not be borne by shared rules is not taken into common requirements.
Why does this matter between states? The Prequel said that a system of cooperation that has in fact acquired force over its members is already a superior (the Prequel, §3). A system seldom grows into a superior by setting up a superior organ all at once; more commonly, it takes in, one item at a time, matters each state could have handled itself, each item with its reasons, until together they are no longer cooperation. To require each item to say which matter it solves and at what cost is to leave, on each item, a place where questions can be put.
This sentence must be guarded against an overreading. Covenanting only as far as function requires does not mean that a covenant may govern only matters between members and cannot touch the interior of a member. The bindings the parties have already acknowledged, to answer, to petitions and to crossing no line, stand within their scope, and some of them may concern acts in members' interiors: how a member treats those who come to its door, and on which matters people in its territory may petition a treaty body (Paper 2, XZ13; Paper 4, XZ27). These bindings are consented to by the parties; they concern members' interiors, but do not grant the system authority for substitute exercise of the internal governance of members. Article 14 of the Compact permits individuals to petition the Three-Borders Petitions Committee, and what the Committee gives are opinions, not rulings; when the UCSE accepted this article it attached a declaration: "The opinions of the Committee land according to the law of the UCSE." Petitions stand within their scope, and landing is still in the members. A sentence of F6 can be joined on here: "voluntary execution under a shared procedure, and a node giving effect to a decision within its own jurisdiction, are still enforcement" (F6 §3.1a). The original speaks of nodes among interstellar civilizations; here it is extended to member states (own undertaking). The system does not enforce; landing is in each member, and the members' giving effect to a decision is enforcement too.
On how the system should be designed, this series sets up functions only, not forms. The Theory of Government, speaking of the functions of control within a level of government, requires that of each item it be possible to state who can activate it, what actual efficacy it has, and how the party questioned cannot cancel it on its own: "Where these cannot be stated, that function is there in name only"; it also says that "Control does not mean that every person affected has a veto" (Theory of Government G36a). The Theory of the State applied this requirement to the several "lasts" of the state, and wrote it as four items: who initiates it, which object it affects, whether the party questioned can close it, how the account is booked when it fails (Theory of the State N36). Every arrangement this series writes is written out clearly by these four items. Power Theory also says: "no single power apparatus is ever self-complete." (Power Theory P3 §VI.2) The original speaks of power apparatuses within a community; here it is extended to the system's arrangements (own undertaking): equilibrium is not left to one organ to guarantee, and functions are written out separately and clearly. Whether these functions are taken into one organ, what the organ is called and how many people it has, are matters of form, handed to specific theories of institutions. Concrete designs can be given as examples; none of the examples this series gives is claimed to be the best.
Back to the protocol. By this requirement, each of its three items must be able to say which matter it solves and at what cost. What the protocol's drafting notes said is not recorded; this paper does not write them on its behalf, and only leaves the question here. One cost, though, has already been spoken: Stonegorge's Water Committee said that forty cubic meters was "too high in years when the power station is filling its reservoir," and that is the cost of the second item, falling on Stonegorge's side.
After the three-party protocol failed, the bilateral supplementary protocol of the UCSE and the NUT covenanted only the one item of data. The Secretariat's running the data station is a new common arrangement, agreed by the Conference of Members with the consent of all members; the DRP is not a Cloud River riparian state, and consented as well. New common arrangements likewise go through the consent of all members (§1). At the time of the release, the Gorgemouth data forwarded by the data station let Apple City's warning come nine hours ahead of the flood crest; those figures were only the ones measured on the NUT's side. A covenant that covenanted only one item worked on that item; what it did not covenant is written down as it is.
It may be said that, covenanting only as far as function requires, the system will be so thin that it can stop nothing; when the Compact was drafted, that adviser said that the compact was "too loose" (the Prequel, §§3 and 8). The weight of this objection is that the lower Cloud River has just gone without a set of data because a covenant did not come into being. But covenanting only as far as required is not writing thin. Thickness is needed; there is no compulsion (the Prequel, §8): thickness falls on boundaries, roads of questioning and records, and there it can be very thick; the notification obligation of Article 5, and the questioning under it, are one thick place. Requiring each item to say which matter it solves is precisely what keeps the system from growing, item by item, into a hidden superior (Paper 7, XZ46). Where it is loose, there it is patched; what patches it need not be compulsion.
XZ5 Covenanting only as far as function requires. F6 Proposition V (the principle of minimization) is extended to common arrangements among many states (own undertaking): each of the system's arrangements states which matter it solves and at what cost; what need not be borne by shared rules is not taken into institutional requirement. The bindings the parties have acknowledged, to answer, to petitions and to crossing no line, stand within their scope, and some of them may concern acts in members' interiors (Paper 2, XZ13; Paper 4, XZ27); this does not grant the system authority for substitute exercise of the internal governance of members. On how the system is designed, only functions are set up here: each item is written out clearly as to who initiates it, which object it affects, whether the party questioned can close it, and how the account is booked when it fails (Theory of the State N36); control does not mean that every person affected has a veto (Theory of Government G36a); no single apparatus can guarantee its own equilibrium (Power Theory P3 §VI.2). Whether they are taken into one organ is a matter of form, handed to specific theories of institutions; concrete designs can be given as examples, and the examples are not claimed to be the best.
§6 With States Outside the System: Counting by What All Parties Recognize
The Plateau Federation is not in the system, yet its affairs keep entering the system. When Stonegorge applied to join, it issued a statement, and wrote that it would review Stonegorge's banks. In the summer of Year 15, its Federal Security Board issued External Economic Security Order No. 7: fuel exports to Stonegorge were stopped, an additional forty percent tariff was imposed on Stonegorge's fish catch and textiles, and the clearing of three Stonegorge banks on the Mirror Sea Clearing Network was cut off. This section does not judge the order; Paper 4 writes of it. This section asks only one thing that it led to: how the system reckons a covenant that a member concludes separately with a state outside the system.
It went like this. After Order No. 7, the Conference of Members was discussing common measures against the Plateau Federation. In the same month, the Plateau Federation's Ministry of Commerce put to the NUT a bilateral Agreement on Commerce and Transit: lowering the harbor and clearing fees on goods the NUT moves in transit through the harbors at Gorgemouth and Sandmouth; letting the transit stations in the NUT's Northern District connect directly to the Mirror Sea Clearing Network. The NUT has no coast on the Mirror Sea, and its trade with the Mirror Sea states mostly passes in transit through these two harbors. Article 14 of the draft read: "Neither party shall take part in economic measures directed against the other party by a third party or a multilateral mechanism."
The NUT's Northern District Council passed a resolution supporting signature, saying that for the Northern District's transit stations "seventy percent of the clearing goes through the Mirror Sea Clearing Network"; the councils of the two southern districts demanded that Article 14 be struck out. The NUT's external decisions are made by the Council for External Affairs, which has five members, one from each district, and requires the consent of at least four of the five. In the autumn of Year 15, the Council for External Affairs voted on "signing together with Article 14": 3 to 2, short of four, and it did not pass. The Plateau Federation's Minister of Commerce declared: "Article 14 is the foundation of this agreement." Two weeks later, the Plateau Federation agreed to strike out Article 14, and the Council for External Affairs signed the text without it, 5 to 0.
In the same month, the Conference of Members adopted Common Measure No. 1 under Article 11 of the Compact, the first item of which was to freeze the assets of the Federal Clearing Bureau and the Federal Development Bank in members' banks. Under Article 7(c) the NUT declared that it would not take part in the item freezing the assets of the Federal Clearing Bureau, its public reason being: "The clearing of the Northern District's transit stations all goes through the Mirror Sea Clearing Network; freezing the Clearing Bureau's assets amounts to freezing the Northern District's transit." The reason was entered in the record; the NUT took part in all the other items. The UCSE's permanent representative said in the Conference of Members: "With Article 14 deleted, the NUT has achieved the same as Article 14." The NUT's permanent representative answered: "Article 14 would have been a promise made to the Plateau Federation; not taking part in that item is something explained to the Conference of Members."
This matter falls on the people around the transit stations of the NUT's Northern District, seventy percent of whose clearing goes through that network; it falls also on Stonegorge, which Common Measure No. 1 is meant to support, and on the people there who bear the burden of Order No. 7, of whom Paper 4 writes. No line is crossed here. What is to be looked at is this: toward the other members as constructs, the NUT keeps the Compact it has already acknowledged, Article 7(c) of which requires a member that does not take part in a measure to explain its reasons publicly, with the reasons entered in the record; the NUT's concluding a covenant with a state outside the system is its own act. Before this, there were Article 7(c) of the Compact, Common Measure No. 1, and the procedure of the NUT's Council for External Affairs requiring the consent of four.
First, how the side outside the system is placed. Drawing its own range, the War Treatise says: "These matters between 14DDs are handled by 14DD's own order (diplomacy, treaties, balance of power, international law, etc.); they are not this treatise's work." There, "SAE criteria do not function for them" (War Treatise §5). The War Treatise did not say who is to write this stretch of order; within this series' domain it has a place. The system deals with states outside the system that lean strongly toward the 14DD direction by what all parties recognize: checks, reputation and treaties (Paper 4, XZ23). If such a state enters a member by force, that is a colonizing entry, which belongs to Paper 5; matters among such states are outside the system against outside the system, and toward them the system uses only indirect means (the Prequel, §6). This series does not use SAE's criteria of war to judge matters between 14DDs; for states outside the system it writes no ought either, only how the system and its members deal with them.
Then the side of the member. A covenant a member concludes separately with a state outside the system is that member's own act, and the system does not veto it. Force is substituting one's own judgment for the other party's judgment on its own affairs. If the system vetoed the NUT's agreement, what it would substitute is the NUT's judgment on this one matter, whether to conclude a covenant with the Plateau Federation and what kind of covenant; this is the NUT's own external affair, and once the system vetoed it, it would be judging in the NUT's place, which is substitute exercise (the Prequel, §2). What the system can do is question and record under the Compact the NUT has already acknowledged.
Two further things must be kept apart here. The Theory of the State wrote: "a question is answered according to its object, an exchange is checked according to its own reasons. The two can be negotiated at the same time; one cannot be used to close out the other." (Theory of the State Paper 5, §4) Transit and fees between the NUT and the Plateau Federation are an exchange, checked according to its own reasons: the Northern District's clearing, the harbor fees. What stance the NUT takes in the system on a given measure is something it must answer for under the acknowledged Compact. The crux of Article 14 lay precisely in tying the two together: using advantages in transit to buy from the NUT a prior promise on multilateral measures.
Read in this way, the facts point to these places. Whether Article 14 went in was decided through the NUT's own positions: in the Council for External Affairs, 3 to 2, short of four, signing together with Article 14 did not pass; with it struck out, the text was signed 5 to 0. The system did not veto, and could not. The UCSE said that with the article struck out the NUT achieved the same as Article 14; the NUT answered that the two were different. Where they differ can be said separately. Not taking part under Article 7(c) is an explanation of reasons made publicly to the Conference of Members, item by item; the reasons are entered in the record, and other members can put questions on them; each item is judged by the NUT itself, explained item by item and recorded separately. Article 14 is an arrangement promised in advance to a party outside the system, reaching all multilateral measures at once: it fixes in advance whether the NUT takes part from then on, and promises that to the other party to the covenant; to take part in any item thereafter, the NUT would first have to breach the covenant or obtain the other party's consent. Even if such an article were signed, it would not cancel the NUT's obligation under Article 7(c) to explain publicly item by item; the difference between the two does not lie in the party that promised Article 14 being from then on excused from answering to the system. The half where the effect is the same is recorded as well: this time, the NUT did indeed not take part in freezing the Clearing Bureau's assets.
Which conditions would give away a member's position in the system, and whether such conditions use trade to press a member, this section does not judge. That needs two things, which only Paper 4 writes out in full (Paper 4, XZ25). One is that cooperation and collusion have the same form at the layer of recognition, for which Power Theory gives only the minimal structure (Power Theory P3 §VII.2). The other is that a condition carrying a demand of direction is ghostwriting; Institution Theory says: "Once a condition carries the demand 'accept this direction of development,' it becomes ghostwriting by an outsider." (Institution Theory Z27) This section only points there.
Stonegorge's accession can also be read by this section. The Plateau Federation's statement on Stonegorge, and the letter to three banks saying a compliance review would be conducted, were acts of a party outside the system toward an applicant state; what the system had in hand was only what all parties recognize: checks, reputation and treaties. For these to count does not depend on keeping the other side guessing; it depends on putting one's bottom line in plain view, with real capability behind it. This is the kind the War Treatise means when it speaks of yang-mou (open strategy): its strength "comes not from information asymmetry but from the structural position-differential itself," and "Yang-mou does not win in the short term; yang-mou wins in time" (War Treatise §12). How reputation and checks count in this way is written in Papers 3 and 4 (Paper 3, XZ19).
It may be said that the system ought to forbid members to conclude covenants with a state outside the system that is pressing a member; otherwise one member takes the advantages, and the system's measures against the party applying pressure have a piece missing. The weight of this objection is that what the NUT did not take part in was exactly the item freezing the Clearing Bureau's assets, while what Order No. 7 cut off was precisely the clearing of three Stonegorge banks. But three cases must be kept apart. The system's prohibiting or vetoing unilaterally is judging in the member's place on its own external affairs, which is substitute exercise (the Prequel, §2). The parties' consenting to write such an article into a covenant is the road of §1: new binding requires the written consent of all members (Article 7(a) of the Compact). Where it is not written into a covenant, what the system can do is only question, record and withdraw cooperation; the missing piece is recorded, to be made up by the other states' own cooperation, and what cannot be made up is written down as such.
Here one thing is left: the dependence of the NUT's Northern District on the Mirror Sea Clearing Network remains. This road, by which interests outside the system come into the system through a single member, this paper cannot close; it is recorded.
XZ6 With states outside the system: counting by what all parties recognize. The War Treatise hands matters between 14DDs to 14DD's own order: diplomacy, treaties, balance of power, international law, etc. (War Treatise §5). This stretch is within this series' domain: the system deals with states outside the system that lean strongly toward the 14DD direction through checks, reputation and treaties, which all parties recognize (Paper 4, XZ23); their colonizing entry into a member belongs to Paper 5; matters among them are outside the system against outside the system. This series does not use SAE's criteria of war to judge matters between 14DDs; for states outside the system it writes no ought, only how the system and its members deal with them. A covenant a member concludes separately with a state outside the system is that member's own act: the system does not veto it, and questions and records under the Compact that member has acknowledged; whether a condition in the covenant requiring it not to take part in a given common procedure uses trade to press a member is checked against the boundary of Paper 4, XZ25.
§7 Accession Is a New Covenant; a League Presupposes No Center
Stonegorge came in. What did its coming in change?
First, Three Borders. The Secretariat and the Three-Borders Petitions Committee are housed in the old customs house at Three Borders. Three Borders is a border town of the NUT; in Years 10 and 11 the UCSE and the DRP signed the ceasefire and withdrawal agreements there; it is not the capital of any state. On the day the Compact was signed, the convener of the NUT's Council for External Affairs said: "Three Borders is where the three states made their ceasefire, not the center of the three states." The NUT concluded a Seat Agreement with the system, Article 3 of which reads: "The host state acquires no additional authority whatsoever in the system by reason of the seat." Article 8 of the Compact further says that the Secretary-General "is not to be a person of the host state."
Then the DRP's own accession. The West Flats lie on the east bank of the Boundary River and are administered by the UCSE's Western Plains State; the DRP claims the line of the old dike as the boundary; in Year 9 the DRP army crossed the Boundary River and entered the area, and since Year 8 the DRP's Programme of National Purposes has kept an item, "the return of the West Flats." When the DRP ratified the Compact, a statement of its Foreign Ministry was attached to the instrument of ratification: "Accession to the Compact does not change the Republic's position on the West Flats; the Republic will seek the return of the West Flats by peaceful means." The UCSE's Office of External Affairs replied: "The UCSE notes this statement, and notes Article 4(1) of the Compact." Article 4(1) is a commitment by each member: not to enter by armed force the territory or territorial waters of any state, and not to set up administration within the territory of another state.
Accession is a new covenant, to which all parties consent (§1). What this section has to say is its other face: a league presupposes no center.
In its conversation with Kant, the Theory of the State left one place open. Kant envisaged a powerful and enlightened people forming a republic that would be the center of a league other states join of their own accord; the Theory of the State left this initiating arrangement to this series, writing down beforehand only one qualification: "to be the center of a union is not in itself to have authority to decide the internal direction of other states." (Theory of the State Paper 5, §7) This series goes on from there, and takes one step further than that sentence: it presupposes no center. It takes no member as the center, nor does it admit members by leaning; membership sets no threshold of form of government (the Prequel, §4).
Why take this further step? If a center brings status, influence is converted into status, which is exactly what §2 says is not converted. If a center admits others after its own pattern, the system becomes a club of like states, and the Prequel, §4, has already said that the system is not such a club. Some of what a center does really does need someone to do it: meetings need a place, records need someone to keep them, dealings need someone to receive them. These are functions, and can be set up; once set up, they confer no status. Three Borders is such a place: meetings are held there and the Secretariat is there, the host state gains not one jot of authority from it, and the Secretary-General is not a person of the host state. The direction to keep is that the seat sets up functions only and confers no status.
Admitting a member is not endorsing its acts either. The Theory of the State says: "To recognize a state is not to endorse its acts: what is acknowledged is that its acts issue from its positions and that the account is booked in its name" (Theory of the State Paper 5, §3); the Conflict Treatise says of acknowledgment: "Only the origin position is acknowledged; no permission for action is issued." (Conflict Treatise §25) The original speaks of one state recognizing another; here it is changed to the system admitting a member (own undertaking). In admitting Stonegorge, what the system acknowledges is that Stonegorge's acts from then on issue from Stonegorge's positions and that the account is booked in Stonegorge's name; it does not thereby permit what Stonegorge will do from then on, nor vouch for what Stonegorge did before.
Then what did the DRP's accession change? Accession is a new covenant, and what it covenants is what comes after. The DRP's acts in the West Flats from then on fall under Article 4(1), and can be questioned; this is the new thing that accession brings. The positions and disputes from before accession are not settled by accession (§3), nor rewritten by the UCSE's reply; the reply "takes note of" Article 4, and it neither interprets that statement for the DRP nor closes the case for anyone. If the DRP does something in the West Flats thereafter, who has the say on that question is decided neither by the replying party alone nor by the party questioned alone; Paper 2 writes of this (Paper 2, XZ10).
Stonegorge's accession is the same. It came in with the written consent of all members, and once in, it has one vote (§2). It later exits and applies to come back; Article 26 of the Compact says that re-accession is a new admission made under Article 7(a), and that members may set conditions. First accession and re-accession are alike a new covenant. What the two floors of re-accession are is set up in Paper 7 (Paper 7, XZ48).
With no center, what keeps a league from falling apart in ordinary times? The War Treatise says that preparing for war in ordinary times has two parts: "One, keep the channels of fa-mou and fa-jiao open." "Two, maintain mutual recognition of subjectivity." (War Treatise §10; fa-mou: attacking through strategy; fa-jiao: attacking through diplomacy) When a league falls apart in ordinary times, it is mostly not that someone dissolves it on some day; its members drift apart one by one, dealings thin out, and mutual recognition weakens; that is exactly what it looks like when these two have not been kept. So a league relies on dealings and mutual recognition in ordinary times, not on a center to hold it together; how these count in ordinary times is written in Paper 3 (Paper 3, XZ20).
It may be said that without a center there is no telling what a league is to gather around, or what it is to expand by. The center Kant envisaged is just the starting point of the league's expansion. The weight of this objection is that it sees that a league needs someone to step forward first, so that other states have somewhere to lean. But expansion rests on other states' voluntary accession, on which this series agrees with Kant (§10); Stonegorge came in on its own application and the written consent of all members, not because some state recruited it. If a center brings status, influence is converted into status; §2 has already said that it is not converted.
Accession has another half: when a state applies carrying line-crossing that is under way, what the members can do besides consenting or not consenting. That half, together with the full text of this proposition, is in §9; the matters that section uses carry on from the application of the north of the Sandbars, so §8 must be read first.
Here one thing is left: the de facto conveniences of the host state. Matters inside the building are managed by the Secretariat, and security outside the building is the responsibility of the NUT's police; the system has no police or armed forces of its own. This convenience is recorded, and can be questioned.
§8 Admitting One Side of a Split
Stonegorge applied as a whole state. In the next matter, the applicant is one side that has split off from a state.
The Republic of the Sandbars lies on the southwestern shore of the Mirror Sea, with about thirty-three million people in Year 15. Its three northern provinces, Sandmouth Province, North Strand Province and West Shoal Province, lie along the coast and live mainly by harbors and fishing; the south lies inland, with its capital at Whitewall. In the autumn of Year 15, the National Assembly passed the Port Revenue Unification Act, under which the harbor revenues of the three northern provinces were to be collected by the center and then redistributed; the assemblies of the three northern provinces resolved not to implement it. In the winter, the President of the Sandbars set up the Committee for Republican Stability and declared the three northern provinces to be in a "state of stability." The large-scale line-crossing that took place in the north thereafter, and those who fled from there, are written of in Paper 6.
From Year 16, a "Northern Guard" appeared in the north, made up of dock workers, fishermen and soldiers who had left the Stability Squads, about thirty thousand strong by Year 18. Its weapons were partly captured from the Stability Squads' depots and partly bought by sea from "merchants outside the system"; from the summer of Year 18, the provisional administration office on the Outer Sandbars allowed its boats to refuel at the Outer Sandbars docks. That administration office was set up by the UCSE after it entered the Outer Sandbars with military force in the autumn of Year 17 (Paper 4, §7). The Whitewall government said: "The north was made by outside force."
In the spring of Year 18, members of the assemblies of the three northern provinces, together with representatives of harbor and fishing associations, convened a "Provisional Assembly of the Republic" at Sandmouth and declared: "The Stability Committee in Whitewall no longer represents the Republic; the Provisional Assembly of the Republic, convened at Sandmouth, is the sole legitimate representative of the Republic of the Sandbars." The Provisional Assembly controls all of Sandmouth Province and North Strand Province and the northern half of West Shoal Province, about nine million people, with its own taxation, courts and guard. The Whitewall government called this a "rebellion," still claimed to represent the whole, and fought on in the southern half of West Shoal Province. In the spring and summer of that year, the NUT arranged two rounds of talks between the two sides in a border town of its Northern District, and the Council for External Affairs declared: "The NUT provides the venue, and makes no ruling on the rights and wrongs."
In the summer of Year 18, the Provisional Assembly applied to the Secretary-General for accession to the system as "the Republic of the Sandbars (Sandmouth)," the application stating that it "represents the whole people of the Sandbars." The Secretariat asked in writing: is what applies for accession the area actually under the Provisional Assembly's jurisdiction, or the whole? The Provisional Assembly answered: "We represent the whole; what applies for accession is the Republic of the Sandbars."
In the autumn of Year 18, the Conference of Members discussed "whether the point of a split has been reached." The UCSE's Executive for External Affairs said: "The Provisional Assembly at Sandmouth controls two and a half provinces, with its own taxation, courts and guard; it is already a split." The DRP's Foreign Minister said: "This is internal strife whose outcome is not yet decided. Admitting Sandmouth is intervention." The NUT's permanent representative said: "The two sides are still talking in the NUT's Northern District; the NUT makes no ruling." Stonegorge had by then given notice of exit, and its permanent representative said: "Stonegorge, within its notice period for exit, takes no position on the admission." The DRP's Foreign Minister said further: "The UCSE says Sandmouth has already split; the docks on the Outer Sandbars refuel the Northern Guard, yet the Outer Sandbars that Sandmouth wants are in the hands of the UCSE's administration office." The UCSE's Executive for External Affairs answered: "The administration office on the Outer Sandbars and the admission of Sandmouth are two matters."
From the winter of Year 18, about sixty thousand people went back to the north from Stonegorge's Eastfield camp; those living in the camp were people who had fled the Sandbars.
By the spring of Year 19, Stonegorge's exit had taken effect (Paper 7). A vote was taken under Article 7(a) of the Compact: the UCSE consented; the NUT's Council for External Affairs voted 3 to 2, short of four, so the NUT could not give consent; the DRP did not consent. There was no admission. In the spring of Year 20, the Provisional Assembly applied again, the application now reading: "What applies for admission is the three provinces actually under the Provisional Assembly's jurisdiction (the northern half of West Shoal Province included); the claim to the whole is dealt with separately." As of Year 20, this application was undecided.
Kant ran into the question in this matter in the Fifth Preliminary Article of Perpetual Peace. He says that no state shall forcibly interfere in the constitution and government of another state, and then leaves an exception. The Theory of the State paraphrased this exception: "when a state splits through internal discord into two parts, each of which sets itself up as a separate state while laying claim to the whole, helping one of them need not count as interference (for then there is anarchy); internal strife that has not reached such a state of division still does not admit outside force on that account." (Theory of the State Paper 6, §5) Kant's original and the interface with it are in Paper 6, §11; this section uses only the point in time it gives: once the split has come to that point, helping one side is not interference; before then, it is interference.
What is it for the system to admit one of the sides? It is a covenant: admitting a new member is new binding, requiring the written consent of all members (§1). It is also an act: the system acknowledges one side in its name, this acknowledgment falls on the people of both sides of that state, and it can be questioned. As an act, it must not become interference in internal strife, so it must keep to the point in time Kant gives; what it acknowledges should be that side's own rising, so it cannot acknowledge something manufactured by outside force; as a covenant, it can be made only with the side actually there, so what it acknowledges is only that part itself. From this come three guardrails.
First, admission itself is an act and can be questioned; its timing follows Kant's sentence: if the internal strife has not come to the point of a split, there is no admission.
Second, the side admitted must have risen by itself and stand on its own, not be manufactured by outside force. The War Treatise says: "Genuine rising proceeds from the inside out; the outside can recognize it and can support it, but cannot manufacture it." (War Treatise §13)
Third, admission acknowledges that part itself, not its claim to the whole.
After admission, how the entry of other forces into it is reckoned is a matter for the fourth guardrail, in Paper 5 (Paper 5, XZ34).
A split also has another shape, of which Kant's original does not speak: not two parts each claiming to represent the whole, but one part declaring that it is leaving and claiming only itself. This shape is read directly by the third guardrail: what admission acknowledges is that part itself to begin with (own undertaking: Kant originally speaks of two parts each claiming to represent the whole; here it is extended to one part claiming only itself).
This matter falls on the roughly nine million people of the three provinces actually under the Provisional Assembly's jurisdiction, on the people of the area Whitewall controls, and also on the roughly sixty thousand people who went back to the north from Eastfield from the winter of Year 18. The line-crossing there this section does not judge; Paper 6 writes of it. What this section looks at is admission as a covenant and an act: the consent of all members, the timing, the three guardrails. Before this, there were Articles 1 and 7(a) of the Compact, and the point in time given by Kant's Fifth Preliminary Article.
Reading the facts by these guardrails, there are four points.
The first point: whether the point of a split has been reached. The UCSE said, on the grounds of control, taxation, courts and guard, that it has split; the DRP said the outcome is not yet decided and admitting is intervention; the NUT said it makes no ruling; Stonegorge, within its notice period, took no position. These are judgments made in the members' positions: the reasons are public and entered in the record, and this series does not judge for them. The norm goes this far: if it has not come to that point there is no admission, and admission requires the consent of all members; this is in the normative layer. When it counts as having come to that point is in the judgment layer, left to the positions that make this judgment, and the account falls on those positions (for the three layers, see the Prequel, §11).
The second point: the vote of the spring of Year 19. The NUT's Council for External Affairs voted 3 to 2, short of four, and the NUT could not give consent; the DRP did not consent. So there was no admission. Consent is given through each party's own law; if a state's own procedure cannot produce consent, there is no consent (§1). Three members of the Council for External Affairs were in favor; these three votes are recorded all the same, but they are not the NUT's consent. By the reading of Paper 6, non-admission means that the system has already judged that toward this side there can be no armed intervention yet (Paper 6, §10; XZ44). This judgment is the result the system's procedure gives: admission requires the consent of all members, that consent was not obtained, and the result is "not yet." It is not what each vote meant, for the majority of the NUT's Council for External Affairs was in favor of consenting; each state's votes are as the record shows, each cast by that state's positions, and the account falls there too. This is a blank the system deliberately leaves: before it comes to that point, it does not acknowledge, leaving room to see how things develop. The observation period of an observer member is set up for just such a case (§9; XZ7).
The third point: the second guardrail. The Northern Guard is made up of dock workers, fishermen and soldiers who left the Stability Squads; some of its weapons were captured and some bought by sea; its boats refuel on the Outer Sandbars. Whitewall says the north was made by outside force. What is to be looked at is whether the rising and the organization go from the inside out: where the people come from, who is organizing, who decides how these weapons are used. Supplies from outside do not by themselves settle this judgment. Sending or selling weapons, where how they are used is judged by the receiving side, is assistance, not intervention; the judgment rests with the receiving side, and whether that side has risen by itself and stands on its own is still looked at under the second guardrail (likewise Paper 6, XZ44). Refueling at the Outer Sandbars docks is an act of the administration office the UCSE set up, checked separately as a matter of its own (Papers 4, 5 and 7). How it counts in the judgment on admission is for the members' positions to judge, decided neither by the UCSE alone nor by the DRP alone. The DRP tied the two together in the Conference of Members, the UCSE said they were two matters, and both statements are in the record.
The fourth point: the third guardrail. The first application said it represented the whole; the Secretariat asked in writing whether what applied was the area actually under its jurisdiction or the whole, and the Provisional Assembly answered that it represented the whole. Under the third guardrail, if admission were made, what it acknowledged would still be only that part itself, not its claim to the whole. The second application narrowed the scope of this admission to the three provinces actually under its jurisdiction, with the claim to the whole dealt with separately. This makes the object of this covenant clearer, but nothing records that Sandmouth has given up its claim to the whole. Even if admission is made, it acknowledges only this part itself, not its claim to the whole. The second shape of a split, one part claiming only itself, can also be read by the third guardrail (above); but this application cannot be used to prove that this shape has already come about.
Two more sentences. The NUT's arranging talks between the two sides in its Northern District, providing only the venue and making no ruling on the rights and wrongs, is the NUT's own act, of the kind the War Treatise calls "fa-jiao (diplomacy, agreements, third-party mediation)" (War Treatise §20), and is a separate matter from admission. Nor does admission clear the account: acknowledgment "does not cancel the harm or rights ledgers" either (Conflict Treatise §25). The original sentence speaks of acknowledgment between two persons at the point of incommensurability; here it is extended to the system's admitting one side (own undertaking). Admitting one side does not settle the account between the two sides; the line-crossings Paper 6 writes of are not recorded differently because one side has been admitted.
It may be said that the DRP is right: admitting Sandmouth is intervention. The weight of this objection is that, with the internal strife still being fought, once the system acknowledges one side, that side has one more name to act under, and the other side has one more adversary. But Kant's sentence was written for exactly this moment: once the split has come to that point, helping one side is not interference; only before then is it interference. Admission is the system's public judgment on "whether that point has been reached," and it requires the consent of all members. The DRP's non-consent falls on this judgment and is recorded; it also kept admission from being made. The norm does not judge for the DRP, nor for the UCSE; it requires only that this judgment be public, made by all members, and open to questioning.
Here two things are left. Where the sixty thousand who went back to the north, and those who stayed at Eastfield, stand in this matter is written in Paper 6. The entry after admission has been made, a stretch Paper 5 envisages, is written there (Paper 5, XZ34).
XZ8 Admitting one side of a split: a covenant, and also an act. When a state has split into two parts, each claiming to represent the whole, helping one of them is not interference (Kant, Perpetual Peace, First Section, Preliminary Article 5). The system's admitting one of the sides is a covenant, requiring the consent of all members (XZ1); it is also an act, and can be questioned. Three guardrails: first, admission itself is an act and can be questioned, and its timing follows Kant's sentence: if the internal strife has not come to the point of a split, there is no admission; second, the side admitted must have risen by itself and stand on its own, not be manufactured by outside force (War Treatise §13, Gate Three); third, admission acknowledges that part itself, not its claim to the whole. For how entry into it after admission is reckoned, see Paper 5, XZ34. When there is dispute within the system over "whether the point of a split has been reached," it is left to the judgment of those in positions; the decision on admission and its reasons are public, and open to questioning. A split has two shapes: two parts each claiming to represent the whole, which is what Kant's original speaks of; and one part declaring that it is leaving and claiming only itself. The latter is read directly by the third guardrail, since what admission acknowledges is that part itself to begin with (own undertaking).
§9 Line-Crossing Under Way at First Accession; an Observer Member's Seat
As of Year 20, the second application from the north of the Sandbars had no result. The choices before the members seem to be only two: consent, or withhold consent. But a member that withholds consent does not necessarily do so because it thinks that side does not stand on its own; it may also be concerned with what that side is doing at this moment. This section asks: when one side applies carrying line-crossing that is under way, can the members withhold consent on that ground? Besides consenting and withholding consent, what else can be done?
This section is written in three layers (for the division into three layers, see the Prequel, §11).
First, the normative layer. Judgment falls on acts. When a state applies carrying line-crossing that is under way, colonizing another state or crossing the line against its own people, the members may withhold consent on that ground, stating their reasons for the record. This is not a threshold of form of government: membership does not ask what form of government the applicant has (the Prequel, §4); what is asked here is what it is doing at this moment. This article points the same way as the floor for re-accession: a state cannot come back carrying colonization that is under way (Paper 7, XZ48). The norm goes this far, leaving room for carrying it out: how exactly it is carried out depends on the degree of the line-crossing and also on the degree of improvement, and is left to the judgment of those in positions.
Next, the rule layer. In this layer this series writes out suggested rules, as examples, without claiming that they are the best design; whether they are adopted rests with the parties, as agreed (§1). The suggestion is this: the system may set up an observer member's seat, with an observation period. An observer member takes part in questioning and recording and makes statements in common procedures; it does not vote and does not enter joint defense. During the observation period, the improvement of acts is looked at; when it ends, the parties decide by covenant whether to admit. Setting up the observation is itself an act, and can be questioned. No permanent observation is set against the name of a state, for the same reason that no permanent bar is set against the name of a state: the Theory of the State says that whether the other side's supreme rule thereafter is legitimate "is not decided by its origin" (Theory of the State N34). The original sentence speaks of the other side's supreme rule after an occupation; here it is extended to observer members and accession (own undertaking): judgment falls on acts, and what is looked at is what has been done thereafter.
Last, the judgment layer. How long the observation period is, which things are looked at, and whether the degree of line-crossing and of improvement is enough, are left to the judgment of those in positions; the account falls on positions and persons.
What follows is a hypothetical case. The Compact has no observer member's seat; suppose that the members set up such a seat following the suggestion above.
Suppose that in the summer of Year 20 the NUT's permanent representative requested an extraordinary session and proposed setting up an observer member's seat, saying in proposing it: "The NUT could not give consent in the spring of Year 19. Observation is not admission; what is looked at is acts, and the matter is decided again when the period ends." The NUT's Council for External Affairs decided by 4 to 1 to consent. The DRP's People's Assembly consented by 331 votes to 236, with 33 absent; the DRP's Foreign Minister said at the extraordinary session: "What the Republic agrees to is observation, not admission. That the observer member stays out of joint defense is the Republic's condition for agreeing." The UCSE's permanent representative said: "The UCSE consented to admission in the spring of Year 19. The UCSE consents to observation." Stonegorge was not a member at this time. After the three members had given their written consent under Article 7(a) of the Compact, the Conference of Members made the Observer Member Decision. Among the four kinds of new binding listed in Article 7(a), there is none for setting up a seat; the preamble of the decision reads: "This Decision is made as new binding within the meaning of Article 7(a)."
The decision has six main points:
- A party that has applied for accession and has not yet been admitted may take its place as an observer member with the written consent of all members under Article 7(a); an observer member is not a member within the meaning of Article 1 of the Compact.
- An observer member may take part in putting questions and in recording, and may make statements in common procedures, which are entered in the record; it does not vote; it does not enter the Joint Defense Coordination Council, and does not take part in joint plans, joint exercises or prepositioned logistics.
- When the observation period ends, the members decide under Article 7(a) whether to admit. The decision sets up no permanent observation.
- Questions may be put under Article 7(b) on this Decision and on acts done under it.
- "The Republic of the Sandbars (Sandmouth)" takes its place as an observer member, with an observation period of two years; what is observed is the area actually under the Provisional Assembly's jurisdiction; the decision states that "observation does not acknowledge its claim to the whole."
- During the observation period, four kinds of acts are looked at: detention without trial in the Provisional Assembly's area of jurisdiction, the number of those detained and where they are held, and whether they can see family and lawyers; the treatment of personnel of the Whitewall side who remain in the three northern provinces, and of their families; whether the trials of these persons in the Provisional Assembly's courts are public, and whether defendants can choose their own counsel; whether the Northern Guard crosses the dividing line between the two sides' control into areas the Whitewall side controls.
Detention and trials were put forward by the NUT, treatment and the dividing line by the DRP, and the UCSE agreed to all four. Every six months the Secretariat compiles a record on these four, setting down the course of the acts, the positions that performed them and the documents relied on, with the source of each entry stated.
The case goes on. The Provisional Assembly wrote to the Secretary-General: it accepts the observer seat; it consents in writing to Secretariat staff entering places of detention in its area of jurisdiction; its application of the spring of Year 20 stands. The Whitewall government declared: "By giving the rebels a chair, the system has taken a side in the Republic's internal strife." At the regular session in the autumn of Year 20, Sandmouth's representative took the seat, the observation period running to the autumn of Year 22. Sandmouth's representative stated at the session: "The Outer Sandbars are part of the north of the Sandbars, and the administration office should be handed over to the Provisional Assembly." The statement was entered in the record. The UCSE's permanent representative answered: "The administration office on the Outer Sandbars and the observation are two matters." As of the winter of Year 20, the observation period had not ended, and admission was undecided.
This hypothetical case falls on those detained in the Provisional Assembly's area of jurisdiction, on personnel of the Whitewall side who remained in the three northern provinces and their families, and on defendants before the Provisional Assembly's courts. The line to look at is: judgment falls on acts; line-crossing under way can be a reason for withholding consent, and it is not a threshold of form of government; setting up observation is itself an act too. Before this, there were Articles 1 and 7(a) and (b) of the Compact, and no observer member's seat in the Compact; there were the non-admission of the spring of Year 19 and the narrowed application of the spring of Year 20 (§8).
Reading this case by the three layers above, the facts point to these places.
The observer seat is not an article of the Compact. Its source is this decision, and the decision was made under Article 7(a) with the written consent of all members, its preamble writing it as new binding. A new seat is likewise a covenant (§1). The DRP did not consent to admission in the spring of Year 19, and this time it consents to observation; what it consents to is a different matter, and the DRP Foreign Minister's sentence keeps the two apart.
The four things the decision names for looking at are all acts: detention, treatment, trials, and whether the dividing line is crossed. It does not ask what kind of government the Provisional Assembly is. "A leaning is a direction, not an identity." (the Theory of the State Prequel, §7) Judgment falls on acts, so this is not a threshold. Of the four, two came from the NUT and two from the DRP; the two states care about different things, and what they wrote in are all acts.
That the observer member does not enter the Joint Defense Coordination Council is the DRP's condition for consenting. The decision states that observation does not acknowledge its claim to the whole, as the third guardrail of §8 does. The observation period is two years, and at its end the members decide again under Article 7(a); the decision sets up no permanent observation. These points match the suggestion of the rule layer; this decision is one way of writing that suggestion, an example.
Whitewall says that giving the rebels a chair is taking a side in the internal strife. This question is recorded. What it asks about is the act of setting up observation; under point 4 of the decision and Article 7(b) of the Compact, this act can be questioned. If, during the observation period, anyone enters by armed force the area the Sandmouth side controls, how that entry is classified this section does not judge; it is in Paper 6 (Paper 6, XZ44).
As an observer member, Sandmouth stated that "the Outer Sandbars are part of the north of the Sandbars," and the statement was entered in the record. Entering statements in the record is how this decision writes it, an example; the suggestion of the rule layer above goes only as far as making statements in common procedures, and whether they are entered in the record, and how, rests with the parties, as agreed. How far an observer member can go in questioning and recording, this statement shows at one point: it can speak, and what it says is in the record; it cannot vote, and this statement does not cause the administration office on the Outer Sandbars to be handed over. The matter of the Outer Sandbars is checked separately as a matter of its own.
It may be said that observation is a threshold in disguise; or that observation substitutes "looking" for "consenting," and drags on indefinitely. The weight of this objection is that one side applied twice and got in return a seat without a vote, and when the period ends it must again wait for the consent of all members. But what observation looks at is the improvement of acts, not form of government; when the period ends, the matter is decided again as agreed, and the decision sets up no permanent observation. Withholding consent was always the parties' right (§1); without the observer seat, the NUT could not give consent in the spring of Year 19, and the matter would have stopped there. What observation gives is a road that does not drag on into a permanent bar: what is looked at is acts, there is a time limit, and it can be questioned.
Here one thing is left: on what the decision at the end of the period is to be made. When the Secretariat's records, the Provisional Assembly's documents and Whitewall's account do not agree, it is left to the positions making the decision, and the account falls there. The Theory of the State has given the minimum content of booking the account: decisions and reasons are public, and records are attributed to particular positions and persons (Theory of the State N39).
XZ7 A league presupposes no center; accession is a covenant. What the Theory of the State handed over is Kant's initiating arrangement, with one qualification already written down: to be the center of a union is not in itself to have authority to decide the internal direction of other states (Theory of the State Paper 5, §7). This series presupposes no center: it takes no member as the center, nor does it admit members by leaning; the seat sets up functions only and confers no status. Accession is a new covenant, to which all parties consent (XZ1); membership sets no threshold of form of government. Line-crossing under way at first accession is taken in three layers. The normative layer: judgment falls on acts; when a state applies carrying line-crossing that is under way (colonizing another state, crossing the line against its own people), the members may withhold consent on that ground, stating their reasons for the record; this is not a threshold of form of government, and it points the same way as the floor for re-accession (Paper 7, XZ48); how exactly it is carried out depends on the degree of the line-crossing and the degree of improvement. The rule layer, as rules this series suggests, given as examples: the system may set up an observer member's seat, with an observation period; an observer member takes part in questioning and recording and makes statements in common procedures, does not vote, and does not enter joint defense; during the observation period the improvement of acts is looked at, and when it ends the parties decide by covenant whether to admit (XZ1); setting up the observation is itself an act, and can be questioned; no permanent observation is set against the name of a state, for the same reason that no permanent bar is set against the name of a state (Theory of the State N34, occupation extended to observation and accession; own undertaking). This is a suggestion, not claimed to be the best design. The judgment layer: how long the observation period is, which things are looked at, and whether the degree of line-crossing and of improvement is enough, are left to the judgment of those in positions, and the account falls on positions and persons.
§10 With Kant
Kant too asked this paper's question in Perpetual Peace: when there is no state of nations, how many states form a union that is not maintained by force; how it expands; and what status each state has within it. Of the tradition, it is Kant with whom this series connects most directly.
First, check that it is the same question. What Kant envisages in the Second Definitive Article is a league of nations, "but it need not be a state of nations"; the allied states do not on that account need to "subject themselves, like human beings in the state of nature, to public laws and to a compulsion under them" (the translation in Theory of the State Paper 5, §7; the original is given there). This series' system likewise sets up no superior with force (the Prequel, §§1 and 3). Neither of the two sets up a superior with force above the states; the question is the same. The Theory of the State has already made this comparison, and the Prequel has pointed to it, so it is not redone here; what this section takes up are two other points: one the Theory of the State did not compare, and one it only paraphrased.
The first point is in the First Section: the Second Preliminary Article. The article itself reads: "No independently existing state (whether small or large makes no difference here) shall be acquired by another state through inheritance, exchange, purchase or gift." (my translation; Es soll kein für sich bestehender Staat (klein oder groß, das gilt hier gleichviel) von einem andern Staate durch Erbung, Tausch, Kauf oder Schenkung, erworben werden können.; Zum ewigen Frieden, First Section, Preliminary Article 2, per the first edition, Nicolovius, 1795, Project Gutenberg EBook #46873; compared with the English translation by M. C. Smith, EBook #50922; tier A) His reason is that a state is not a piece of property: "It is a society of human beings over which no one other than itself has the right to command or to dispose." (my translation; Er ist eine Gesellschaft von Menschen, über die Niemand anders, als er selbst, zu gebieten und zu disponiren hat.; ibid., same article)
The second point is in the Second Section, the Second Definitive Article, and concerns the center of the league. Kant says that the idea of this league is to extend gradually to all states, and that its feasibility can be shown: "For if fortune so ordains that a powerful and enlightened people can form itself into a republic (which by its nature must be inclined toward perpetual peace), then this republic provides a center of federative union for other states, so that they may attach themselves to it" (my translation; Denn wenn das Glück es so fügt: daß ein mächtiges und aufgeklärtes Volk sich zu einer Republik (die ihrer Natur nach zum ewigen Frieden geneigt seyn muß) bilden kann, so giebt diese einen Mittelpunkt der föderativen Vereinigung für andere Staaten ab, um sich an sie anzuschließen; Zum ewigen Frieden, Second Section, Second Definitive Article, same source). As unions of this kind multiply one by one, the league gradually spreads (ibid., same article, paraphrased). Theory of the State Paper 5, §7, paraphrased this sentence and left this initiating arrangement to this series; here the original sentence is given.
Where they agree. Two points.
One: accession is voluntary. Kant's league expands by other states voluntarily attaching themselves to that union, not by force bringing anyone in; the Second Preliminary Article says, more fundamentally still, that a state cannot be acquired by another state. This series says that accession is a new covenant, requiring the consent of all parties (§§1 and 7). Stonegorge applied to come in of its own accord, through its own Commonwealth Chamber, and also with the written consent of every member.
The other: size does not alter status. Kant says that whether small or large makes no difference here; a state is disposed of by no one but itself. This series says that states have equal status within the system, and that influence is not converted into votes (§2): Stonegorge with eleven million people and the DRP with sixty-two million have one vote each in the Conference of Members; the Federal President said the system was "not built by weight," and Stonegorge's Chief of the Commonwealth said they had come "to sit in this chair."
Where they part. One point: the center.
Kant envisages a republic formed by a powerful and enlightened people as the center of the league, to which other states attach themselves. This series presupposes no center: no member as the center, no admitting members by leaning; the seat sets up functions only and confers no status (§7). Three Borders is a border town of the NUT, not the capital of any state; on the day of signing, the convener of the NUT's Council for External Affairs said it was "where the three states made their ceasefire, not the center of the three states"; Article 3 of the Seat Agreement says that the host state acquires no additional authority whatsoever in the system by reason of the seat.
This series reads this point as a division of scope, not as a refutation. Kant asks where a league that expands by voluntary accession begins, and how its expansion is possible; what he gives is a beginning, a union at which other states have somewhere to attach themselves. This series asks something else: in a system already formed, with what status do states stand together so that influence is not converted into status. On Kant's question of the beginning, this series does not say that such a center will not appear; it says only that the system's covenants do not presuppose it, and give it no status. The qualification the Theory of the State has already written down, that to be the center of a union is not in itself to have authority to decide the internal direction of other states, here goes one step further: the center itself carries no extra status either.
The strongest objection from the other side (drafted by this paper). Without a center, how does your system begin, and how does it expand? Only when a powerful and enlightened republic stands at the center can other states see where to lean. You say that the seat sets up functions only, but was it not precisely a place, and a state willing to step forward first, that let the three states sit down together in the first place? To presuppose no center is to refuse to recognize how leagues grow.
Reply. Two points.
- Expansion rests on other states' voluntary accession; on this the two agree. Stonegorge came in by its own application, with the consent of all members; it was not recruited by some center.
- That a place, and a state, stepped forward first, this series does not deny. Three Borders really is where the three states made their ceasefire, and the NUT really did provide a venue there for the ceasefire and withdrawal of two states. But what they gave were functions: a place to meet, a building to keep the records in, a road for dealings. Functions can be set up without carrying status; if they carry status, that is what §2 calls influence converted into status, and the weight of the state at the center gets into other states' affairs through this status. That Kant envisages the center as a republic bears on a threshold for members; the Prequel, §4, has already made that comparison, and it is not redone here.
Where This Paper Stops
This paper has proved these things. Without a superior, new binding can come only through the consent of all parties; a covenant counts through each party's own law or through a procedure the parties have acknowledged, produces no "we," and does not grow into a third legislator; with no superior overhead, binding too can only be lateral (XZ1). Within the system all states have equal status, and influence is not converted into votes (XZ2). A covenant, or a vote, settles this one matter; when a new covenant fails, acknowledged covenants stand as before (XZ3). A covenant carries nothing across the line, and covenants on handing over and judicial assistance are no exception (XZ4). Each arrangement covenants only as far as function requires, and can say which matter it solves and at what cost (XZ5). With states outside the system, things count by what all parties recognize; a covenant a member concludes separately with a state outside the system is its own act, and the system does not veto it (XZ6). Accession is a new covenant, and a league presupposes no center; line-crossing under way at first accession can be a reason for withholding consent, and an observer member's seat is a suggested rule (XZ7). Admitting one side of a split is a covenant and also an act, with three guardrails (XZ8).
What it has not proved: the details of treaty law, the details of handing over and judicial assistance included, for which this series gives only the direction, the details being handed to specific law; the forms of the Compact and of voting, handed to specific theories of institutions; whether many covenants and much mutual examination can grow into common legislation, answered in Paper 8 (Paper 8, XZ55); the law above states, which is in Law Series P4.
Handed to the papers that follow: that questioning existing matters does not require the consent of the party questioned, in Paper 2 (Paper 2, XZ10); whether the fertilizer contract and conditions of the kind of Article 14 use trade to press a member, in Papers 3 and 4 (Paper 4, XZ25); whether outside force may intervene while there is no admission, in Paper 6 (Paper 6, XZ44); entry into the side admitted after admission, in Paper 5 (Paper 5, XZ34); the two floors of re-accession, in Paper 7 (Paper 7, XZ48).
The remainder it leaves: the pressure an applicant state bears during a delay; the part of influence that comes in by routes outside the system, which votes cannot govern; the operational data of the Gorge Water power station, still not provided; the dependence of the NUT's Northern District on the Mirror Sea Clearing Network; the de facto conveniences of the host state; the sixty thousand who went back to the north and those who stayed at Eastfield; on what the decision at the end of the observation period is to be made. All of these are recorded, and each has somewhere to go.
The Eight Propositions of This Paper
XZ1 A covenant requires the consent of all parties and produces no third legislator. Without a superior, new binding (the Compact and its amendment, new common procedures, accession and re-accession) can come only through the consent of all parties. Consensus does not automatically generate a third first-person legislator; binding force must pass separately through each party's own law, or come from a procedure the parties have acknowledged (Conflict Treatise §24; Theory of the State N24). Once consent has been given, a covenant binds the parties through each party's own law, or through a procedure the parties have acknowledged. A procedure the parties have consented to in advance can have everyday matters decided by majority; this prior consent is itself a covenant, which each state acknowledges under its own law. What is done in the system's name is traced back to the positions and votes of the member states that made it (the Theory of the State Prequel, §1). Making a covenant requires consent; the covenant's ground does not lie in consent (Law Series Supplement §7.3). With no superior overhead, binding too can only be lateral: through the consent of all parties, through the questioning, recording and withdrawing of cooperation by peers, not through a superior (own undertaking). A covenant signed by a colonizing party on behalf of the colonized party is not, as a matter of course, an acknowledged covenant for the party that later becomes independent: that party did not at the time consent through its own law; the details of succession are handed to specific law (own undertaking). The Conflict Treatise originally speaks of two first persons, the Theory of the State extends it to two states, and here it is extended to many states (own undertaking).
XZ2 States have equal status; influence is not converted into votes. Within the system all states have equal status; differences of influence are facts and are not turned into differences of status; by design, influence is not converted into votes or vetoes, and voting is not monopolized by a state with great influence. The minority's vote is always a legitimate vector; a permanently coalesced majority keeps diachronic equilibrium from occurring (Power Theory P3 §VI.2; the original speaks of voting within a community, here extended to states; own undertaking). One state, one vote speaks of the status of states with respect to one another, not of the people of each state weighing the same: in the system those who vote are members' positions, and the weight of persons lies in each state's own law. F6, Appendix A, Article 10(b): one member, one vote (a working demonstration; used only as an example). A state with great influence applying pressure to keep a state from joining is that party's act toward this state, checked under Papers 4 and 5.
XZ3 Settling one matter does not settle everything. A covenant, or a vote, settles this one matter; it does not close the case on questioning under way, nor rewrite the account from before (Conflict Treatise §24; Papers 3 and 7). Decisions can be final; positions cannot (Theory of Government G36): the decision of a common procedure is final in the case, and the positions that implement it are not final (Theory of the State Paper 5, §1). When a new covenant fails, the covenants the parties have acknowledged do not lapse on that account; an agreement that settles what comes after does not settle the account of the earlier matter. The Conflict Treatise originally speaks of consensus between two first persons, and the Theory of Government of positions within a level of government; here they are extended to covenants, votes and common procedures among many states (own undertaking).
XZ4 A covenant carries nothing across the line. Where a treaty would require a state to cross the line upon those its acts reach, that stretch a treaty cannot carry across (Theory of the State Paper 5, §2). The system's covenants likewise cannot carry it across: where a common arrangement would require a member to cross the line upon those its acts reach, that stretch the covenant cannot carry across; return or sharing arrangements between members cannot reduce the several things owed to those at the door (Theory of the State Paper 3, §5). A covenant a state makes with a party outside the system is the same. The original speaks of a single state's treaties; here they are changed to the system's common arrangements, covenants between members, and covenants between a state and a party outside the system (own undertaking). Things held in common between members (rivers, data, dealings) are for the parties to consent to: a state's refusing to sign an expanded agreement is its act, checked against the covenants it has acknowledged and the unified sentence. Handing over and judicial assistance belong to ordinary cooperation: states concluding covenants on extradition and judicial assistance with one another is a matter for the parties to consent to; the stretch of a covenant that would require a state to hand a person over to a place where he would face detention without trial, the covenant cannot carry across; the details are handed to specific law (Paper 6, XZ38).
XZ5 Covenanting only as far as function requires. F6 Proposition V (the principle of minimization) is extended to common arrangements among many states (own undertaking): each of the system's arrangements states which matter it solves and at what cost; what need not be borne by shared rules is not taken into institutional requirement. The bindings the parties have acknowledged, to answer, to petitions and to crossing no line, stand within their scope, and some of them may concern acts in members' interiors (Paper 2, XZ13; Paper 4, XZ27); this does not grant the system authority for substitute exercise of the internal governance of members. On how the system is designed, only functions are set up here: each item is written out clearly as to who initiates it, which object it affects, whether the party questioned can close it, and how the account is booked when it fails (Theory of the State N36); control does not mean that every person affected has a veto (Theory of Government G36a); no single apparatus can guarantee its own equilibrium (Power Theory P3 §VI.2). Whether they are taken into one organ is a matter of form, handed to specific theories of institutions; concrete designs can be given as examples, and the examples are not claimed to be the best.
XZ6 With states outside the system: counting by what all parties recognize. The War Treatise hands matters between 14DDs to 14DD's own order: diplomacy, treaties, balance of power, international law, etc. (War Treatise §5). This stretch is within this series' domain: the system deals with states outside the system that lean strongly toward the 14DD direction through checks, reputation and treaties, which all parties recognize (Paper 4, XZ23); their colonizing entry into a member belongs to Paper 5; matters among them are outside the system against outside the system. This series does not use SAE's criteria of war to judge matters between 14DDs; for states outside the system it writes no ought, only how the system and its members deal with them. A covenant a member concludes separately with a state outside the system is that member's own act: the system does not veto it, and questions and records under the Compact that member has acknowledged; whether a condition in the covenant requiring it not to take part in a given common procedure uses trade to press a member is checked against the boundary of Paper 4, XZ25.
XZ7 A league presupposes no center; accession is a covenant. What the Theory of the State handed over is Kant's initiating arrangement, with one qualification already written down: to be the center of a union is not in itself to have authority to decide the internal direction of other states (Theory of the State Paper 5, §7). This series presupposes no center: it takes no member as the center, nor does it admit members by leaning; the seat sets up functions only and confers no status. Accession is a new covenant, to which all parties consent (XZ1); membership sets no threshold of form of government. Line-crossing under way at first accession is taken in three layers. The normative layer: judgment falls on acts; when a state applies carrying line-crossing that is under way (colonizing another state, crossing the line against its own people), the members may withhold consent on that ground, stating their reasons for the record; this is not a threshold of form of government, and it points the same way as the floor for re-accession (Paper 7, XZ48); how exactly it is carried out depends on the degree of the line-crossing and the degree of improvement. The rule layer, as rules this series suggests, given as examples: the system may set up an observer member's seat, with an observation period; an observer member takes part in questioning and recording and makes statements in common procedures, does not vote, and does not enter joint defense; during the observation period the improvement of acts is looked at, and when it ends the parties decide by covenant whether to admit (XZ1); setting up the observation is itself an act, and can be questioned; no permanent observation is set against the name of a state, for the same reason that no permanent bar is set against the name of a state (Theory of the State N34, occupation extended to observation and accession; own undertaking). This is a suggestion, not claimed to be the best design. The judgment layer: how long the observation period is, which things are looked at, and whether the degree of line-crossing and of improvement is enough, are left to the judgment of those in positions, and the account falls on positions and persons.
XZ8 Admitting one side of a split: a covenant, and also an act. When a state has split into two parts, each claiming to represent the whole, helping one of them is not interference (Kant, Perpetual Peace, First Section, Preliminary Article 5). The system's admitting one of the sides is a covenant, requiring the consent of all members (XZ1); it is also an act, and can be questioned. Three guardrails: first, admission itself is an act and can be questioned, and its timing follows Kant's sentence: if the internal strife has not come to the point of a split, there is no admission; second, the side admitted must have risen by itself and stand on its own, not be manufactured by outside force (War Treatise §13, Gate Three); third, admission acknowledges that part itself, not its claim to the whole. For how entry into it after admission is reckoned, see Paper 5, XZ34. When there is dispute within the system over "whether the point of a split has been reached," it is left to the judgment of those in positions; the decision on admission and its reasons are public, and open to questioning. A split has two shapes: two parts each claiming to represent the whole, which is what Kant's original speaks of; and one part declaring that it is leaving and claiming only itself. The latter is read directly by the third guardrail, since what admission acknowledges is that part itself to begin with (own undertaking).
References
All SAE works below are cited by concept DOI, which always resolves to the latest version. The version records used for sentence-by-sentence verification are given in the accompanying audit table.
I · This system
Qin, H. (2026). How Is Institution Possible: From Inter-Ontological Remainder to Co-Constructive Framework (SAE Foundational Paper 6) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19328662 Qin, H. (2026). Conditions (SAE Institution Theory, Paper 4) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23270922 Qin, H. (2026). Open to Questioning (SAE Institution Theory, Paper 6) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23271324 Qin, H. (2026). Questioning and Bearing (SAE Theory of Government, Paper 6) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23413511 Qin, H. (2026). What a State Is Not (SAE Theory of the State, Prequel) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23584292 Qin, H. (2026). The Last Rule (SAE Theory of the State, Paper 1) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23584315 Qin, H. (2026). The Last Exit (SAE Theory of the State, Paper 3) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23584325 Qin, H. (2026). One Another, with No Superior (SAE Theory of the State, Paper 5) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23584346 Qin, H. (2026). The Last Resort (SAE Theory of the State, Paper 6) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23584352 Qin, H. (2026). Questioning the Last Layer (SAE Theory of the State, Paper 7) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23584356 Qin, H. (2026). SAE Conflict Treatise: How Subjecthood Is Not Swallowed by Conflict Itself [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22313628 Qin, H. (2026). SAE War Treatise: How Cultivation Is Not Swallowed by War Itself [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19656617 Qin, H. (2026). One's Law Meets One's Law: The Structural Origin of Law from 14DD Showdown (SAE Law Series, Paper 1) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19548237 Qin, H. (2026). National Law — Azeroth: A Negative Thought Experiment on the Structural Necessity of Law (SAE Law Series, Paper 3) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19548596 Qin, H. (2026). Interstellar Law and Grand Closure — The Recession of Coercive Law (SAE Law Series, Paper 4) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19549018 Qin, H. (2026). A Posterior Dialogue with Western Jurisprudence (SAE Law Series, Supplement) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19551526 Qin, H. (2026). On the Recognition of Power · Shi (SAE Power Theory, Paper 3) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20480134
II · External works (public-domain originals, tier A)
Kant, I. (1795). Zum ewigen Frieden. Ein philosophischer Entwurf. Königsberg: Friedrich Nicolovius. Project Gutenberg, EBook #46873. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/46873 Kant, I. (1917). Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Essay. Trans. M. Campbell Smith (1st ed. 1903; 3rd impression). London: George Allen & Unwin. Project Gutenberg, EBook #50922. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/50922
III · External works (public-domain translation, tier B)
Grotius, H. (1901). The Rights of War and Peace, Including the Law of Nature and of Nations. Trans. A. C. Campbell. New York & London: M. Walter Dunne. Project Gutenberg, EBook #46564. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/46564 (abridged translation; Latin original not checked) Vattel, E. de. (1883). The Law of Nations; or, Principles of the Law of Nature, Applied to the Conduct and Affairs of Nations and Sovereigns. Ed. J. Chitty, notes by E. D. Ingraham. Philadelphia: T. & J. W. Johnson. Online text: https://constitution.org/2-Authors/vattel/ ; read against the Lonang Institute text (from the 1797 English translation, reprinted 1853). (French original not obtained; read against the two online texts)
Interfaces
Main upstream: Conflict Treatise §24, §25, §27 (extended to many states and to the system's common procedures; own undertaking); Theory of the State N24, N26 and Paper 5, §2 (a treaty cannot carry it across the line), Paper 5, §7 (the one qualification on the center of a league); the Theory of the State Prequel, §§1 and 8; Theory of Government G36, G36a; F6 §3.2, Proposition V (own undertaking). Also used: Law Series P1 §7, P3 §6.2, P4 §2, and Law Series Supplement §7.3; Power Theory P3 §VI.2, §VII.2; War Treatise §5, §10, §12, §13, §20; Institution Theory Z27, Z39; Theory of the State: the Prequel, §7; Paper 1, §5; Paper 3, §5; Paper 5, §§1 and 4; Paper 6, §5 (N34, and the paraphrase of Kant's Fifth Preliminary Article); Paper 7, N36, N39; F6 §3.1a; F6, Appendix A, Article 10(b) (a working demonstration; used only as an example). Interfacing: Kant (Perpetual Peace, First Section, Preliminary Article 2; Second Section, Second Definitive Article, on the center of the league; tier A, per the first edition of 1795, compared with Smith's English translation); Grotius (The Rights of War and Peace, bk. II, ch. 15, §§5–7; tier B, per Campbell's abridged English translation); Vattel (The Law of Nations, Preliminaries, §18; tier B, read against the two online texts). This series: the Prequel, §§1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 11; Paper 2, XZ10, XZ13 and §6; Paper 3, XZ17, XZ18, XZ19, XZ20; Paper 4, XZ23, XZ25, XZ27 and §7; Paper 5, XZ34; Paper 6, XZ38, XZ44; Paper 7, XZ46, XZ48; Paper 8, XZ55. Handed to Paper 2: a covenant requires consent; when existing matters are questioned, the questioning does not require the consent of the party questioned.