Zefram wrote:
> That mechanism was pretty ineffective. Being mandated by the rules
> didn't give it any greater strength than it would have had any other way.
> There's nothing stopping anyone setting up an arbitration service
> using contracts.
You miss the point. It's a SYN/ACK, on Agora's part as much as the
contract's part.
1. The non-players are free to set up a contract acknowledging that
Agora will adjudicate it, that's the SYN.
2. R1742 is actually an ACK from the Agoran side: "we recognize, if
the contract involving non-players invokes us, that the Agoran Courts
will take up the resulting case, rather than dismissing it as
irrelevant to the rules." It gives issued orders effectiveness
under Agoran eyes, whether or not the non-players then abide by
the decision. That latter part is an issue of enforcement.
Zefram wrote:
> Of course, the earlier step of arbitration, that of determining whether a
> particular action was in breach of contract or what obligations a contract
> actually imposes, is and always was subject to ordinary (inquiry) CFJs.
No its not. Without R1742, an agreement between non-players is as
irrelevant as whether you are wearing a hat. Even if the agreement
attempts to invoke Agora, the Agoran courts would be required
to dismiss an arising case, without R1742. That's pretty well
established in precedent.
> Non-player parties to Agora-governed contracts have thereby agreed to
> be subject to the Agoran rules.
No, they've agreed to obey the decisions handed down by an Agoran court,
that's not the same thing. If they've agreed to be subject to Agoran
Rules, then they agree to vote, etc... in other words, they are players.
> But that was always a problem:
> reparative justice under Civil CFJs was limited to orders for specific
> performance, there was no way to impose a resolution.
An inability to enforce does not invalidate the legality of an order
or decision. In American case law, see Worcester v. Georgia for a
famous example.
> Ultimately, if you want a contract to be enforcable in practice then
> you need the governing legal system to be able to impose, without the
> ninny's cooperation [...]
> So you'd be stupid to use Agoran law as the basis for your contract
> requiring a non-player to transfer real-life currencies.
This would apply to any real world case where the contract agrees to
form any particular type of arbitration as an alternate to the
"real world" courts. I don't think the wealth of examples of this
working are stupid. Effectively, Agora makes the binding, third
party decision under arbitration, and implicitly subcontracts
enforcements to a jurisdiction with relevant authority. Still, you're
right, it would be stupid under the current ruleset/regime.
-Goethe
