Convention of Civilized Systems/Legends

"It is obvious these creatures are not covered by the Convention of Civilized Systems. The Jedi Council has no say in the matter."

- Chairman Chi Cho, on the Talz

The Convention of Civilized Systems was a bill of rights movement that had been ratified by the Galactic Republic by the time of the Clone Wars. It was put into effect to apply better methods of determining a species' sentience, and additionally granted the rights of sentient Republic citizens to those who deserved them. The decree provided a number of various tests to ascertain sentience, and the following amendments to the act expanded its coverage to species in multiple star systems that appeared incapable of interstellar travel. However, the bill of rights itself increased genocidal crimes against previously undocumented sentient races, as some individuals drove species to extinction and then covered up the massacres so as not to be prosecuted by the Republic. Besides these illicit genocides, another example of a failure of the law act's enforcement occurred when Chairman Chi Cho of the Pantoran Assembly declared war on the Talz tribe that had colonized the ice world Orto Plutonia, intent on discrediting their claim to Orto Plutonia and restoring that of the planet's moon, Pantora. The fiasco ended when Senator Riyo Chuchi negotiated a peace agreement with the Talz, who were in fact sentient despite Cho's claims that they were not covered by the Convention of Civilized Systems.

Description
"If the Jedi are able to communicate with them, their status is in doubt."

- Senator Riyo Chuchi, on the Talz's level of sentience

The Convention of Civilized Systems was a bill of rights that defined the methods of determining the sentience of species within Galactic Republic territory. The decree also afforded species the rights granted to sentient Republic citizens if they were found to deserve them. The bill of rights offered a number of tests to ascertain sentience, from tool use to evaluations of the species' complexity and its ability to "communicate advanced concepts" with members of other races. Under the law, standard protocol for first contact with an unfamiliar species was to transmit images of the species in question to Republic authorities to further determine the race's level of sentience. The following Arquata Station Amendments to the original bill of rights extended the decree's coverage to sentient species that lived in multiple star systems but appeared incapable of interstellar travel, such as the Talz species, who inhabited both Alzoc III and Orto Plutonia. The Amendments' classification methods addressed everything from colonies that had "descended into barbarianism" to populations "seeded" by other species; examples of such races included the Arkanians and the pre-Republic Rakata. The Convention of Civilized Systems also had some significance in military matters, as exemplified when Republic Major Kendal Ozzel took the decree into account when he was captured by enemy forces on Khorm.

History
"As an officer of the Grand Army of the Republic, I am not obliged to cooperate. Taking into account the Convention of Civilized Systems&mdash;"

- Major Kendal Ozzel, to his captor, Asajj Ventress

The Convention of Civilized Systems had been ratified by the Republic and put into effect by approximately the first year of the Clone Wars. The law act's classification methods for sentient species in multiple systems were added and addressed by the Arquata Station Amendments that followed the passing of the original bill. However, unlawful responses to the law act occurred when several individuals went on to exterminate multiple previously undocumented and unidentified sentient races that were "found in inconvenient places," driving them to extinction before their level of sentience could be determined under the Convention of Civilized Systems. The killers then covered up the genocidal crimes to avoid being found out and persecuted by the Republic. One such situation arose around the first year of the Clone Wars, when the Talz species was found to inhabit the ice world Orto Plutonia, a presence that proved Pantoran scouts' original reports of the planet's barrenness of life to be incorrect. Following the Talz's attacks on the Republic's Glid Station and the Confederacy of Independent Systems' base on the world as a response to the species' aggravation from the amount of military activity on the planet, an investigation team led by Jedi Generals Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker&mdash;accompanied by Chairman Chi Cho and Senator Riyo Chuchi, dignitaries from Orto Plutonia's moon of Pantora, which had previously laid legal claim to the icy planet&mdash;discovered the Talz on Orto Plutonia, who were led by Chieftain Thi-Sen.

Unable to quietly exterminate the Talz&mdash;and thereby swiftly end the threat they posed to his leadership&mdash;because of the presence of the Jedi, who were the acting Republic representatives on the world, Cho instead declared war on the Talz. In doing so, he intended to provoke a conflict that he hoped would leave the Talz colonists dead and therefore relinquish their claim to Orto Plutonia in order to reinstate Pantora's control of the world. Cho himself claimed that the Talz were "little more than animals" and were not covered by the Convention of Civilized Systems, negating the involvement of Kenobi and Skywalker, who both objected to his aggressive course of action. However, Cho's assertions of the Talz's lack of sentience were not backed up by any sort of evidence, and he did not even allow the Talz to be tested for sentience in accordance with the Convention of Civilized Systems. Chuchi opposed Cho's claim that the Talz were non-sentient but was unable to prevent him from leading the dispatched forces of the Grand Army of the Republic into war with the Talz. Cho was eventually killed, and Chuchi stepped in on behalf of the Pantoran Assembly to establish peace with the Talz, ending the short war and leaving Orto Plutonia in control of the Talz.

Besides the bill of rights' role&mdash;or lack thereof&mdash;in the Orto Plutonia debacle, Republic Major Kendal Ozzel attempted to cite the Convention of Civilized Systems when he was captured by Dark Acolyte Asajj Ventress during the Battle of Khorm in response to her interrogation aimed at gleaning information on the Republic's battle plan. However, Ozzel's claims did little to prevent the unfazed Ventress from intensifying her questioning by unhesitatingly killing several of Ozzel's fellow clone trooper hostages.

Behind the scenes
"The Pantoran Assembly's Chairman Cho thought Orto Plutonia's Talz were savages who didn't deserve the rights of sentient beings in Republic space&mdash;a claim Obi-Wan Kenobi knew wouldn't hold up under Republic law."

- An excerpt from The Official Episode Guide: Season 1

The Convention of Civilized Systems was first alluded to in "Trespass," an episode of the Star Wars: The Clone Wars television series' first season, which aired in January 2009. Besides receiving another passing mention in In Service of the Republic, Part 1, the seventh issue of The Clone Wars comic series, the bill of rights itself was not expanded upon in detail until the release of Jason Fry's The Official Episode Guide: Season 1 in October 2009, which detailed the law act's structure and briefly recounted the role it would have played in "Trespass" had it been properly enforced.

Appearances

 * Star Wars The Clone Wars 7: In Service of the Republic, Part 1
 * Star Wars The Clone Wars 7: In Service of the Republic, Part 1