Forum:Global and regional issues/Association of South Ulethan Nations

Forums → Global and regional issues → Global and regional issues/Association of South Ulethan Nations

Hi everyone!

The Association of South Ulethan Nations (ASUN) is officially launched. The full in-universe article is available here on the wiki. For those who are unfamiliar to the project, or are in need of a refresher, here is a quick rundown of the essentials.

• ASUN is an international organization with the aim to replicate other successful collaborative projects such as the Tarephia Cooperation Council and the Egalian Union. The organization aims to not just be a footnote on the wiki and instead have a strong visible presence on the map, providing members with material that they can map in their territories.
• The organization is similar in scope to ASEAN or the Council of Europe. This means that member states are still very independent and ASUN has limited powers to impose things on member states, unlike for example in the European Union where EU institutions have the power to make binding laws.
• ASUN has a wide scope and oversees many institutions working on various subjects. Most institutions of ASUN are voluntary to join. These are referred to as “plurilateral agreements”; it is up to each ASUN member state if they wish to partake in them or not. That way you do not have to make any large commitments if you do not want to. Members are encouraged to make an edit on the wiki page to show which plurilateral agreements they ratify. Members only get the chance to host a given institution if they have ratified it. Observers can ratify some plurilateral agreements in order to attain partner status, but they cannot host the HQ of those institutions.
• ASUN is open to accept new members in South Uletha, and new partners and observers with an interest in South Ulethan affairs from all over the world. ASUN welcomes all countries that respect the rule of law and pluralistic democracy.

For new discussions and suggestions, make a heading down below with the topic you'd like to bring up. The forum thread is open for everyone, ASUN members and non-ASUN members alike. Remember to sign your contributions. Timboh (talk) 18:09, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Locations of official bodies

ASUN's four official bodies, the Secretariat, the Committee of Ministers, the Interparliamentary Assembly and the Court of Fundamental Rights need a home. These four institutions are of special importance to ASUN, therefore I do not think it is suitable to distribute them according to random chance. I personally see a few ways of going about this:

1. Locate the four official bodies in collaborative territories. This would open for the possibility for mappers to collaborate on the actual mapping of the institutions. Currently ASUN has four such territories as members: Castellan, Malesoria, Mazan and Plevia.
2. Locate the four official bodies in powerful and "important" territories. Important institutions for important members. The problem here is defining "important". By what metric should this be decided?
3. Locate the four official bodies in small and "unimportant" territories. A common compromise for parties in international relations is to meet on "neutral ground", and ASUN has no shortage of smaller, more unassuming countries. Same issue as above; how do we define "unimportant"?

Options 1 and 2 seem to have some overlap. Castellan, Mazan and Plevia are all potentially "important" member states, with Malesoria being the odd one out. Another fact to consider is that the countries that host the official bodies would likely be founders of ASUN, barring the possibility of institutions being moved for some reason. The question of which countries are founders and the location of the official bodies might therefore go hand in hand. Timboh (talk) 18:09, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

I'd like to propose waiting for Franquia to open before formally deciding on the locations or assuming it'll be a member, after all if it does open, I'd imagine it would be a member, and so perhaps the four institutions should be in Franquia, Plevia, Mazan, and Castellan respectively? If Mazan doesn't make sense as a founder (possible), I'd suggest putting the Assembly in Gobrassanya. --Lithium-Ion (talk) 01:26, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

Franquia would probably make sense as a founding member, being one of the major powers of the Mediterranean. I imagined the Mediterranean being the place of origin for ASUN and therefore the location of most founding nations, but I'm also open to let Mazan host one of the main institutions. What do the mappers of Mazan think about Mazan's history with ASUN? Would they want Mazan to be a founder or would Mazan be a later addition? I personally lean towards the latter but I am open for discussion. If Mazan joined later, there is another way a major institution could be hosted there. One of the institutions, let's say the court, could have been founded later on in ASUN's history as the result of some sort of new reform or treaty. Mazan might have requested to host one of the institutions as to not concentrate all power in the Mediterranean. Timboh (talk) 18:24, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

Since discussions have been slow here on the forum I took the initiative and asked around on the OGF Discord server. Among members there we were able to reach a consensus around locating the four official bodies in collaborative territories. Lithium-Ion proposed the bodies could be distributed accordingly:
- Plevia, as the "core" of the Mediterranean region, should host the "leadership" institution, the Secretariat.
- Castellan, as the other country that is undoubtedly fully democratic, should host the Assembly.
- Mazan, the economic powerhouse and probably the most populous of the four, should host the Committee.
- Malesoria, maybe ironically, will host the Court. However, it serves as a symbol that fair and non-violent justice must be supreme in a region with conflicting groups and tense relations.
If there are no objections against this, we will go ahead with this solution. I'll give the rest of the members until next week (2022-04-03 23:59 CET) to consider this solution. Timboh (talk) 15:10, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

The suggestion above is now final. The wiki page will be edited to reflect this shortly. Timboh (talk) 09:49, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Logo/symbol

No organization is complete without a nice logo or symbol that stands out from the crowd and evokes the values of its organization. I have some ideas for a logo myself, but I think it would be more fair to make this a community effort and get some input from the wider community. So, inspired by Bixelkoven's flag competition that he arranged for Malesoria, let's do something similar here. Feel free to discuss design ideas, such as symbols and colors, and if you have a design, share it here with us. Non-ASUN members are welcome to chip in with ideas or logos. A few things to consider:

• The logo should not be too derivative of any member state's own symbols.
• The logo should work both as a standalone design and on a flag.
• It should also preferably be recognizable and unique in general.

Other than that, knock yourselves out. Timboh (talk) 18:09, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

There haven't been any proposals yet, so I'm going to propose my own. I haven't put that much thought into the logo design itself; it is fairly simple. The symbol, a sun, is a play on words on the organization's acronym ASUN (haha very clever Timboh). But I also thought it was a good "neutral" symbol that doesn't represent a single member. Here's a collection of different layouts and flags where the symbol is used. Why the burgundy color? No real reason other than it's not a usual color among international organizations. Would be nice to have something other than the ever present shades of blue.

Timboh (talk) 15:33, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

The colors and the font look really good. A sun as the symbol fits perfectly with the area. However I think the logo looks too much like an eye, to the point that it feels a little bit ominous to me especially in the white-on-burgundy. I think it would work a lot better without the dot in the center.

Svatto (talk) 12:09, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

Process of joining

What does the process for joining the ASUN look like? - Anonymous21 (talk) 01:07, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

Currently there isn't really any "formal" process to joining ASUN, other than getting in touch with me or Bixelkoven if you are interested in joining. Getting in touch with us here on the forum should work too. Timboh (talk) 18:24, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

Observer

Specifically, I would be interested in having my country, Kåra, become an observer state. It's located in eastern Uletha, so it sounds like I would be eligible to join, according to the wiki page. - Anonymous21 (talk) 01:07, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

As you've pointed out, Kåra is fully eligible to become an observer, so it would be an excellent addition to ASUN. I can add Kåra to the list of observers on the wiki page if you'd like. Timboh (talk) 18:24, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

Timboh, if you can do that, that would be great. Thanks! -Anonymous21 (talk) 21:09, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

Plurilateral agreements

With the official bodies out of the way, let's move on to the plurilateral agreements. A few points to note:

• Only one institution per territory for now. Once every member is hosting something, we can distribute the rest. The countries that received the official bodies should refrain from requesting to host any more institutions until every other member has, for the sake of fairness.
• All plurilateral agreements will have a main HQ. Some of them might have several smaller regional offices.
• For now, the institutions are first come, first served. If any conflicts arise (which I hope won't happen) we'll discuss the issue together and find a compromise.

You can request to host the HQ of one institution by making a reply here. That way everyone can see which institutions are reserved and which aren't. Once you've mapped the HQ you can add it to the wiki page. Timboh (talk) 16:03, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

ASUN Summits

Should there be a regular ASUN Summit, where the leaders of each member state meet to discuss ASUN things? Perhaps there could be a table on the wiki page where members can add locations and years for the summits. Timboh (talk) 16:03, 5 April 2022 (UTC)