| Archive for Our Scotland - www.our-scotland.org Scottish Politics Discussion Forum / Messageboard - Dedicated to online discussion about Scottish Politics and an Independent Scotland, as well as Scottish Society today. We also have a section dedicated to Banter, Sport and Recommended Sites. |
| Kevin |
If Scotland achieved independence...Would you want Scotland to join the United Nations? I personally see the UN as a waste of time and resources of all countries involved, and a threat to national sovereignty of all nations involved. |
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| Holebender |
I always find it strange that Switzerland is not a UN member yet so many UN bodies are based in Switzerland. | ||||||||||||
| Cruachan |
Re: If Scotland achieved independence...
Yes of course. It ain't perfect by a long way, but its the only game in town. The British State is a threat to Scottish Sovereignty; let's start with that one.  An independent Scotland can help to reform international institutions a wee bit later!
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| Kevin |
But what can the UN really do for Scotland? Gaining independence from one big governing body to simply join another makes little sense to me. | ||||||||||||
| Stevie |
It does seem to be useless but the world does benefit from a public forum.
What would you replace it with? |
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| Kevin |
I wouldn't replace it with anything. Independent nations should be free to conduct their affairs as they see fit. I don't think anyone needs the UN, the WTO, the IMF, or any other intergovernmental organizations. | ||||||||||||
| Alasdair |
I'm afraid that from this point-of-view there are rather more immediate fish to be fried ... not least of all the european one. The UN at least is rather less intrusive in our day-to-day lives. |
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| Kevin |
Certainly a fair point. My question comes from reading an article or something else online recently about Scottish independence, and a concern the author brought up was that Scotland would then lose its seat, through the UK, on the UN Security Council. I thought "Why should Scotland want to be on the Security Council, or in the UN at all?" |
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| Stevie |
Actually, I don't imagine anyone could care less, much less notice, if the UN disappeared tomorrow.
I do however think, it would be good to have some kind of international forum (yes, the UN was supposed to be it) where nations could voice their opinions about the genocide being carried out in various countries at different times... the UN has proved entirely useless. |
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| Holebender |
On the other hand, the UN doesn't really involve itself in countries' internal affairs and is certainly not a level of administration in the way the EU (for example) is. The UN is, by and large, a talking shop and, as Churchill said, it is better to jaw jaw than to war war. | ||||||||||||
| landg |
but 60-70%.................... ach whats the point. |
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| Fidget |
Erm.. don't you realise that amid any "independence" day celebrations of Scotland shaking off the shackles of the UK, it will be replacing them with the shackles of the EU? So effectively swapping Westminster for Brussels? That's all according to the nats mind you. I personally think Scotland may have to negotiate its own EU entry. That's not such a bad thing since it gives time to reflect on whether it wants to be part of the EU instead of being sucked right in with no recourse. |
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| Zed |
Whether Scotland joins the EU is up for debate. What is complete nonsense is the current set up of Scotland being in a union within a union. |
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| Fidget |
Why is it complete nonsesnse? | ||||||||||||
| Cruachan |
Not that there is the remotest prospect of it anyway, but an independent Scotland would not want to be on the Security Council. A reform of the Security Council is well overdue anyway 60 years after WW2. The structure reflects nothing of the changing geo-politics and economic positions of countries in the 21st Century. Where is India or Brazil? I am quite happy for an independent Scotland to have some influence over an EU seat at the UN Security Council. |
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| Stevie |
It's complete nonsense because the shackles of the UK Westminster parliament (I hesitate to use the word government because for the last many decades Scotland hasn't been so much governed as ignored or at best given election sweeteners by Labour fatcats every GE) are far far more constrictive than any voluntary arrangement entered into by the Scots in the EU would be. AND we would have a veto... |
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| Fidget |
Ok.. so you're another who'd see scotland sold to Bangladesh, Bolivia, Bulgaria [just going through the 'Bs' here] so long as it meant no attachment to Westminster. |
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| Stevie |
Sold...
No country is obliged to stay in the EU. If the arrangement doesn't work, you leave. Simple as that, because the Scots will have the power to decide in a vote. At the moment, Scotland has been sold and sold and sold... and unable to raise an effective word of objection. I'm interested. What are your objections to europe anyway? |
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| Fidget |
All countries are obliged to stay in the EU. Once a member, a country can only secede with the 'ok' from all other member states. Look into it and you'll see.
The arrogance of the "we'll decide" nats is breathtaking. It really is. |
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| Fidget |
I haven't said anywhere one way or the other what my thoughts on the EU are, I've merely explored the assumption from people on here that Scotland would automatically be a member of the EU in the event of independence. |
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| Alasdair |
In reality any country could resign itself from the eu and there would be sod all that the EC could do about it. It's little more than an international agreement between soveriegn nations, it's a complex and multi-faceted agreement, but an agreement none the less. I'm not sure that any country could be bound to it if it wished to leave ... what would they do if any country, the uk for example, decided to remove itself? |
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| Fidget |
Ooookaaaayyy. | ||||||||||||
| Stevie |
Okay, it's decided then. We go to war on those Scottish b******s. We'll show them who can or can't leave the EU. | ||||||||||||
| Aventinian |
A legally binding agreement.
Then it would be allowed out by a renegotiation with the other member-states.
Because some of us believe that our country (that is, Britain) has something useful to contribute on the global stage. |
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| Kevin |
You all certainly do. The point I was trying to make is that the UN itself doesn't contribute anything useful on the global stage. |
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| Kevin |
It doesn't make much sense to me that if Scotland should gain its independence from the UK that it should then give up that independence for the EU. | ||||||||||||
| Fidget |
No, it doesn't make any sense to me either, but that's what would happen. |
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| Stevie |
And if we don't decide who can? |
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| Fidget |
depends what it is that you think needs decided on. | ||||||||||||
| Holebender |
Look, whether or not Scotland becomes a member of the EU in its own right is a question which can only be decided after Scotland becomes independent. Prior to independence it is entirely a moot point.
However, what must be kept in mind is Scotland is within the EU right now so all this talk of Scotland giving up its independence to the EU is just complete nonsense. How can we become any more under the influence of the EU that we already are? The options are Scotland leaves the UK and stays in the EU or Scotland leaves the UK and leaves the EU. In either case Scotland becomes more independent than it is now. |
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| Fidget |
At last, you're coming round to my way of thinking.
..or so I thought. |
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| Holebender |
I seriously doubt if you're capable of what I would recognise as thinking.
If you take the trouble to look through the archives you will find that I have always argued that EU membership is a matter for the citizens of an independent Scotland and that the matter can not be decided until Scotland becomes independent. It's not difficult, any rational thinker could follow the logic. |
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| Fidget |
I see your thinking, I really do, but you're only thinking in a blinkered sense. You need to give thought to what scotland's position in europe might be. You need to look into the practicalities of the whole thing. It's then you'll see that this EU/Non-EU thing isn't simply a matter for whoever decides to vote in scotland. | ||||||||||||
| magister ludi |
I thought they joined in 2002.......having had observer status previously ( like the plo, the vatican, the knights of malta.........) |
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| Alasdair |
I thought so until ...
But how legally binding are international agreements? We seem to here about them being broken all the time on some issue or another ... it's not like someone's going to come and kick your door in and drag you off to court.
Why couldn't it take unilateral action and leave?
All countries have something useful to contribute on the international stage through international co-operation, that's fair enough, but how can one country legally bind another to any particular course of action, even where that course of action is the renegotiation to allow for a cessation of previously agreed action. What's to stop any individual nation taking unilateral action to move to a position of inaction? |
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| magister ludi |
I disagree. Although there was undoubtedly a defensive/military and colonialist/expansionist mindset motivating the unification of Scotland and England into the entity to be called Great Britain, the Act of Union was 9/10ths about trade,common currency, weights and measures, free movement of labour, excise duties, , managing monopolies,commercial vested intests, taxes on salt and other such......the big stuff (at least as far as the 18th century is concerned) to do with religion, education, law etc were all matters specifically excluded. The 1707 trade agreement and the subsequent structures put in place to support it have now, frankly, outlived their usefulness (much like the Hanseatic League). International trade is essential to any kind of economic survival, now as then. The difference is now that the UK isn't big enough as a unified and independant trading unit. Whether someone favours either an EFTA, EEC or EU type of replacement is a different debate. Personally I see no difficulty or paradox in restoring self government to Scotland and simulaneously being "in Europe" and subject to their regulation: the greater the trading bloc, the greater the need for small,local representative government as a counter-weight. The common unit of representative government is the country/nation state. Smaller units of government within an overall unified economic trading unit. It's all about checks and balances. |
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| Stevie |
Good point ML. | ||||||||||||
| Holebender |
You are correct. I must have missed the news when it happened. |
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| chicmac |
This is not a reply to H as such but addresses various issues arising in this thread. There is no currently agreed procedure for a nation state leaving the EU. There would have been if the Constitution had been ratified and there will be once the alternative Lisbon Treaty is ratified but currently there is no such invokeable procedure. However, that does NOT mean there is no procedure. If a nation state were to decide to leave right now, even before the Lisbon Treaty goes through, then the process would be handled by the European Court of Justice. Regarding the inferred emaciation of the UN it is worth pointing out that it is UN legislation which guarantees that members would be allowed to leave the EU. For example, all the EU nations are signatories of the UN Charter wherein recognition of the principle of self-determination and where article 103 recognises the supremacy of the UN Charter over local agreements. This ensures that the EU cannot prevent member states from leaving. Supremacy of UN legislation over EU legislation, where there is conflict, was also recognised in the Treaty of Rome. Indeed, a similar position to that which pertains over Scotland's position within the UK. |
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| Aventinian |
True, but the fact that something cannot be enforced does not make it less unlawful - many criminal offences are virtually unenforceable, but that doesn't make the conduct prohibited any more legal. The problem with a unilateral withdrawal from the EU is, of course, that it has a fair deal of our money and assets at any given time. That is why negotiations to withdraw would simply be common sense. Since I can't foresee a situation where a country would try to prevent a fellow member-state from leaving given reasonable conditions, I really don't think the matter will ever arise.
One nation doesn't bind another; it is the agreement between the two which binds them. As you say, there are few ways to force treaty obligations to be adhered to - in extreme situations, there are sanctions and invasions etc, but that doesn't apply for most of the mundane minutiae that makes up international law. Essentially states tend to adhere to their obligations out of either a sense of honour, I suppose, or simply an understanding that they're ambling about beside a house of cards: remove one and the whole structure can quickly topple. |
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| Aventinian |
Scotland would be more independent than it is now in such a position, but essentially you're right - in this day and age, the idea of 'independence' is a broadly meaningless one if you're allied with international organisations that can make decisions without your state's consent.
Education wasn't so much as mentioned.
The unification of Scotland - just like a load of other places - is out of date too. Uniting against long-departed common enemies, territorial expansion of Royal houses and whatever other fuzzy justifications they had at the time are all long forgotten. ----------------
I may be labouring this point somewhat, but the principle of self-determination does not allow groups to secede from existing polities. It presumes against colonial relationships, but more importantly it is an affirmation that states should treat their minority groups as equals within the eyes of the law. Secession is often motivated by a desire to obscure the self-determination of minority groups, not to enhanse it.
How?
I have to laugh otherwise I'd cry at the level of nonsense that gets put forward here. |
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| Fidget |
It is not as if we are talking about a bad debt of a few quid from some store card you never paid. We're talking about input of a % of a country's wealth and whatever negotatied returns. Do you really think, that it's quite ok then for a country to suddenly say.. oh.. don't want to be part of this now, we're off? I think not. The reason is quite clear too because net contributors could just say nope, no more, and net non-contributors could just lap it up til they suddenly found themselves as a net-contributor and then just say nope, not being a member of this EU thingy now. Surely now you can see that countries cannot just come and go as they please into these arrangements. |
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| Dave Coull |
It didn't need to be. All education was controlled by the church. In England, you had to be a member of the Church of England in order to be allowed entry to Oxford university, for example, and local schools were religious institutions. Excluding religion from the Union was enough to ensure that Scottish education would be very different from English education. Excluding both religion and law meant that all subsequent attempts to turn Scotland into North Britain were bound to fail. |
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| Stevie |
As I understand it; the church taught the Scots to read and write in far larger proportions than was achieved in England. | ||||||||||||
| chicmac |
Then don't argue about it here, go and argue the toss with the authors of this Wikipedia article or with one of the many pro, anti and neutral EU Blogs and sites which make exactly the same points. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withdrawal_from_the_European_Union Especially where it says:- "Under the United Nations Charter, all EU member states have agreed that: "In the event of a conflict between the obligation between Members of the United Nations under the present Charter and their obligations under any other international agreement, their obligations under the present Charter shall prevail." —Article 103. This would mean that the EU cannot prevent a member from leaving, if the state could prove that its membership of the EU conflicts with part of the UN Charter; similarly states are only bound to follow EU law 'so far as they are compatible with existing international arrangements' (Article 37.5, Treaty of Rome). If a state were to wish to leave, it would be up to the European Court of Justice to interpret current treaties as to the member's obligations and conditions of withdrawal [1]." |
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| Fidget |
Talk about cherry picking? Well..
...you missed a bit: "By precedent, then, if a country wanted to withdraw from the EU it probably could, but special treaties and conditions would need to be agreed on. This is because of pre-existing commitments that any member state would have towards the EU and its fellow members". So.. a country cannot just up and leave the EU as it sees fit. Its exit would have to be negotiated. Thank you. |
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| Dave Coull |
I live in a rented property. If my landlord was to sign an agreement with somebody else, on my behalf, stating that I would provide certain services, and I would be bound by certain conditions, my reaction would be that I would not recognise the said agreement as being binding on me, and I would seek to get out of it, or at the very least to re-negotiate it, at the earliest opportunity.
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| Fidget |
I doubt the specifics of your personal contracts for [whatever] will work the same as contracts involving a country as a whole. Without even looking into it, I think I'll be correct in saying that they are probably worlds, galaxies maybe, apart. You aren't far wrong though with treating countries as a person, because they are treated as an entity. This is why countries don't just waltz in or out of the EU as they see fit. They "the country" is deemed qualified to join, or not. |
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| chicmac |
I was not 'cherry picking' the quote I made was both relevant and contiguous. The quote you make in no way negates the ensurance from UN legislation that withdrawal from the EU (or any other political entity) is possible. What it refers to is that , obviously, prior agreements have to be unpicked in an agreed manner e.g.s Contributions, Subsidies, Fishing rights etc. etc. Of course negotiation is required, just like it is required if Scotland leaves the UK Union, but that isn't the point. The point IS, that the exit cannot be opposed by local legislation. UN legislation has supremacy. |
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| Dave Coull |
I wrote
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