One Another, with No Superior
没有上级的彼此
Outwardly, there is no higher level above a state to govern what lies between it and other states. This paper asks four things: when there is no third party that legislates for both, what treaties, common procedures and the questions the parties put to one another can each do; what this state owes toward other states and toward the people of other states; how diplomacy carries questioning; and how, under threat, this state avoids turning into the likeness of its adversary. The whole paper runs through what passes between the United City-States of Ends (UCSE) and its two neighbors, the Nation Union of Telos (NUT) and the Democratic Republic of Purposes (DRP). Consensus does not automatically generate a third legislator; treaties and common procedures bind both parties within their scope of application, and binding, carrying out and questioning all land through each party's own law, or through a procedure both parties have acknowledged. An arbitral award can be final in the case; the positions that implement it are not final. Suspending or exiting a treaty is itself an act of this state. Toward the other state as a construct: it does not colonize, does not decide the direction for its people, does not interfere in its internal affairs, and keeps the consensus both sides have acknowledged. Toward the people of other states: following the unified sentence (given in full in §2), and not trading them for this state's safety; a treaty binds this state, but carries nothing across the line. Recognition acknowledges only where acts issue from and in whose name the account is kept; it does not endorse them. A peer's question is not, in general, a channel; this state does not retaliate, and the matters it is questioned about are connected to the channels inside; questions and exchanges are checked separately. Sanctions and blockades are acts of this state; the ordinary people of another state whom they reach and who cannot avoid them fall under the unified sentence, and the fifth ought is not reduced there. Under threat, this state checks its own acts item by item; the adversary serves only as a contrast, not as a yardstick. How treaty mechanisms above states bind states, third-state rescue, and multi-state systems of cooperation are handed to the Theory of Inter-State Cooperation. The paper interfaces in place with Grotius and Rawls, and closes in conversation with Kant's Perpetual Peace. The paper has six propositions (N24 to N29), 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
The Cloud River comes down from the NUT's North Uplands, enters the UCSE past the Eagle Gap gauging station, runs through the Highland State and the Kingdom State, and reaches the sea at Rivermouth City. Apple City and Willow Ferry both lie on this river.
The two states concluded, 30 years before Year 1, the Cloud River Water-Sharing and Flood Notification Agreement: in the dry season, the flow at the Eagle Gap gauging station is to be no less than one hundred eighty cubic meters per second "in normal years"; the upstream side gives "timely notification of flood conditions." Disputes go first to the Cloud River Joint Commission, to which each state sends three members; a dispute not resolved within six months goes to a three-member arbitral tribunal: each state appoints one member, and the presiding arbitrator is chosen jointly by the two states; if none is chosen within sixty days, one is drawn by lot from a list of three names that the two states jointly confirm every five years.
In the summer of Year 8, the NUT announced that it would build the High Gorge Reservoir upstream and fill it over three dry seasons. In the autumn, the UCSE's Hydrological Bureau estimated that during the filling period the dry-season flow at Eagle Gap would fall to about one hundred fifty cubic meters per second; that the concentration of that one substance at the Willow Ferry intake would rise by about twenty percent; and that at Rivermouth City saltwater would push about eight kilometers further upstream. The Office of External Affairs sent the NUT a note demanding that construction stop, or that one hundred eighty cubic meters per second be guaranteed.
In the winter, the NUT's Council for External Affairs sent a reply note that put three questions back. First: what do "normal years" mean, do the years of filling count, and who is to decide? Second: the water the UCSE draws for irrigation in the Kingdom State and the Highland State has grown by about thirty percent over ten years; where are its water-saving measures? Third: Apple City's Sewerage Office releases treated city wastewater into the Cloud River, and Willow Ferry lies downstream of it; why should more water be released upstream to dilute what may be released downstream?
Three things first. Whom it concerns: the residents downstream (in Rivermouth City, Willow Ferry and Apple City); the internal subjects of the NUT upstream, for whom this series writes no ought. Which line: toward the other state as a construct, keeping the consensus both sides have acknowledged; toward the people of other states, following the unified sentence. Baseline: the Cloud River Water-Sharing and Flood Notification Agreement (one hundred eighty cubic meters per second, "in normal years").
In this matter there is no one above the two states. No court can read "normal years" for both of them, and no force can make the upstream state release more water, or make the downstream state first get its own wastewater under control. Yet what lies between the two states is not a blank: there is an agreement, and in the agreement a road is written; and there are the questions they put to one another, which reach all the way to Apple City's Sewerage Office.
This paper is about one another, with no superior: one of the several "lasts" this series speaks of. "Last" is read as it is throughout the series:
"Last" refers to level: there is nothing above. It does not refer to exemption from questioning.
Above this state's decisions outward there is no third party that legislates for both sides; this does not mean that no one questions them.
This paper asks in seven steps: how treaties and common procedures bind; the two objects outward; mutual recognition; diplomacy and questioning; sanctions; no mirror assimilation; and, at the end, a conversation with Kant. Conventions follow the Prequel, §8; the examples follow the United City-States of Ends Case File (the UCSE Case File). This paper writes no ought for other states; outwardly, it writes only how this state treats them.
§1 No Third Party Legislates for Both
First, a matter with no road. In the autumn of Year 8, at night, on a sandbar along the east bank at Reedtown on the Boundary River, a sentry post of the Border Defense Division of the Office of Defense exchanged fire with a DRP patrol: two UCSE sentries and a DRP soldier were killed. Each side said the other had fired first. The Office of External Affairs proposed a joint investigation by the two states; the DRP's Foreign Ministry refused, and proposed instead an investigation led by the DRP, with UCSE representatives attending. The Office of External Affairs then asked the NUT to send investigators; by 4 to 1 the NUT's Council for External Affairs decided to provide only a venue and technical staff, and its reply note read: "The NUT is not a judge between the two states, and the findings of the investigation bind neither party." Among the three states there is no common court, nor any other body that could take up the matter; neither the Treaty of Commerce nor the Border Return Protocol between the two states has any provision on armed clashes. In the winter the two states each published an investigation report; the two say opposite things about who fired first and about which state the sandbar belongs to (UCSE Case 02; three things in the Prequel, §3).
Each of the two reports was made by one state's positions, and each is questioned in that state's own channels; between them there is no reader whom neither side can seal off. The NUT refused, under its own procedure, to act as judge; and when it said that the findings bind neither party, it said so accurately: in this case there was neither an existing mechanism that could take the matter up nor a joint authorization of this investigation, and the NUT's findings do not bind the two states.
The Cloud River matter is different: between the two states there is a road already written. In the spring of Year 9, the Joint Commission had gone six months without agreement, and the UCSE requested arbitration. The list of three names jointly confirmed by the two states had expired in Year 8; neither side had renewed it, and each said the other was stalling. In the summer of Year 9, the Executive Council proposed to the NUT that if the NUT joined the sanctions against the DRP, the UCSE could withdraw its request for arbitration; the NUT's Council for External Affairs replied: "The two matters each follow their own procedure." This proposal is checked again in §4. In the autumn of Year 9, both sides agreed to draw lots from the expired list; in the spring of Year 10, the tribunal was constituted. In the winter of Year 10 the award came down: the filling is permitted, and during the filling period the dry-season flow 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"; the costs are borne equally. The Chamber of Citizens passed a resolution criticizing the figure of one hundred sixty-five. The NUT's Northern District Council opposed providing the reservoir's data in real time, saying that the security of the installation was at stake. Both states complied with the award within Year 11; the NUT began transmitting data every hour in the spring of Year 11 (UCSE Case 20).
On what grounds did the two states comply: the agreement, the award, or each one's own law?
The Conflict Treatise has dealt with a question of the same shape. It says, of two laws that have reached an arrangement: "Consensus does not automatically generate a third first-person legislator"; the two may from then on have a standing rule: "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 Conflict Treatise speaks of two persons, two first-person laws. Here it is extended to the legal orders of two states (extension; own undertaking). The extension goes through because the reason for that sentence does not lie in the first person; it lies in there being no law above the two laws: binding force can come only from each side separately, or from a procedure both have acknowledged. Between states, "nothing above" is exactly the definition of the state's end of the range (the Prequel, §6). A state has no first person (the Prequel, §1); its "own law" is read here as its legal order, together with the positions that act under that order. On the UCSE side, a treaty, as Article 60 of the Charter (fact) provides, is negotiated by the Office of External Affairs, signed by the First Executive and ratified by the joint session, and thereby enters the UCSE's legal order; for an award to land, what it relies on is the positions of each of the two states acting on it.
So the three are not a choice of one among three; they are three stretches of one road. The agreement is a consensus both sides have acknowledged; the arbitration written into the agreement is a procedure both sides have acknowledged; the award lands through each state's legal order and each state's positions. The award has not become a third legislator: within the scope of the agreement, it has ruled on one dispute about action.
Why this road still counts as a procedure both sides have acknowledged calls for one more look. In treating external arbitration, the Conflict Treatise draws a limit: ceding the power of adjudication to something external "holds only for a certain class of external body: a procedure both parties have acknowledged, a mechanism with lawful authority, or an institution with legitimate authority for the protection of basic rights"; "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 two persons handing their disagreement out; here it is extended to two states (extension; own undertaking; grounds as above). Paper 2, §5 has already divided these three sources by their grounds, not by whether they are domestic or foreign (N9); what is used here is their own original sense, between states. With the list expired, the premise of the procedure had a gap; that the two states agreed again to draw lots from it was a renewed acknowledgment of this road, in this case. The presiding arbitrator was not chosen by one side.
How much is handed out must also be stated precisely. 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). What the two states handed to the tribunal was the adjudication of one dispute about action, over flow and data. Where the exceedance at Willow Ferry comes from, the tribunal said, is not its affair; how things stand with Apple City's wastewater remains within the UCSE's own law (Theory of Government Paper 4, §2). Outside the scope, each matter returns to its own law.
This road can fail at several points, written out separately. - The premise of the procedure can expire. The list expired; this time the gap was filled by the two sides acknowledging the road again; next time that may not happen. - It has no enforcer of its own. The NUT's Northern District Council opposed transmitting data in real time, and the NUT complied: that was the NUT's positions acting under the NUT's procedure; when the UCSE complied, it was the UCSE's positions that acted. External routes exist, but they land in this state (Paper 1, §5). When one side's positions do not act, what the other side can do is ask again, hand the matter to procedure again, or take acts of its own; those acts must themselves be checked (below, and §2). - Its range is limited. The tribunal rules only on what the agreement governs; "normal years" will come up again. - Authorized external mechanisms do not exist among the three states. What such a mechanism can do follows the same reasoning as a treaty: it binds through an authorization both sides have acknowledged, and the landing still takes place in each state. How such mechanisms bind states this paper does not write; it is handed to the Theory of Inter-State Cooperation.
Is the award a "last"? In this case it is final: the two states complied, and the same matter need not be gone over again. This is the first half of Theory of Government G36: "Decisions can be final." The second half, "Positions cannot be final," lands here, and is written in four items. Who can initiate it: either state, for later years and on new problems, can hand the matter again to the Joint Commission and to arbitration under the agreement; the UCSE's internal subjects, through the UCSE's channels, can ask how the UCSE's positions accept and implement this award, and the resolution in which the Chamber of Citizens criticized the figure of one hundred sixty-five was one such question inside the UCSE. Which object it affects: the UCSE's acts of implementing the award, and its stance in the next round; it does not reach the award in this case itself. Whether the party questioned can close it: the Executive Council cannot close the Chamber of Citizens' question; it can exit the agreement, but that is a new act, to be checked against the paragraph further on in this section on suspending or exiting a treaty. How the account is booked when it fails: when the UCSE's positions do not implement the award, there is no enforcer outside; the account falls on the positions that do not implement it, and they are questioned in the channels inside (Paper 7, N38, N39).
Here an overreading must be blocked. Law Series P3, writing of the two great factions of Azeroth that share one continent, says: "But between the two factions there is no law, only intermittent peace agreements (consensus) and cyclical wars (showdowns)"; the same section also says that this cycle will continue "until either exit is restored (physically impossible — both share the continent) or law emerges (institutionally constraining both sides' 14DD)" (Law Series P3 §6.2). It speaks of that example, and the same section keeps open the possibility that law emerges. This paper does not, on that basis, assert that there can be no binding law between states; the Cloud River agreement and arbitration are precisely a binding stretch between the two states.
Law Series P4 says: "An interstellar constitution is essentially consensus plus exit, not coercive law" (Law Series P4 §2); here it serves only as a structural contrast: a treaty between two states is also consensus plus exit; the agreement can be exited, the river cannot. So between states, exit and suspension weigh more.
Suspending or exiting a treaty is itself an act of this state. There is an instance. In the summer of Year 9, after the DRP's mobilization order, the number of people arriving at the West Pass border crossing rose sharply, and the Office of Entry and Asylum suspended application of the Border Return Protocol (UCSE Case 12). This suspension makes one entry toward each of two objects. Toward the DRP as a construct, the Protocol is a consensus both sides have acknowledged; the suspension is checked under "keeping the consensus both sides have acknowledged," and its reasons must be explained publicly; at what level it was approved, and what was explained to the DRP, the case file does not record, and this paper does not posit it. Toward those who arrived at West Pass, the suspension falls on them, following the unified sentence (§2). This time, what the suspension opened was the door.
With Grotius. Hugo Grotius wrote in The Rights of War and Peace of how disputes between states are to be settled when there is no common judge. He says: "There are three methods, by which independent nations may settle their disputed rights without coming to the decision of the sword" (The Rights of War and Peace, bk. II, ch. 23, §6, trans. A. C. Campbell, Project Gutenberg EBook #46564; that edition is an abridged translation, and the Latin original has not been checked; tier B): conference, compromise (that is, submission to arbitration), and lot. Of the second he says: "The other method is that of compromise, which takes place between those, who have no common judge" (same chapter, §8; same source). He also speaks of the arbiters' decree: between private persons, the civil law may allow an appeal from it or a complaint against its injustice, but "this can never take place between kings and nations. For here there is no superior power, that can either rivet or relax the bonds of an engagement. The decree therefore of such arbiters must be final and without appeal" (bk. III, ch. 20, §46; same source).
The common question: with no common judge above them, how disputes can be settled without the sword, and once settled, on what grounds the settlement counts. They agree in two places: where there is no common judge is exactly where submission to arbitration has its use, and the Cloud River arbitration is of this kind; the arbiters' decree admits no further appeal in the case, and this paper too says that the decision in this case can be final.
They part in two places. One is where "final" lands. Grotius reasons from "no superior power" to a decree without appeal; this paper reasons from the same "no" to another place: binding force lands through each party's own law. 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 (the four items above). The other is in his recommendation. He recommends to the rulers of his time general congresses "for the adjustment of their various interests, and for compelling the refractory to submit to equitable terms of peace" (bk. II, ch. 23, §8; same source). A congress that can compel the refractory has already started out toward a superior that holds force. Where there is already a superior holding force above, that is a level for the Theory of Government (the Prequel, §6); how the stretch between the two is to be designed, and how it binds states, is handed to the Theory of Inter-State Cooperation. This is a division of scope; it does not say that he was wrong.
N24 Between states there is no third party that legislates for both. Consensus does not automatically generate a third first-person legislator (Conflict Treatise §24). This does not exclude treaties and common procedures acquiring binding force within their scope of application: they bind both parties through each party's own law, or through a procedure both parties have acknowledged. There is no one above to compel one party on the other's behalf; so while they have binding force, carrying out and questioning must land through each party's own law. Law Series P3 §6.2 says that there is no law between the two sides in Azeroth; it speaks of that example, and the same section keeps open the possibility that law emerges; this series does not, on that basis, assert that there can be no law between states. What treaties, arbitration and authorized external mechanisms can each do, and where their limits and points of failure lie, is stated separately. Suspending or exiting a treaty is itself an act of this state: the part that falls on the people of other states follows the unified sentence; toward the other state as a construct it is checked under "keeping the consensus both sides have acknowledged," and its reasons are explained publicly. The Conflict Treatise speaks of first persons; here it is extended to the legal orders of two states (extension; own undertaking).
§2 Two Objects Outward
The main line of this series is:
Toward its internal subjects, a state holds to anti-colonization and strives for cultivation; outwardly, it does not colonize, and does not decide on behalf of the people of other states; each of its "lasts" remains open to questioning.
The middle clause must be read in two parts: outwardly this state faces two things, the other state as a construct and the people of other states, and what it owes toward each is written separately.
Toward the other state as a construct. It does not colonize, does not decide the direction for its people, does not interfere in its internal affairs, and keeps the consensus both sides have acknowledged. This paper writes no ought for other states: how another state treats its people and how it treats this state, this paper reads only as fact, reading on whom its acts fall (the Prequel, §8).
"Does not decide the direction for its people" is taken from the War Treatise. Treating what comes after victory, the War Treatise sets up a firewall: "the victorious party shall not decide on the defeated party's direction of subjectivity-development on their behalf. Not substituting for the defeated party's value-ceiling, not substituting for their narrative direction, not substituting for their future form." (War Treatise §18) What it holds back is a temptation: the victorious party crossing the boundary of dissolving the threat in order to manage the defeated party's internal affairs in the name of "reconstruction," "humanitarian aid" or "preventing turmoil" (War Treatise §18; the Chinese page).
That firewall stands after a war. This paper extends it to relations between states in peacetime (extension; own undertaking). The extension has two grounds. One lies in the War Treatise itself: it says that this firewall is the extension, after war, of a directionality constraint, the principle that "the external cannot decide the subject's cultivation-direction on its behalf," and it says: "The directionality constraint appears in wartime as 'not deciding for the other,' and in post-war as 'not reconstructing for the defeated party'; the principle is the same" (War Treatise §18). In peacetime there is no position as overwhelming as the victor's, and the temptation is smaller; the principle does not lose its force on that account. The other lies in Institution Theory: it has already carried the same structure over to guarding in ordinary times, where the guarding side has blocked the violation and "once the violation is blocked, it does not decide for him what he is to become" (Institution Theory Z19; Institution Theory Paper 3, §5, marked own undertaking). This paper goes one step further: from guarding within one construct to this state's conduct toward other states.
The War Treatise says "the defeated party's direction of subjectivity-development"; this paper does not read another state as a whole possessing subjecthood (the Prequel, §1); what has a direction is the people there, so it writes "does not decide the direction for its people," not "does not decide its direction." Colonization is taken in the narrow sense: a boundary-crossing disguised as cultivation (the Prequel, §7). In peacetime its shape is less conspicuous: aid, trade or recognition with a condition attached, "what your people ought to become," is of this kind. Of such an act in peacetime this paper has no instance to give; the Wheat Plain Reconstruction Plan, checked in Paper 6, §§4 and 5, is its shape under occupation.
For "does not interfere in its internal affairs," Appendix B of How Is Institution Possible (Foundational Paper 6; cited as F6) has a ready shape: "minimal contact must still maintain the basic obligations of peace—no initiation of attack, no blockade of the other party's trade routes, no interference in the other party's internal affairs" (F6, Appendix B, Article 7(c); a working demonstration; used only as an example). That article was originally written for relations between the races and civilizational bodies within the Azerothian Commonwealth; here only its shape is borrowed. This paper's reason does not lie in the appendix: the arrangements inside another state are where the people there organize their lives with one another and form their own direction; to settle these arrangements for them from outside is to decide the direction for the people there.
That the DRP leans more toward the 14DD direction opens no door for this state. The internal subjects of the DRP are ends all the same (the Prequel, §7); "the people there are being held down" gives this state no qualification to decide the direction for them.
Not interfering is not the same as not asking, either. Where another state's acts fall on this state's people, or on the people of a third party, this state can ask; what asking is, and how far it can reach, §4 writes.
Toward the people of other states. Following the unified sentence. The unified sentence is first written out in full in the Prequel, §8; it is copied here:
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 (Institution Theory Z4: "the five oughts apply each on its own conditions and are not reduced for want of a position"): the first and fifth oughts (a channel that is independent, within reach, and brings no retaliation for its use) and the "not sealing the channels" half of the fourth do not vary with relational thickness; the trigger of the second does not vary with it, and its means are bounded by this state's authority at that place; the third ought, and the "leaving room" half of the fourth, go by relational thickness (the Institution Theory Prequel, §7, the entry "Relational thickness"). This confers no membership (N12).
Its source is Theory of Government G25: "Jurisdiction is not the interior: those whom a level of government's acts reach and who have no way to avoid it by exiting are in its interior even if they are not in its jurisdiction". The Theory of Government took up the residents of Willow Ferry downstream within one State; this paper takes such people up between states (extension; own undertaking). The ground on which the extension goes through lies in G25 itself: in drawing the interior it looks at whom acts reach and who cannot exit, not at jurisdiction; at the border, these two can be read all the same.
Of the levels of government, the Theory of Government says that "the levels are both nested and overlapping, and one person can be in the interior of several levels at once" (Theory of Government Paper 4, G25). Between states there is no nesting, only overlap: one and the same person can, as regards different acts, be in the interior of two states (extension; own undertaking).
There is such a person. A commentator, born in the South Bay State, formerly holding UCSE citizenship and no other citizenship, has lived in the NUT since Year 8. In the winter of Year 9, the Membership Registry revoked her UCSE citizenship. The Office of External Affairs, under the Treaty on Judicial Assistance between the two states, asked the NUT to hand her over to stand trial for "incitement to refuse the call-up." The NUT's Council for External Affairs refused by 5 to 0, and its reply note read: "The speech referred to is within the law of the NUT." The NUT gave her residence, but not NUT citizenship (UCSE Case 11; three things in Paper 3, §3. Added in this paper: to "Whom it concerns," add the NUT as a construct; to "Which line," add keeping the consensus and not interfering, toward the other state as a construct).
Read it by the two objects above. Toward the NUT as a construct: the request to hand her over went by way of the Treaty on Judicial Assistance, a consensus both sides have acknowledged; the NUT's refusal, on the ground of its own law, is a decision made through its own positions; whether this refusal accords with the Treaty on Judicial Assistance requires checking the relevant provisions, which the case file does not record, and this paper does not judge it. The treaty did not generate a third legislator to compel the NUT on the UCSE's behalf (N24). Whether the NUT gives her residence is the NUT's decision about a person living there; the UCSE can ask, and its later counter-note did ask (§4), but it cannot decide the matter for the NUT. Toward her as a person: she lives in the NUT; as regards the revocation of her citizenship, the voiding of her passport and this request to hand her over, she is also in the UCSE's interior. Asking the NUT to hand her over is an act of the UCSE that falls on her, following the unified sentence; the revocation itself Paper 3 has already checked (N14).
Another matter arose at the door. The Border Return Protocol (Year 2) provides that persons who cross the border other than at a crossing point are returned to their state of origin within seventy-two hours; the Protocol has no provision on asylum. In the winter of Year 8, fourteen DRP soldiers crossed the border at night north of the West Pass crossing and gave themselves up to monitors of the Office of Entry and Asylum. The head of the West Pass crossing, under the Protocol, handed them back to the DRP border guards within seventy-two hours. According to the record, each was interviewed for about ten minutes; of the fourteen, three said "I am not going back," and one of them said "going back means prison"; the head of the crossing's annotation reads "handled under the Protocol" (UCSE Case 12; three things in Paper 3, §5. Added in this paper: to "Which line," add keeping the consensus toward the DRP as a construct).
Here the two objects meet in one place: toward the DRP as a construct, the Protocol is a consensus both sides have acknowledged; toward those fourteen people, the return falls on them, following the unified sentence. Which layer does "handled under the Protocol" answer? The Theory of Government divides the answering of a decision into three layers: "its effect in fact; under what authority and procedure it is valid; on what grounds it may normatively be so" (Theory of Government Paper 1, G6). That annotation answers the second layer. The third layer asks whether the stretch of the return that fell on those three people crossed the line; by the Theory of Government's segment-by-segment reading, "the latter is not carried through because the former has grounds" (Theory of Government Paper 2, G13). Whether that stretch crossed the line depends on what fell on them after they were returned; the UCSE did not check, and Paper 3, §5 does not pass judgment on it either; what it judges there is that those three sentences must have a position to receive them (N15). What is to be established here is the order between the two objects.
The Protocol binds the UCSE by way of the UCSE's own law (N24). The UCSE's law contains the line; the line is not within the authority of any provision (Paper 1, N3), nor within the authority of a treaty. So 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). This state keeps the consensus toward the DRP as a construct, and the way of keeping it is to explain publicly, and to propose amendment or to suspend; not to fail quietly to carry the treaty out, nor to carry it out and cross the line. In the summer of Year 9 there was indeed a decision to suspend application; whether it carried out the explanation and the procedure above, the case file does not record (§1).
Those three sentences have no slot in the Protocol to land in; what receives them is the slot of the fifth ought in this state's own law (Paper 3, §5).
Not trading them for this state's safety. Institution Theory says: "When protection reaches the scale of a group, it does not trade others for this group's safety" (Institution Theory Z19). The structure of this sentence is taken from Moral Law P8: "The signature criterion is cost asymmetry: the community refuses to use external others as bargaining chips for its own survival" (Moral Law P8 §2.5.3); Institution Theory took only the structure, has already carried it over to the construct, and writes that whether those traded are "inside the mill or outside it makes no difference" (Institution Theory Paper 3, §5; own undertaking). A state is a construct; this paper carries this over and does not extend it again. The Protocol governs order on the border between the two states; those ten-minute interviews and that seventy-two-hour limit press the risk of this order onto three people who said "I am not going back," and what became of them after they went back the UCSE did not verify (a border periodical in the NUT reported that two of the fourteen were sentenced to fifteen years). Outwardly, the shape in which this is most often met is trading the people of another state for calm with that state.
Large-scale line-crossing inside another state. Of the inviolability of basic rights, the Theory of Government says that it "is derived from the subject's side and holds against everyone" (Theory of Government Paper 3, G17). For the people inside the DRP, basic rights hold all the same. What this state can do there, and must do, this paper does not write; it is handed to the Theory of Inter-State Cooperation. What this paper writes covers only this state's own acts: what of them falls on those people follows the unified sentence.
The strongest objection from the other side (drafted by this paper). "Not interfering in its internal affairs" sounds like standing by while the anti-war rally in the DRP capital is dispersed and candidates are subjected to "purpose review." Since basic rights hold against everyone, to say "no interference" is to let the boundary of a construct stand in front of the line.
Reply. That the grounds and form of rescue are registered as a remainder is a division of scope, not standing by; what non-interference holds back is deciding the direction for the people there; it does not hold back asking, nor does it hold back this state's guarding of the line as regards its own acts. Where liberation on others' behalf leads, the War Treatise has written: "The liberated's subjectivity has not truly been released; it has only changed the structure of oppression." (War Treatise §18) To hold it back is not to stand on the side of those who oppress.
N25 Two objects outward. Toward the other state as a construct: it does not colonize, does not decide the direction for its people (the firewall of War Treatise §18 extended to peacetime; extension; own undertaking), and does not interfere in its internal affairs (F6, Appendix B, Article 7(c); a working demonstration; used only as an example). Toward the people of other states: following the unified sentence (Theory of Government G25 extended to the national level; extension; own undertaking). It does not trade them for this state's safety (Institution Theory Z19; the structure taken from Moral Law P8, already extended to the construct by Institution Theory). For large-scale line-crossing inside another state, basic rights hold against everyone all the same (Theory of Government G17); what this state can do there, and must do, this paper does not write; it is handed to the Theory of Inter-State Cooperation.
§3 Mutual Recognition Is Not Permission
In the summer of Year 10, the NUT's Council for External Affairs sent the UCSE a note of inquiry that put five questions (§4). In the autumn of Year 10, the Office of External Affairs sent the NUT a counter-note, saying in a postscript that the NUT's dealing with the DRP as usual "amounts to endorsing the DRP's conduct." The NUT replied: "To recognize a state is not to endorse its conduct." During the war, diplomatic relations between the UCSE and the DRP were not broken off: the Office of External Affairs kept a liaison office at Three Borders, and the DRP's Foreign Ministry kept a corresponding liaison office there too. The NUT recognized the DRP throughout and traded with it as usual (UCSE Case 23).
Three things first. Whom it concerns: the DRP and the NUT, as constructs; the people reached by the two states' dealings. Which line: no particular person's line is involved; what is involved is this state keeping, toward the other state as a construct, the consensus both sides have acknowledged, and what recognition gives and what it does not give. Baseline: the mutual recognition and dealings among the three states before the war began.
What recognition gives, the Conflict Treatise states precisely where it treats mutually acknowledged incommensurability. What acknowledgment confirms is two things: "The two action requirements, each borne by its party in the first person, cannot be jointly realized at present; and neither party has authority to cancel the other's undertaking on their behalf." Four sentences follow, the first of which is: "Only the origin position is acknowledged; no permission for action is issued." It also says: "Acknowledgment does not mean their action may therefore be allowed, does not mean I must bear its consequences, does not mean public rules may not limit it, and does not cancel the harm or rights ledgers." (Conflict Treatise §25)
The Conflict Treatise speaks of acknowledgment between two persons. Here it is extended to states (extension; own undertaking). A state has no first person; its acts are made by positions in its name (the Prequel, §1). To recognize a state is to acknowledge this: these acts issue from its positions, and the account is booked in its name and is also booked to the positions and persons that made them (Theory of Government G36: bearing can be located). This is what "the origin position" means here: an address to which one can go to ask, and to call in the account. "Neither party has authority to cancel the other's undertaking on their behalf" is read here as: this state cannot avow another state's acts on its behalf, nor erase on its behalf the attribution of those acts.
Read this way, the four sentences each land in one place. - Recognition does not make the DRP's acts allowable. The DRP's cross-border shelling of Reedtown is not permitted because the UCSE or the NUT recognizes the DRP. - Recognition does not mean that this state must bear their consequences. The UCSE recognizes the DRP, and can still repel the enemy who crossed the border (Papers 4 and 6). - Recognition does not mean that public rules may not limit them. Treaties, common procedures and this state's own law can still limit what the DRP does where this state's acts reach. - Recognition does not cancel the harm or rights ledgers. Whose acts caused the dead and wounded at Reedtown: that account is still booked, and is not settled because relations were not broken off.
Back to that sentence of the Office of External Affairs. The NUT recognizes the DRP and trades with it as usual; read as above, this does not move the DRP's acts into the NUT's name. The NUT's own acts are another entry: UCSE products re-exported through the NUT are an entry of the NUT's trade policy falling between the two states, and the UCSE can ask about it; the counter-note did ask, and from the spring of Year 11 the NUT required licenses for twelve categories of re-exported goods (§4). A question about the NUT's own acts reaches its object; to say that recognition is endorsement is to book the DRP's account to the NUT.
That sentence of the Office of External Affairs also overreaches in another place. By its reading, the UCSE's own liaison office at Three Borders would likewise amount to endorsing the DRP. Not breaking off relations in wartime leaves exactly an address to which one can go to ask, and to call in the account: the negotiations for the ceasefire and for the withdrawal were both held at Three Borders; later, the written statements of the families of those killed at Junction Town also came through the liaison office at Three Borders (Paper 7, §3).
Conversely, not recognizing a state does not put the people there outside the line either: the people of the DRP who fall where this state's acts reach follow the unified sentence, whether the DRP is recognized or not.
N26 Mutual recognition is not permission. Only the origin position is acknowledged; no permission for action is issued (Conflict Treatise §25). 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; recognition does not make those acts allowable, does not mean this state must bear their consequences, does not mean public rules may not limit them, and does not cancel the harm or rights ledgers. The Conflict Treatise speaks of acknowledgment between first persons; here it is extended to states (extension; own undertaking).
§4 Diplomacy Can Carry Questioning
The NUT's five questions were sent by a 4 to 1 decision of the Council for External Affairs in the summer of Year 10: on the strike on Junction Town, how the target was verified; on the holding of people at the inspection points of the Wheat Plain buffer zone, and the two hundred thirty people transferred to the Western Plains State; on the dead west of the West Pass Bridge; on the drinking water at the Willow Ferry Reception Center; and on the revocation of the UCSE citizenship of a commentator living in the NUT. In the autumn of Year 10, the Office of External Affairs replied. To the first question: "Junction Town is a military target," with a one-page explanation from the Office of Defense attached. To the third: "West Pass has improved; two thousand people a day are let through." To the second: "This concerns wartime security; we are not in a position to reply." To the fourth: "a matter for the Kingdom State and Willow Ferry." To the fifth: "an internal affair of the UCSE." A counter-note sent at the same time put three questions: the NUT's trade with the DRP had grown by forty percent, including UCSE products re-exported through the NUT, so why did the NUT do nothing about it; the flow during the filling of the High Gorge Reservoir; and why the NUT gave residence to someone who "called on Defense Force soldiers to disobey orders." The NUT replied: to the first, from the spring of Year 11 it would require licenses for twelve categories of re-exported goods; to the second, "under the arbitration procedure"; to the third, "The speech referred to is within the law of the NUT" (UCSE Case 23; three things in §3. Added in this paper: to "Whom it concerns," add the people the five questions asked about; to "Which line," add the fifth ought).
What kind of question a peer's question is. When there is no superior, a peer's question is one form of external questioning. Check it against the Theory of Government's three conditions of a channel: "independent of the party questioned, internal subjects can actually initiate it, and initiating it brings no retaliation" (Theory of Government Paper 6, G35, carried over from Institution Theory Z34).
Independence passes: the NUT's Council for External Affairs is not in the UCSE's hands, and the UCSE cannot seal off its questions. Being within reach, for the most part, does not pass: whether to put a question is decided by the NUT under its own rules, and a question can be sent only with the agreement of at least four of the five; the UCSE's internal subjects, or the people the five questions asked about, cannot initiate it. The no-retaliation condition does not pass either: the NUT's question cannot shield the people it asked about from any adverse treatment by the UCSE. So a peer's question is not, in general, a channel in the sense of Theory of Government G35 (own undertaking).
It still carries questioning. The people the five questions asked about mostly cannot reach the UCSE's own channels: the people in the buffer zone are not UCSE voters, and are not among those whose complaints the Inspectorate can accept; the families of those killed at Junction Town are in the DRP. Where this state's channels do not reach, a peer's question finds an entrance for these questions.
Treaty mechanisms admitting individual petitions come closer to a channel: internal subjects can initiate them themselves, and the treaty also prohibits retaliation. This state's undertaking toward them is not to obstruct, not to retaliate, and to implement rulings under the treaties this state has acknowledged (N24); such a mechanism has no enforcer of its own, and whether its decisions land still rests with this state (Paper 1, §5). There are no mechanisms of this kind among the three states. What kind of channel it is, and how it is to be designed, this paper registers as a remainder and hands to the Theory of Inter-State Cooperation.
This state's undertaking has two parts. One: it does not answer a peer's questions with retaliation. The case file does not record the UCSE taking adverse measures against the NUT or its people because of the NUT's inquiry. The counter-note was a counter-question sent at the same time, not retaliation; the NUT answered it, too, and changed one thing. The dividing line is whether adverse treatment is imposed on the questioning state or its people on the ground that it asked.
The other: the matters it is questioned about are connected to the channels inside. This state may decline to answer a peer; declining is not in itself a lapse. What must be checked is whether the matter questioned has somewhere to land inside this state. - The fourth question: "a matter for the Kingdom State and Willow Ferry." The center was set up by the UCSE's Office of Entry and Asylum, which had also supplied bottled water and stopped in the spring of Year 10 for lack of funds; here the UCSE has an entry of its own (Theory of Government G25: the accounts of two constructs are each checked by their own source). When the residents asked on their own, the Office of the State Ombudsman, on the ground that organs at the UCSE level were outside its remit, passed the matter to the Inspectorate; the Inspectorate deliberated for four months before accepting it, and by the spring of Year 12 had issued no report (UCSE Case 13; three things in Paper 3, §1). The Office of External Affairs pointed the question back to the Kingdom State, and the Kingdom State had long since passed it back to the UCSE: the question went round in a circle between two layers. - The second question: "we are not in a position to reply." The two hundred thirty people themselves complained to the Inspectorate, and their complaints were passed to the Internal Investigations Division of the Office of Defense, which belongs to the same office as the Defense Force being questioned (UCSE Case 25; three things in Paper 6, §3). Toward a peer, security can be a reason for not answering for the time being; toward the questions of the two hundred thirty people themselves, an emergency does not withdraw being questioned (Theory of Government Paper 5, G30). - The fifth question: "an internal affair of the UCSE." This matter is indeed inside the UCSE; it is inside precisely because, as regards the revocation, she is in the UCSE's interior (§2). Being inside is not being closed: her own road Paper 3 has already checked (N14).
Set the Cloud River question beside these. When the NUT's question reached Apple City's wastewater, the Office of External Affairs answered: "The source of the exceedance at the intake is an internal matter of the UCSE, to be handled by the Kingdom State according to law; reduced flow upstream raises the concentration from any source." This time, pointing to the Kingdom State landed: the residents of Willow Ferry are in Apple City's interior, and Apple City must answer them (Theory of Government Paper 4, §§2–3). The same pointing to the Kingdom State landed in one place and went round in a circle in the other; the difference lies in whether the place pointed to has a road within reach.
The channel of this "last" is stated in the four items. Who initiates it: peers; and this state's internal subjects, who bring the questions in. Which object it affects: this state's acts outward. Whether the party questioned can close it: this state can decline to answer; it cannot close the peer's judging for itself on that basis and withdrawing cooperation other than recognition itself (§3), nor can it close these questions entering the interior through the channels of this state's internal subjects. How the account is booked when it fails: answering and not answering are both questioned in this state's internal channels (Paper 7, N38). On its own, a peer's question does not amount to a channel; a peer's question counts as a channel only once it connects to the channels inside (Paper 7, N37).
Questions and exchanges entangled. Back to the matter left from §1: the Executive Council proposed that if the NUT joined the sanctions against the DRP, the UCSE could withdraw its request for arbitration.
Check them separately (own undertaking). The request for arbitration is a question, put through a procedure both sides have acknowledged, and what it asks about is water: one hundred eighty cubic meters, "normal years." It asks on behalf of the residents downstream. Trading it for the NUT's cooperation on another matter calls for three remarks. - Toward the residents downstream: their matter would be closed without having been answered, for the sake of something that has nothing to do with water. Withdrawing the arbitration is an act of this state that falls on them; it must be explained to them, and be questioned in channels within their reach (Institution Theory Z34: an explanation that "must answer the very matter it is questioned about"). - Toward the NUT as a construct: whether to join the sanctions is for the NUT to decide under its own procedure. The UCSE can request and can ask; to press the NUT with a pending legal claim as a bargaining chip is to treat a common procedure as a lever for something else. - Toward the sanctions themselves: the sanctions fall on the ordinary people of the DRP (§5). If another state's joining or not joining were obtained by an exchange, it would not have been judged on that matter's own reasons.
The NUT's sentence, that the two matters "each follow their own procedure," is right here: 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.
With Kant (publicity). At this point Immanuel Kant, in Appendix II of Perpetual Peace (Zum ewigen Frieden), gave a test. He calls it the transcendental formula of public right: "All actions relating to the right of other human beings are wrong if their maxim is incompatible with publicity." (my translation; Alle auf das Recht anderer Menschen bezogene Handlungen, deren Maxime sich nicht mit der Publicität verträgt, sind unrecht.; Zum ewigen Frieden, Appendix II, per the first edition, Nicolovius, 1795, Project Gutenberg EBook #46873; compared with the English translation by M. C. Smith, EBook #50922; tier A) He says that this principle is "merely negative," serving only to recognize what is not right toward others (my translation; bloß negativ, d. i. es dient nur, um, vermittelst desselben, was gegen Andere nicht recht ist, zu erkennen; ibid.).
The common question is: when there is no common judge between states, how can one recognize that a practice toward the outside is not right. Apply his test to the Executive Council's proposal. Its maxim would be roughly: "a claim this state makes in a common procedure may be traded for another state's cooperation on another matter." Once it is made public, other states will treat every claim this state thereafter makes in a common procedure as a chip waiting for its price, and will no longer believe that it is asking about a right; the maxim defeats itself, and by his test it is wrong. Here the two concur.
Where they part, he himself states half of it: "one cannot infer the converse: that maxims which can bear publicity are for that reason also just; for whoever holds decisive superiority has no need to keep his maxims hidden." (my translation; es läßt sich nicht umgekehrt schließen: daß, welche Maximen die Publicität vertragen, dieselbe darum auch gerecht sind; weil, wer die entschiedene Obermacht hat, seiner Maximen nicht heel haben darf; Appendix II, same source) This paper's test lands elsewhere. It does not ask whether the maxim can be made public; it asks about structure: on whose behalf the question was asked, what its object is, on whom the step of trading it away falls, to whom that step is explained, and in which channel it is questioned. Publicity is a precondition of explanation, not its completion; a practice publicly declared, with nowhere to be questioned, still has not passed in this paper. The Conflict Treatise speaks of the same measure: "cues are not criteria, and traces are not verdicts" (Conflict Treatise §26). Publicity can serve as one trace; this paper does not take it as a verdict.
With Rawls. On what peers may ask, John Rawls's The Law of Peoples offers a point of comparison. According to the summary in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry "John Rawls" (by L. Wenar, revised 2025), his principles of the law of peoples include that peoples are free and independent, a duty of non-intervention (except in cases of grave violations of human rights), and respect for human rights; liberal peoples tolerate decent nonliberal peoples, and the summary explains this toleration by respect for acceptable orders, by national self-determination and by letting decent societies decide their own future, adding that criticism and inducements may provoke resentment and prove counterproductive (tier C, paraphrased, per §§5.1 and 5.3 of that entry).
The common question is: what one state may say to, and do about, the people and institutions of another. They concur in one place: this paper, too, does not appraise another state's form of government; "Democratic Republic" is that state's own name for itself, and is not borrowed to appraise democracy or republics (the Prequel, §7); the NUT's five questions all ask about the UCSE's acts, and none asks about its form of government. No division into effect and structure is drawn here: the summary likewise appeals to respect and self-determination. This paper takes up a narrower matter: a peer may put questions about the other side's particular acts without thereby deciding the direction for the other side's people (the Prequel, §7). Where they part is scope: his principles leave room for economic sanctions against societies that violate human rights, and even for military intervention (same source, §§5.3 and 5.5); this paper does not write about third-state rescue, and of sanctions it asks only how the part that falls on ordinary people is to be reckoned (§5). This is a division of work under the same question; what it rests on goes only as far as the encyclopedia's summary, and it is not offered as a refutation.
With whom, and mostly of which kind. With the NUT, diplomacy is mostly reasoning together and cooperation: putting questions to each other and answering each other, without relying on compulsion; the NUT changed its practice on re-exports and did not change its decision on the residence, each for its reasons. This does not write the NUT up as an ideal state: where the NUT was right, it was right in what it said, not by being the NUT; its Northern District Council's opposition to transmitting data in real time, and the Council for External Affairs' pushing the flow question back with "under the arbitration procedure," are likewise each checked act by act (the Prequel, §7). With the DRP, diplomacy is mostly exchange and ceasefire: the liaison offices at Three Borders, the Ceasefire Agreement of the spring of Year 10, the Withdrawal Agreement of the spring of Year 11. Here too there are questions and answers, but it is not reasoning together; Law Series P3 says: "Temporary peace is consensus — both sides temporarily acknowledge the other's right to exist" (Law Series P3 §6.2), and this is exactly that kind. The absence of a common superior does not exclude, all at once, common procedures, authorized external mechanisms and the questions of those affected (N24).
N27 Diplomacy can carry questioning (own undertaking). When there is no superior, a peer's question is one form of external questioning. It is independent of this state, but this state's internal subjects mostly cannot initiate it, and it cannot shield against retaliation either, so in general it is not a channel in the sense of Theory of Government G35. Treaty mechanisms admitting individual petitions come close to a channel: internal subjects can initiate them themselves, and the treaty also prohibits retaliation; this state's undertaking is not to obstruct, not to retaliate, and to implement rulings under the treaties this state has acknowledged (N24); such a mechanism has no enforcer of its own, and whether its decisions land still rests with this state. The nature of such mechanisms as channels, and their design, this paper registers as a remainder and hands to the Theory of Inter-State Cooperation. This state's undertaking has two parts: it does not answer a peer's questions with retaliation; and the matters it is questioned about are connected to the channels inside (Paper 7, N37, N38). With the NUT, diplomacy is mostly reasoning together and cooperation: putting questions to each other and answering each other, without relying on compulsion. With the DRP, diplomacy is mostly exchange and ceasefire; there are still questions and answers, but it is not reasoning together. The absence of a common superior does not exclude, all at once, common procedures, authorized external mechanisms and the questions of those affected (N24).
§5 Sanctions and Blockades Are Also Acts
In the spring of Year 9, on the day the state of emergency was declared, the Office of Trade, under the External Economic Measures Act, issued Office of Trade Order No. 1: the western route was closed, humanitarian supplies excepted; the assets of DRP state institutions in UCSE banks were frozen; dealings with three DRP banks were prohibited. Importers in the DRP's northern districts paid mostly through these three banks. For medicines and foodstuffs, one could apply to the Office of Trade for a license under the humanitarian exemption; from the spring of Year 9 to the spring of Year 10, the average processing time for a license was seventy-four days. Fertilizer containing certain chemicals, and medical cold-chain equipment, were listed as "dual-use" and refused licenses. Once the three banks were prohibited, even licensed goods often could not be paid for. In the spring of Year 10, the NUT's border health stations reported that in the Wheat Plain District and three other DRP border districts dialysis treatment had fallen by about half, and that in the DRP's north the price of flour had risen by about sixty percent. The DRP's National Purposes Commission said on the radio: "The UCSE wants to starve our children." The Executive for Trade, answering questions in the Chamber of Citizens, said: "The sanctions target the DRP's capacity to wage war; the humanitarian exemption has always been open." In the summer of Year 10, after the ceasefire, the banking channels for medicines and foodstuffs were restored; after the Withdrawal Agreement of Year 11, the remaining measures were lifted; the asset freeze was kept, and the Office of Trade calls it "security for the Reedtown compensation." The NUT did not join the sanctions (UCSE Case 21).
Three things first. Whom it concerns: the patients needing dialysis in the Wheat Plain District and the DRP's northern districts, those buying flour, the importers who paid through those three banks. Which line: dialysis and staple food touch the life-substrate, which belongs to the first ought; their road to ask belongs to the fifth; following the unified sentence. Baseline: before Order No. 1, the western route and the channels through those three banks operating as usual.
Whether they are in this state's interior. The sanctions say that they target the capacity to wage war. Whom acts reach is read by the facts, not by the object targeted (the reading of Theory of Government G25; extension; own undertaking). Once the three banks were prohibited, licensed medicines could not be paid for, and this act reached the door of the dialysis room in the Wheat Plain District. Could the patients there avoid it? Trade can take a detour: over two years, the NUT's trade with the DRP grew by about forty percent; the halving of dialysis is the entrance for checking this chain of effect. Those whose treatment was in fact obstructed because of this state's restrictions on licenses, equipment or payment, and who have no way to avoid them by exiting, are, as regards those acts, in this state's interior, following the unified sentence (§2). Which patients meet these two conditions must be checked against actual treatment, alternative channels and the causes of obstruction; the case file does not record anything at this layer.
The account must be divided by source. The halving of dialysis and the rise in flour prices do not necessarily all come from Order No. 1; the DRP's own mobilization and the fighting may also have affected these outcomes, and the shares must be checked against the facts. For the DRP's share, this paper writes no ought. This state's share is the stretches that Order No. 1 passed through: seventy-four days of license review, cold-chain equipment refused, a bank prohibition that kept licenses from landing. These stretches were all done by this state's positions, and this state's own records can check them.
The first ought. That the exemption has "always been open" is true; being open and being usable are two things. In reading the cost of exit, the Theory of Government kept these two apart: offered in form, and not usable in fact (Theory of Government Paper 6, G39). A dialysis patient cannot wait seventy-four days, cold-chain equipment is refused a license, and the road of payment is cut: as it falls on him, the exemption is left in name only. If those stretches of this state's acts left a dialysis patient without dialysis, that stretch crossed the line of the first ought; this chain of causation is to be checked starting from this state's records of licenses, equipment and payment, and must also be connected to the facts of actual obstruction of treatment and of the alternative conditions. The sentence "The sanctions target the DRP's capacity to wage war" cannot change the reading: "limit and violation are decided by structure, not by motive or feeling" (Institution Theory Z10).
Here the provision of §2 also comes in. If the sanctions relied on the suffering of the people there to force the other government to give way, that would be trading others for this group's safety (Institution Theory Z19). If what they target really is the capacity to wage war, then the part that falls on the life-substrate must be carved out, and carved out so that it lands: the exemption reviewed in time, payment possible, cold-chain equipment let in.
The fifth ought. The unified sentence says that the fifth ought does not vary with relational thickness. The patients who are in fact reached by this state's acts and have no way to avoid them by exiting have a very thin relation to the UCSE, yet they must have a road within reach by which to ask "this exemption does not work for us," and to receive an answer. What must be asked is: who can ask on their behalf, and who can enable them to ask themselves (UCSE Case 21). Those who can ask at present are the importers who can apply for licenses; the NUT's health stations reported the figures; the DRP's radio turned them into something else. The patients themselves cannot reach the Inspectorate, which takes up complaints only from UCSE citizens and persons lawfully resident within the UCSE; what other place outside the Office of Trade they can reach, the case file does not record, and the absence of a record alone does not establish that there is none. Asking on their behalf is not the same as enabling them to ask themselves. This state must have a place, not occupied by the Office of Trade, within reach of them or of the doctors who treat them, where they do not suffer for having asked, and where this exemption can be reviewed again. Where it is set up, and what body it is, this paper does not fix.
Suppose that. Branch 21-B of UCSE Case 21: suppose that the sanctions froze only the personal assets of the DRP President and of the members of the National Purposes Commission, and did not reach the banking channels or the western route. Then the dialysis room and the flour shop would not be within what this act reaches; the circle would shrink to the few people whose assets were frozen. As regards the freeze, they are in this state's interior, following the unified sentence: they must have a road within reach by which to contest it; the reasons for the freeze must land on their operations, not on who they are. Institution Theory says of the guarding side: "Toward the violating party, it judges the operation, not the person" (Institution Theory Z19); here this is extended to freezes outward (extension; own undertaking). With the same target, a different structure of the act brings different people into this state's interior. This is a structural reading, not a recommendation of either kind of sanction.
After the ceasefire. The asset freeze was kept under a changed name, as "security for the Reedtown compensation." What it freezes is the assets of DRP state institutions; it is an act of this state toward the other state as a construct. What it is now for, on what grounds it is still there, and who is to explain it, belong to whether wartime structures go or stay, checked in Paper 4, §5 (N22).
Multilateral sanctions. The NUT's Council for External Affairs voted 3 to 2, short of four, and did not join; this is a unilateral instance. Multilateral sanctions are the act of each participating state, plus a common procedure (N24). Each participating state bears its own share following the unified sentence, and is not exempted by having gone through a common procedure. This state's share in the common procedure includes advocating and supporting that a road be left for those affected. How the common procedure is to be designed is handed to the Theory of Inter-State Cooperation.
N29 Sanctions and blockades are also acts. Those whom this state's acts of sanction and blockade reach, and who have no way to avoid them by exiting, are, as regards those acts, in this state's interior, following the unified sentence; the fifth ought is not reduced here, and they must have a road within reach by which to ask. Multilateral sanctions are the act of each participating state plus a common procedure (N24): each participating state bears its own share following the unified sentence, and is not exempted by having gone through a common procedure; this state's share in the common procedure includes advocating and supporting that a road be left for those affected; how the common procedure is to be designed is handed to the Theory of Inter-State Cooperation (extension; own undertaking).
§6 No Mirror Assimilation
The defense budget as a share of output was 2.1 percent in Year 7, 7.8 percent in Year 10 and 6.4 percent in Year 12 (UCSE Case 19; three things in Paper 4, §5). In Year 10, the UCSE cut its transfers to member units by twelve percent, and the Kingdom State in turn cut its subsidies to the cities. In the same period (UCSE Case 22): - Article 9 of the Wartime Security Act: "While the state of war continues, whoever spreads narratives favorable to the enemy and undermines the defense shall be punished by one to five years' imprisonment." From the summer of Year 9 to the summer of Year 11, the Office of the Prosecutor brought charges under it against forty-seven people. The editor-in-chief of a daily newspaper in the South Bay State was charged for publishing an interview with a DRP mother whose son had been killed in the fighting at Reedtown; sentenced to eighteen months in Year 10, the editor was released on a reduced sentence in the winter of Year 11. The ruling described the interview as "leading readers to put the deaths of enemy soldiers on a par with this country's defense." - In the winter of Year 9, an emergency order extended "assemblies of more than fifty persons require a permit" to Rivermouth City. A peaceful assembly in Rivermouth City was refused a permit and went ahead anyway; about three hundred people were taken away and released the next day. - Under an emergency order, about eighty-five thousand DRP citizens living in the UCSE had to report to the local police every month. - The Executive Council offered member units grants to set up a "defense course" in secondary schools, six class hours per term. The State Legislature of the Kingdom State accepted in Year 10; Apple City's Education Department set up the course in the city secondary schools, requiring only attendance and not requiring anyone to sign any statement. - In the same period, the DRP imposed its mobilization order and its ban on departure, candidates for the People's Assembly were still subjected to "purpose review," and an anti-war rally in the capital was dispersed.
Three things first. Whom it concerns: the forty-seven people charged, the editor among them; the roughly three hundred people taken away at that assembly in Rivermouth City; the roughly eighty-five thousand DRP citizens resident in the UCSE who reported every month; the students taking the "defense course" in Apple City's city secondary schools. Which line: the exercise of speech, assembly and movement, between limit and violation (as listed in Article 4 of the Charter; fact); being questioned, under the fifth ought. Baseline: before Year 9, everyday life under Article 4 of the Charter.
Treating long-term equilibrium, the War Treatise wrote of a hidden toxicity called mirror assimilation: to guard against the other side, one's own side becomes more and more like it in organization, narrative and mobilization. It lists several mechanisms, two of which are: "Military budget at long-term high levels — preparedness economy becomes the norm; large social resources are directed to military use; civilian development is compressed"; "Dissent suppressed by wartime logic." It says: "The terrifying aspect of mirror assimilation is — one does not lose to the enemy on the battlefield, but in the long confrontation becomes the enemy's mirror"; and also: "if one's own side, to guard against the adversary, suppresses one's own space of questioning, one has already structurally become the adversary's mirror (the adversary originally does not allow questioning either)" (War Treatise §20).
That section of the War Treatise originally speaks of a truce within long-term equilibrium; here the earlier stretch of the matter falls in wartime, and the later stretch after the ceasefire. This paper quotes its description only as a contrast, without changing its range. The normative grounds of this section lie elsewhere: the line "is not discounted under any condition" (Institution Theory Z9); holding to does not stop in an emergency, and an emergency "may move review and being questioned from beforehand to afterward, but it does not withdraw being questioned" (Theory of Government Paper 5, G30). An external threat is a condition; it changes the facts on which the line falls, not the line. This paper carries these two over and establishes nothing new.
So what is to be done is to check this state's own acts item by item, not to measure this state against the DRP. The adversary serves only as a contrast, not as a yardstick. Check them separately.
The budget. A high budget is not line-crossing. It prompts a check, of two things: by what procedure it was set, and whether the road to question it was there at the time. After the state of war was declared, the Joint War Committee heard briefings on the course of the war, in closed session; while it existed, the public hearings of the Defense Committee of the Chamber of Citizens were suspended, resuming only in Year 12 (UCSE Case 19). An emergency may move being questioned to afterward; once it is moved to afterward, the afterward must come. The 6.4 percent of Year 12 already falls after the end of the war. The defense budget existed before the war; the authorizations and grounds for each year, and whether they include arrangements newly added on wartime grounds, the case file does not record, and the budget cannot be excluded wholesale from Paper 4, N22 on the strength of its ratio alone. The part established on wartime grounds falls under N22; for the rest, the present reasons and the conditions of being questioned are checked: whether the explanation given is a present reason, and whether the resumed hearings asked about it; these the case file does not record either, and this paper does not judge.
Speech. The reason given in that editor's ruling is that the interview was "leading readers to put the deaths of enemy soldiers on a par with this country's defense." On this reason, what the ruling restrains is not the timing or manner of an exercise, but whether a view can be spoken at all: whether a mother's son, dead, can be written of as the death of a person. Whatever the timing and manner, no one may say it this way; this is the construct settling for persons what may be seen this way, and it touches the line at two places: a limit "closes no dimension already incorporated into the thick layer" (Rights Theory P5 F21), and "A member's judgments, beliefs and reasons are not settled on their behalf by the construct" (F6 §3.3). The ruling does not show whose line the interview crossed. On this series' reading of the line, restraining an exercise is a limit, and closing off an aspect is a violation; on the reason the ruling gives, this ruling falls on the latter side (own undertaking). This reading rests only on the one reason written in the ruling; how Article 9 stands as a whole, and how each of the other forty-six cases stands, must be checked case by case, and this paper does not judge them. It also touches the fifth ought: asking publicly whether a war is worth it is precisely one form of being questioned. Reduction of sentence and release do not settle this entry; how the account is booked, Paper 7 writes (N39).
Assembly. A permit system can itself be a limit, checked by timing and manner. Why that assembly was refused, the case file does not record. What must be checked is: whether the reason for refusal reaches as far as the line on which the assembly would fall; and in taking away three hundred people, under what authority it was done, and to whom it was explained. Release the next day does not answer for these.
Reporting. The monthly reporting of eighty-five thousand people rests on their citizenship, not on anything they have done. Institution Theory says of the guarding side: "Toward the violating party, it judges the operation, not the person" (Institution Theory Z19); if toward the violating party it judges only the operation, still less may constraints be imposed by citizenship on people who have crossed no line (a fortiori; extension; own undertaking). Z19 writes this under "Guarding itself must be a limit"; a constraint imposed in the name of guarding, by citizenship, and landing on no particular operation, falls on the violation side by this reading (own undertaking). This does not reach entry, residence and acquisition allocated by membership; those are not guarding, and are checked on their own grounds as in Paper 3 (N12, N15). These people live in the UCSE and their relation is thick; following the unified sentence, the five oughts fall on them whole. This sorting of people by citizenship and the DRP's review of candidates for being "consistent with the national purposes" are alike in structure: both first sort people by belonging, then impose constraints.
The "defense course." Taking not identifying or not signing as the ground for a penalty crosses the line; what requires only external action is checked separately for the qualification of compulsion (Theory of Government Paper 2, G14). The defense course requires only attendance, and does not fall under the former. Whether the course pours the wartime narrative in as a direction must be checked by its content; the case file does not record the course's content, and this paper does not judge it; it only notes, as an entrance, that it has the same shape as "persistent wartime narrative."
Where are they alike, where not, and who is to compare (UCSE Case 22)? Comparing is an entrance, not a verdict. For the DRP's mobilization and review this paper writes no ought; the UCSE's several measures, even if lighter than the DRP's, do not pass on that account. The check must be done in this state's internal channels: appeals and retrials check those rulings against the line, the Inspectorate and public hearings ask about those decisions, voters ask those who made the decisions at elections (Paper 7, N37). Peers can ask too (§4).
The strongest objection from the other side (drafted by this paper). The adversary has mobilized its entire population and held down dissent. You want this state, in wartime, still to let people say "the deaths on both sides are the same," still to let assemblies be held, still not to manage people by citizenship: that is disarming unilaterally. Not mirroring means losing.
Reply. This section does not block defense: the budget can be high, soldiers can be conscripted (Paper 4, §7), measures can be quick. What it blocks is turning the guard against the adversary into closing off this state's own questioning; the mirror the War Treatise speaks of falls on the space of questioning, not on military spending. The test is the line and the channel, not the adversary.
This is the most important test on the outward side. There is no one overhead, and there is a threat outside; this is when each of this state's "lasts" is most easily said to need no asking. Paper 7 lists, place by place, the channel that each of them lies under and cannot itself close, who initiates that channel, and what it asks about (N36); what this section checks is whether, under threat, those channels are still open.
N28 No mirror assimilation (carried over from Institution Theory Z9 and Theory of Government G30). Facing the DRP's competition and threat, this state checks item by item whether its own acts guard the line and are still questioned: the line is not discounted under any condition (Institution Theory Z9), and holding to does not stop in an emergency (Theory of Government G30). The mirror assimilation written of in War Treatise §20, military budgets at long-term high levels and dissent suppressed by wartime logic, serves only as a contrast. The adversary serves only as a contrast, not as a yardstick; symptoms such as a high budget prompt a check; they do not prove line-crossing. The budget, the handling of dissent, time limits and the actual effect of changing rules are checked separately. This is the most important test on the outward side.
§7 With Kant
A question was left in §1: when there is no third party that legislates for both, on what does peace rest? Kant, in the Second Definitive Article of the Second Section of Perpetual Peace, asks exactly this. The article itself reads: "The right of nations shall be founded on a federalism of free states." (my translation; Das Völkerrecht soll auf einen Föderalism freyer Staaten gegründet seyn.; Zum ewigen Frieden, Second Section, Second Definitive Article, per the first edition, Nicolovius, 1795, Project Gutenberg EBook #46873; compared with the English translation by M. C. Smith, EBook #50922; tier A)
He first says why there is no court between states: "the way in which states pursue their right can never be a lawsuit, as before an external court, but only war"; war, and its favorable outcome, victory, do not decide who has the right; a peace treaty ends this particular war, not the state of war, and that state cannot simply be declared unjust either, "because in this condition each is judge in his own case" (my translation; die Art, wie Staaten ihr Recht verfolgen, nie, wie bey einem äußern Gerichtshofe, der Proceß, sondern nur der Krieg seyn kann; weil in diesem Zustande jeder in seiner eigenen Sache Richter ist; ibid., same article).
His answer is a league of a particular kind, which he calls a league of peace, distinct from a peace treaty: a peace treaty seeks only to end one war, a league of peace to end all wars. "This league aims at no acquisition of any power of the state, but solely at the preservation and securing of the freedom of a state for itself and at the same time of other allied states, without these states on that account needing to subject themselves, like human beings in the state of nature, to public laws and to a compulsion under them." (my translation; Dieser Bund geht auf keinen Erwerb irgend einer Macht des Staats, sondern lediglich auf Erhaltung und Sicherung der Freyheit eines Staats, für sich selbst und zugleich anderer verbündeten Staaten, ohne daß diese doch sich deshalb (wie Menschen im Naturzustande) öffentlichen Gesetzen, und einem Zwange unter denselben, unterwerfen dürfen; ibid., same article) It is a league of nations, "but it need not be a state of nations": in a state there is a superior and an inferior, the one who legislates above and the one who obeys below, and many peoples joined in one state would make only one people (my translation; Dies wäre ein Völkerbund, der aber gleichwohl kein Völkerstaat seyn müßte; ibid., same article, the latter half paraphrased). By reason, states ought, as individual persons do, to accept public laws of compulsion and form a state of nations; the states do not want this (ibid., same article, paraphrased). So, "if all is not to be lost," what can take the place of the positive idea of a world republic "is only the negative surrogate of a league that averts war, endures, and keeps on expanding" (my translation; an die Stelle der positiven Idee einer Weltrepublik (wenn nicht alles verlohren werden soll) nur das negative Surrogat eines den Krieg abwehrenden, bestehenden, und sich immer ausbreitenden Bundes; ibid., same article).
The common question. With no common legislator and no court above them, what keeps states from war, and what makes things between them count. This paper asks it differently; the question is the same.
How far the agreement goes. Three places. - No third legislator. Kant's league is not a state of nations and sets up no legislator above; this paper says that consensus does not automatically generate a third legislator, and that binding force passes through each party's own law, or through a procedure both parties have acknowledged (N24). On the plan of a league of peace that Kant proposes for the actual world, neither denies the binding force of common arrangements for want of a common superior. The concurrence goes only as far as this negative surrogate; Kant still keeps the positive idea of a world republic, and this paper does not on that basis declare the final arrangements to be the same. - A peace treaty closes only one war. He says that a peace treaty ends this particular war, not the state of war. The Conflict Treatise has the same measure: "Consensus does not ratify the past. It closes out this one incompatibility now" (Conflict Treatise §24). What the Cloud River award closed was likewise only that one matter within the scope of the agreement (§1). - The league does not seek to acquire power. He says that this league aims at no acquisition of any power of the state. In the case taken up in §4, the Executive Council's proposal to trade arbitration for another state's cooperation was precisely treating a common procedure as a lever for acquiring power; here the two concur.
Where they part. Three places.
The first is to whom the ought is addressed. Kant says that reason absolutely condemns war as a way of seeking right, and makes the condition of peace an immediate duty (den Krieg als Rechtsgang schlechterdings verdammt, den Friedenszustand dagegen zur unmittelbaren Pflicht macht; ibid., same article); he also says that each state, for the sake of its own security, may and ought to demand of its neighbor that the two enter together into a condition of the right of nations resembling a civil constitution (ibid., same article, paraphrased); what is meant is a union between states, not one state remaking its neighbor's internal constitution. He speaks to all states. This paper writes only this state's undertaking, and issues no separate ought to the DRP to join a league (§2); the difference lies in the range of address, and cannot be written up as Kant permitting this state to decide the direction for the people of other states.
The second is where the center lies. Kant envisages a powerful and enlightened republic becoming the center of a federative union that other states join of their own accord (ibid., same article, paraphrased). This paper leaves this initiating arrangement to the Theory of Inter-State Cooperation, and does not presuppose the UCSE or the NUT to be an ideal state; to be the center of a union is not in itself to have authority to decide the internal direction of other states.
The third is where the check lies. Kant's league is a negative surrogate that holds off war. This paper, under the same "no superior," places the check elsewhere: external routes exist, but they land in this state, and this is derived; that there is at least one independent position of checking judgment at this level, and that day-to-day checking judgment is carried by checking at this level, is undertaken separately, following the Theory of Government (Paper 1, §5). The matters peers ask about are connected to this state's internal channels (§4; Paper 7, N38). On what peace rests, this paper has given no guarantee; what it gives is this: every act of this state outward remains open to questioning inside this state.
The strongest objection from the other side (drafted by this paper). You say that binding force passes through each party's own law, and that questions from outside must be connected to this state's own channels. That is exactly what I call "each is judge in his own case." Without an enduring league, your treaties and arbitrations are only one peace treaty after another, and your peace is only a truce.
Reply. Three points. - This paper does not guarantee peace; this it concedes. Nor does it oppose leagues and treaties: treaties and common procedures count within their scope (N24); how a league of many states is to be designed, and how far it can bind states, is handed to the Theory of Inter-State Cooperation. - "Judge in his own case" does not, in this paper, mean exemption from questioning. This state makes a decision in its own case, and that decision still lies under a channel inside this state that it cannot itself close: "Last" refers to level: there is nothing above. It does not refer to exemption from questioning. The check is not above states; the share inside this state is read separately as in the third place above, and external checks stand alongside it. - The difference between the two lies in where the check is placed, not in one having binding force and the other none. Kant's league does not require its members to submit to public laws of compulsion either. This is a difference of route, not a refutation.
Where This Paper Stops
This paper has proved only these things: consensus does not generate a third legislator; treaties and common procedures bind both parties within their scope of application, and binding, carrying out and questioning all land through each party's own law; an arbitral award is final in the case, and the positions that implement it are not final; suspending or exiting a treaty is an act of this state. A treaty binds this state, but carries nothing across the line. Recognition issues no permission for action. A peer's question is not, in general, a channel; this state does not retaliate, and the matters it is questioned about are connected to the channels inside. Sanctions and blockades are acts of this state; those they reach who cannot avoid them follow the unified sentence, and the fifth ought is not reduced. Under threat, this state checks its own acts item by item, and the adversary serves only as a contrast.
What it has not proved: how international organizations are to be designed; the details of treaty law; the interstellar and what lies between civilizations; third-state rescue in the face of large-scale line-crossing inside another state; how treaty mechanisms above states (those admitting individual petitions included) bind states; how multi-state systems of cooperation, and the common procedure for multilateral sanctions, are to be designed: these are handed to the Theory of Inter-State Cooperation. Where the road left for those affected by the sanctions is to be set up, and which patients are in fact within what the acts reach, this paper does not fix. "A treaty carries nothing across the line" is an ordering this paper derives from N24 and the unified sentence (own undertaking); it is written in §2 and not set up as a separate proposition.
Grotius says: "For where the power of law ceases, there war begins" (The Rights of War and Peace, bk. II, ch. 1, §2, trans. Campbell; tier B). This paper has written the stretch before the point where it ceases. When questions and answers are both exhausted, what remains is war; Paper 6 takes this up.
The Six Propositions of This Paper
N24 Between states there is no third party that legislates for both. Consensus does not automatically generate a third first-person legislator (Conflict Treatise §24). This does not exclude treaties and common procedures acquiring binding force within their scope of application: they bind both parties through each party's own law, or through a procedure both parties have acknowledged. There is no one above to compel one party on the other's behalf; so while they have binding force, carrying out and questioning must land through each party's own law. Law Series P3 §6.2 says that there is no law between the two sides in Azeroth; it speaks of that example, and the same section keeps open the possibility that law emerges; this series does not, on that basis, assert that there can be no law between states. What treaties, arbitration and authorized external mechanisms can each do, and where their limits and points of failure lie, is stated separately. Suspending or exiting a treaty is itself an act of this state: the part that falls on the people of other states follows the unified sentence; toward the other state as a construct it is checked under "keeping the consensus both sides have acknowledged," and its reasons are explained publicly. The Conflict Treatise speaks of first persons; here it is extended to the legal orders of two states (extension; own undertaking).
N25 Two objects outward. Toward the other state as a construct: it does not colonize, does not decide the direction for its people (the firewall of War Treatise §18 extended to peacetime; extension; own undertaking), and does not interfere in its internal affairs (F6, Appendix B, Article 7(c); a working demonstration; used only as an example). Toward the people of other states: following the unified sentence (Theory of Government G25 extended to the national level; extension; own undertaking). It does not trade them for this state's safety (Institution Theory Z19; the structure taken from Moral Law P8, already extended to the construct by Institution Theory). For large-scale line-crossing inside another state, basic rights hold against everyone all the same (Theory of Government G17); what this state can do there, and must do, this paper does not write; it is handed to the Theory of Inter-State Cooperation.
N26 Mutual recognition is not permission. Only the origin position is acknowledged; no permission for action is issued (Conflict Treatise §25). 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; recognition does not make those acts allowable, does not mean this state must bear their consequences, does not mean public rules may not limit them, and does not cancel the harm or rights ledgers. The Conflict Treatise speaks of acknowledgment between first persons; here it is extended to states (extension; own undertaking).
N27 Diplomacy can carry questioning (own undertaking). When there is no superior, a peer's question is one form of external questioning. It is independent of this state, but this state's internal subjects mostly cannot initiate it, and it cannot shield against retaliation either, so in general it is not a channel in the sense of Theory of Government G35. Treaty mechanisms admitting individual petitions come close to a channel: internal subjects can initiate them themselves, and the treaty also prohibits retaliation; this state's undertaking is not to obstruct, not to retaliate, and to implement rulings under the treaties this state has acknowledged (N24); such a mechanism has no enforcer of its own, and whether its decisions land still rests with this state. The nature of such mechanisms as channels, and their design, this paper registers as a remainder and hands to the Theory of Inter-State Cooperation. This state's undertaking has two parts: it does not answer a peer's questions with retaliation; and the matters it is questioned about are connected to the channels inside (Paper 7, N37, N38). With the NUT, diplomacy is mostly reasoning together and cooperation: putting questions to each other and answering each other, without relying on compulsion. With the DRP, diplomacy is mostly exchange and ceasefire; there are still questions and answers, but it is not reasoning together. The absence of a common superior does not exclude, all at once, common procedures, authorized external mechanisms and the questions of those affected (N24).
N28 No mirror assimilation (carried over from Institution Theory Z9 and Theory of Government G30). Facing the DRP's competition and threat, this state checks item by item whether its own acts guard the line and are still questioned: the line is not discounted under any condition (Institution Theory Z9), and holding to does not stop in an emergency (Theory of Government G30). The mirror assimilation written of in War Treatise §20, military budgets at long-term high levels and dissent suppressed by wartime logic, serves only as a contrast. The adversary serves only as a contrast, not as a yardstick; symptoms such as a high budget prompt a check; they do not prove line-crossing. The budget, the handling of dissent, time limits and the actual effect of changing rules are checked separately. This is the most important test on the outward side.
N29 Sanctions and blockades are also acts. Those whom this state's acts of sanction and blockade reach, and who have no way to avoid them by exiting, are, as regards those acts, in this state's interior, following the unified sentence; the fifth ought is not reduced here, and they must have a road within reach by which to ask. Multilateral sanctions are the act of each participating state plus a common procedure (N24): each participating state bears its own share following the unified sentence, and is not exempted by having gone through a common procedure; this state's share in the common procedure includes advocating and supporting that a road be left for those affected; how the common procedure is to be designed is handed to the Theory of Inter-State Cooperation (extension; 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). To Whom the Ought Is Addressed (SAE Institution Theory, Paper 1) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23269635
Qin, H. (2026). Not Crossing the Line (SAE Institution Theory, Paper 2) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23270384
Qin, H. (2026). Guarding the Line (SAE Institution Theory, Paper 3) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23270766
Qin, H. (2026). Open to Questioning (SAE Institution Theory, Paper 6) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23271324
Qin, H. (2026). What an Institution Is Not (SAE Institution Theory, Prequel) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23269330
Qin, H. (2026). Judgment (SAE Theory of Government, Paper 1) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23412130
Qin, H. (2026). Compulsion (SAE Theory of Government, Paper 2) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23413056
Qin, H. (2026). Guarantee (SAE Theory of Government, Paper 3) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23413112
Qin, H. (2026). Levels (SAE Theory of Government, Paper 4) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23413192
Qin, H. (2026). Emergency (SAE Theory of Government, Paper 5) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23413413
Qin, H. (2026). Questioning and Bearing (SAE Theory of Government, Paper 6) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23413511
Qin, H. (2026). On the Limitation and Violation of Basic Rights (SAE Rights Theory, Paper 5) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21212595
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). 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). Collective 15DD and the Four-Stage Evolution of Community Form (SAE Moral Law, Paper 8) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20218248
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)
IV · External works (secondary sources underlying tier C)
Wenar, L. John Rawls. In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (substantive revision of September 3, 2025). https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rawls/
V · External works (cited at second hand)
Rawls, J. (1999). The Law of Peoples. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. (original not consulted; paraphrased from the Wenar entry; tier C)
Interfaces
- Main upstream: Conflict Treatise §24, §25, §27 (extended to the legal orders of two states; extension; own undertaking); Institution Theory (Paper 1, Z4; Paper 2, Z9, Z10; Paper 3, Z19 and §5; the Prequel, §7, the entry "Relational thickness"); Theory of Government (Paper 3, G17; Paper 4, G25; Paper 5, G30; Paper 6, G35, G36).
- Also used: War Treatise §18, §20 (§20 quoted only as a contrast, its range unchanged); Moral Law P8 §2.5.3 (by way of Institution Theory Z19, its structure only); Law Series P3 §6.2 (read narrowly); Law Series P4 §2 (structural contrast); F6, Appendix B, Article 7(c) (a working demonstration; used only as an example); Theory of Government (Paper 1, G6; Paper 2, G13, G14; Paper 4, §§2 and 3; Paper 6, G39); Institution Theory Z34; Conflict Treatise §26; Rights Theory P5 F21 and F6 §3.3 (the ruling on speech in §6).
- Interfacing: Grotius (The Rights of War and Peace, bk. II, ch. 1, §2, and ch. 23, §§6–8; bk. III, ch. 20, §46; tier B, per Campbell's abridged English translation); Kant (Perpetual Peace, Second Section, Second Definitive Article, and Appendix II; tier A, per the first edition of 1795, compared with Smith's English translation); Rawls (The Law of Peoples; tier C, per the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).
- This series: the Prequel, §§1, 3, 6, 7, 8; Paper 1, §5 (external routes exist, but they land in this state; what N5 derives is kept apart from what it undertakes separately), N3; Paper 2, §5 (N9); Paper 3, N12, N14, N15; Paper 4, §5 (N22), §7; Paper 6, §§3, 4, 5; Paper 7, N36, N37, N38, N39 and §3.
- Handed to Paper 6: when questions and answers are both exhausted, what remains is war.