H2elyolegom

Legal code designed with ICoN appointed consultants to rule, provide rights, guarantees, protections and rule of law procedures for humans in Hergom.

Background

Prior to the signing of the Accord for Restrained Arms and International Harmony (ARAIH), humans in Hergom existed in complete legal limbo and were at the mercy of haphazard rules, local needs and attitudes, the political and development currents of Hergom. Individually, humans were at complete risk of impunity without any assurances of their safety and prosperity. Only the Gahnam and Chalam of the northern post-first coalition war territories had any form of legal certainty, largely as these Gahnam and Chalam dominated territories retained their elites, whom the Wolgos used to maintain control. The human elites of the north actively interpreted Wolgos' will and negotiated their authority and allowances, and they used their autonomy to rule over their human subjects.

The signing of the ARAIH accords without a pre-determined legal framework would have caused even deeper uncertainty and conflict within Wolgos and potentially harm to human communities. To prevent such outcomes, Hergom, at the behest of ICoN, created a legal corpus to rule human affairs; ICoN diplomats and advisors were adamant that Hergom should heed their advice and concerns or jeopardise the treaty as a whole.

Reluctantly, Hergom cooperated with ICoN's Hominid Rights Bureau to synthesise a hybrid legal system that would satisfy Hergom's interests and concerns while pushing for the greatest possible level of legal certainty and protection the Wolgos could be persuaded to grant. The committee was composed of two hundred ICoN member nations' legal experts and an equal number of Wolgos chief arbitrators, tribal leaders and theologians.

The committee synthesised a compact legal code comprised of eleven books and eight hundred pages. The code was designed to minimise Hergom's commitments and the inescapable expenses of implementing it. Hergom's ideological commitment to a minimal government with a decentralised and largely private administration allowed for little room for an extensive government-managed bureaucracy for a legal system for humans. Hergom was steadfast in refusing to give up or share any sovereignty over the affairs of humans or allow monitoring, and Hergom was reluctant to give up the privileges of the government over humans. Nevertheless, Hergom agreed to heavily curtain the impunity that the Wolgos population and local authorities enjoyed over humans and agreed to a range of enforcement mechanisms to prevent the Wolgos from breaking new human guarantees and for punitive measures for those willing to ignore the legal code pertaining to humans.

ICoN pushed for many guarantees and avoided using terminology alluding to rights, which the Wolgos heavily objected to. Foremost ICoN pushed for respect for human personhood and dignity (Another term Hergom was uncomfortable using, with the committee settling for "indulgences"), followed by the "indulgences" for families, communities, identity and individual autonomy. Codifying guarantees and indulgences that outside her gym would have determined to be so fundamental that they would be given and not necessary to explicitly codify. As holistic ARAIH treaty negotiations progressed and Hergom pushed for a more comprehensive elimination of trade and financial sanctions, the Hominid Rights Bureau saw the opportunity to push for a greater and more holistic expansion of human guarantees and indulgences. The committee negotiated a codification of contractual, employment, safety, property and financial codes, amongst others, to further expand the potential for human communities.

The most contentious issues during the synthesis were codes about affairs and disputes between humans and Wolgos. The code, to the dismay of many human experts, had to make concessions that they found offensive to human dignity. The code codified many pedantic duties for humans towards wolgos individuals and the state. The code places upon humans the duty to respect the notion of Wolgos as understood by the wolgos in a large myriad of ways, along with penalties for infractions. For example, humans must adhere to etiquette codes when interacting with Wolgos, and the Wolgos are allowed to apply "reasonable" correction when something is broken.

When pertaining to injury towards a Wolgos individual where the human is at fault, the code gives Wolgos jurisprudence preference and gives law enforcement and State prosecution the sole responsibility, thereby bypassing courts for humans or advocacy. When the injured person is a human, and the fault lies with a Wolgos, the code outlines an exceptionally lenient penalty regime for the Wolgos and for justice to involve arbitration rather than adversarial court justice.