Contracts involving countries - have they ever really been valid?
Day 736, 02:48
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Published in USA 
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by
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by Master Of Brutality
The article series The ABC of Getting Rich will be continuing shortly, I apologize for the postponement. In the meantime, read this article - it teaches a very important lesson about contracts for company owners as well.
As you all very well know, Portugal claimed USA had breached the contract between USA and Portugal concerning the payments. A trial was held and the admins found that "Contracts between countries are considered to be valid only if they are signed by all country congressmen." People all around the New World are now at a loss as to why this is possible, and how every contract involving countries is now invalid. I tell you, this is nothing new. There's in fact even a precedent concerning the same kind of deal, dating back only 10 months.
The contract problem in question
The news about the contract being invalid came as a no surprise to me. What did surprise me somehow, however, was that the contract would've been valid, if all congressmen had signed it. Still, the admin's wording gives some room for interpretation and I'm not sure the ramifications are understood properly. Let's consider a few things:
How could the people signing the contract bind their successors?
If the presidents could sign contracts like these, it would be a child's play to bribe a president or PTO the presidency and sign a forever-lasting lopsided contract. For instance:
Country A must send country B 1000 gold every month. Country B must send country A a Q1 food every year. If country A doesn't send the money, they will get a penalty of 5000g. If country B doesn't send the food, they will get a penalty of 0.01g. The contract is valid until day 99999 of the New World. (add the required what-happens-if-banned-clauses etc.)
The presidents would sign the contract and country A would be doomed forever. What about new countries? The first president would not only rob their starting treasury, but the funds they would have in the future. Wouldn't that have been sweet?
Heck, the president could even sign a deal with himself. A contract between two entities: the president of the country and a regular citizen... who just happen to be the same people. By a sheer coincidence.
Law and justice... Law and justice...
Okay, now such contracts need to be signed by all congressmen. It would appear to make sense. But does it, really?
Obviously getting every congressman to sign the contract is very difficult, in fact almost impossible. However, let's disregard the difficulty for now and consider the case in which it does succeed.
-A full congressional PTO is still possible. For instance, choose a wiped out country with no congress. Start an RW there at such a time that when the RW ends, there's barely a few minutes left to run for congress. Get citizenship (you'll get it instantly, because there's no congress), create a party and run for congress. You'll be the only congress member and you're free to sign a forever-lasting lopsided contract. Difficult? Oh yeah. Possible? Certainly. With enough patience in a forsaken country, everything is possible.
-Scorched earth tactics. Your country fully controls another country, but don't directly wish anything bad to happen to it. Have the congressmen sign a contract with clauses that support your rule in the country but if someone were to PTO it, they would be seriously hampered with it (e.g. limit presidential actions concerning certain nations). If you can't use the country, neither can the enemy.
Scorched Earth... oh, the memories
Did the admin leave out something in his statement?
The following two are eRepublik laws:
1. All citizens are born free and equal in dignity and rights.
5. A real user may express his/her will upon only one citizen.
Would a president, whose predecessor has signed a forever-lasting contract, have equal rights than anyone else? Has the predecessor expressed his/her will upon only himself, or his successors as well?
Let's take another look of the admin's statement:
"Contracts between countries are considered to be valid only if they are signed by all country congressmen."
Signed. Totally.
Note that it makes no mention towards contracts that should be binding to their successors. It only says it's only valid in the first place if all members of the congress sign it. When a new congress has been elected, I'm willing to bet they aren't bound by the contract, since they haven't signed it. If they do sign it, it becomes valid again.
Contracts between countries have never really been valid.
Such contracts have always been gentlemen's deals, unless they've been signed by the people who actually make the decisions. Presidents can agree not to attack each other's country, since they're the ones pushing the attack button. But if one of them were to be impeached, the contract wouldn't bind the new president.
Even if contracts can be signed by citizens representing companies, it doesn't mean the next owner of the company would be bound in any way by the contract. Just think of all the ridiculous contracts you could do. If you wanted to buy a used company, you'd have to browse through the contracts section just to see that there isn't a catch to it - e.g. allowing someone to buy the company for 1g at any time, or buy Q5 houses at $0.01.
The bottom line here is that you can only speak for yourself in this game. No one else.
As you all very well know, Portugal claimed USA had breached the contract between USA and Portugal concerning the payments. A trial was held and the admins found that "Contracts between countries are considered to be valid only if they are signed by all country congressmen." People all around the New World are now at a loss as to why this is possible, and how every contract involving countries is now invalid. I tell you, this is nothing new. There's in fact even a precedent concerning the same kind of deal, dating back only 10 months.
The contract problem in question
The news about the contract being invalid came as a no surprise to me. What did surprise me somehow, however, was that the contract would've been valid, if all congressmen had signed it. Still, the admin's wording gives some room for interpretation and I'm not sure the ramifications are understood properly. Let's consider a few things:
How could the people signing the contract bind their successors?
If the presidents could sign contracts like these, it would be a child's play to bribe a president or PTO the presidency and sign a forever-lasting lopsided contract. For instance:
Country A must send country B 1000 gold every month. Country B must send country A a Q1 food every year. If country A doesn't send the money, they will get a penalty of 5000g. If country B doesn't send the food, they will get a penalty of 0.01g. The contract is valid until day 99999 of the New World. (add the required what-happens-if-banned-clauses etc.)
The presidents would sign the contract and country A would be doomed forever. What about new countries? The first president would not only rob their starting treasury, but the funds they would have in the future. Wouldn't that have been sweet?
Heck, the president could even sign a deal with himself. A contract between two entities: the president of the country and a regular citizen... who just happen to be the same people. By a sheer coincidence.
Law and justice... Law and justice...
Okay, now such contracts need to be signed by all congressmen. It would appear to make sense. But does it, really?
Obviously getting every congressman to sign the contract is very difficult, in fact almost impossible. However, let's disregard the difficulty for now and consider the case in which it does succeed.
-A full congressional PTO is still possible. For instance, choose a wiped out country with no congress. Start an RW there at such a time that when the RW ends, there's barely a few minutes left to run for congress. Get citizenship (you'll get it instantly, because there's no congress), create a party and run for congress. You'll be the only congress member and you're free to sign a forever-lasting lopsided contract. Difficult? Oh yeah. Possible? Certainly. With enough patience in a forsaken country, everything is possible.
-Scorched earth tactics. Your country fully controls another country, but don't directly wish anything bad to happen to it. Have the congressmen sign a contract with clauses that support your rule in the country but if someone were to PTO it, they would be seriously hampered with it (e.g. limit presidential actions concerning certain nations). If you can't use the country, neither can the enemy.
Scorched Earth... oh, the memories
🙂
Did the admin leave out something in his statement?
The following two are eRepublik laws:
1. All citizens are born free and equal in dignity and rights.
5. A real user may express his/her will upon only one citizen.
Would a president, whose predecessor has signed a forever-lasting contract, have equal rights than anyone else? Has the predecessor expressed his/her will upon only himself, or his successors as well?
Let's take another look of the admin's statement:
"Contracts between countries are considered to be valid only if they are signed by all country congressmen."
Signed. Totally.
Note that it makes no mention towards contracts that should be binding to their successors. It only says it's only valid in the first place if all members of the congress sign it. When a new congress has been elected, I'm willing to bet they aren't bound by the contract, since they haven't signed it. If they do sign it, it becomes valid again.
Contracts between countries have never really been valid.
Such contracts have always been gentlemen's deals, unless they've been signed by the people who actually make the decisions. Presidents can agree not to attack each other's country, since they're the ones pushing the attack button. But if one of them were to be impeached, the contract wouldn't bind the new president.
Even if contracts can be signed by citizens representing companies, it doesn't mean the next owner of the company would be bound in any way by the contract. Just think of all the ridiculous contracts you could do. If you wanted to buy a used company, you'd have to browse through the contracts section just to see that there isn't a catch to it - e.g. allowing someone to buy the company for 1g at any time, or buy Q5 houses at $0.01.
The bottom line here is that you can only speak for yourself in this game. No one else.
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Comments
Interesting article. Thanks for writing about it.
According to the first 2 laws of eRepublik, nobody can force me to do anything.
A former president or congress cannot tie me to a contract without my own will therefore, contracts between governments are not valid.
drewxyz: precisely. You can only speak for yourself.
interesting article
voted
A true voice of reason in this contract madness.
I love ur paper Scadens!
So a countries contract, even if it were signed by the entire Congress (gl with that!), could only be valid until the next congressional election, unless all the same members were reelected (gl with THAT!).
That's the end of long term contracts
Would this also mean a citizen that entered into a loan contract with their government would have their contract invalidated by the congressional shift?
As technically these would not be all of the same ppl they had entered into agreement with?
My thoughts exactly, Scadens.
Sweet Drinker:
Without knowing how the contract is formulated, I'm quite sure that would be the case. However, such a contract might be enforceable in certain circumstances:
If e.g. the loan contract is done between a citizen and the country treasury, and there's a valid contract on the country treasury ownership. In that case it might be so that when the government changes, by signing the country treasury ownership contract the new proprietor actually assumes the role of the "country treasury".
That way the citizen would do the contract with an entity outside the country itself, and only the signature of the country treasury proprietor would be needed. If the proprietor is changed, the new one would have to sign the ownership contract.
This hasn't been tested in any trial so far, though.
Country treasure is controlled by an user, or several users if a contract has been written to entitle the shared use of the organization (remember that it's not allowed by the rules to share organization access without a contract). If the President can't make contracts that bind other users than him, then the user in control of the treasury org cannot do so either. As it has been said, user can only enforce his will on himself, not on other users.
Organizations are not legal entities. They are tools used by real users but they are not users by themselves. All contracts should be signed by a real user, and contracts signed by organizations should be null and void. It's not like business contracts in the real world are signed by the company, but by the owner or by the person who's been granted the right to do so by the owner.
Ah yes, you're right. I didn't mean the contract should be signed by an organization, but you're still right. So yes, the only way to keep the contract valid would be to sign the loan contract again.
There's no way to sign one contract by signing another, by assuming the role of an entity that signed the previous contract.
By electing a president or a congress man you say: "Hey man, you do have the right to make decisions concerning my country!"
If you think your president is not for you then impeach him/her! Or do not vote on anyone! Oh wait the others will still vote and your country will have a president? Then angry with your fellow people! That is the way it works! Also in IRL!
Glad you brought up RL, tkgabor. Who is there to punish countries for not obeying contracts? Who is the admin of real life?
Would you still think the same, if eHungary had been PTOed and the president would've made a contract lasting 10000 days? Or, if your president decided to call it a lulz and do the contract just because he/she was going to quit the game? If you think your president is not for you then impeach him/her!
Scandens: Then I should find a country which is willing to conquer all regions of my country. Then there were no eHungary, so she couldn't fulfill her duties. So the contract would be anulled. If eHungary come to exist again she will start with clean slate. Also with MPP-s.
Yes that could be another problem, but in this way will be much harder to squeal out of the contract. And this could be an accepted way. Rather than just being exposed to the admins pleasure...
This article is so full of holes. You're forgetting half of the Erepublik Laws, their application to what you're talking about, not to mention the contract guidelines.
It is a nice thought, but entirely baseless.
PS - Your precedent is invalid as well, since that had to do with the signing of an in game law, and this does not. Anything which would require a Congressperson to vote on cannot be contracted, whereas this was a simple donation.
There are very large differences.
Law and Justice: Terms that are too often completely unrelated to each other...
Read and vote this - http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/how-to-fight-efficiently-1050930/1/20" target="_blank">http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/how-[..]/1/20
Dishmcds, could you point out the holes in the article? I'd like to hear your comments about the PTO scenario.
Trying to get all Congressmen to sign a particular document is really, as you say, next to impossible. I've been in Congress three terms and there's always a few who do absolutely nothing, even when I send mails to them directly.
No matter how many times I might stress something is important, there are always a few who will ignore everything.
So yeah, contracts between countries aren't going to work... XD
In law we also have quasi-contractual relationships - contractual relations that have no basis in a written instument. We also have courts of law and courts of equity. Whereas parties to a dispute based upon a written contract seek a legal remedy (what's written?), parties to a dispute based upon a quasi-contractual relationships seek an equitable remedy (what's fair?)
Just because you do not have a valid written contract does not mean you do not have an enforceable right. If I hire a builder to build a house on my property, but do not reduce it to a writing, I cannot get out of paying the builder by claiming that there is no contract. In a court of equity, the builder can claim legal remedies such as unjust enrichment to enforce payment.
In the case of eUS v. ePortugal, I do not know the basis for the payments from eUS to ePortugal, but if for instance, eUS borrowed gold from ePortugal and agreed on repayment terms with a reasonable interest rate, those terms should be enforceable in equity - ePortugal should be paid back to make themselves whole. An arbitrator may not enforce penalty clauses in equity because those have nothing to do with making the wronged party whole.
The admins will probably now have to become arbitrators in equity in disputes between countries. This tends I believe would tend to make disputes among countries settled more fairly.
New link you should check out: http://www.erepublik.com/en/forum/topic/141292/regarding-contracts-between-countries/1" target="_blank">http://www.erepublik.com/en/forum/topic/[..]es/1