Convention of Civilized Systems

The Convention of Civilized Systems was a bill of rights that the Galactic Republic ratified by the time of the Clone Wars. It was put into effect to apply better methods of determining a species' sentience, and it additionally granted the rights of sentient Republic citizens to those who were deemed to deserve them. The decree provided various tests to ascertain sentience, and amendments to the act expanded its coverage to species in multiple star systems that appeared incapable of interstellar travel. However, the law in fact increased genocidal crimes against previously undocumented sentient species, as some individuals drove species to extinction and then covered up the massacres so as to avoid prosecution by the Republic.

Besides these illicit speciecides, another example of a failure of the law'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.

Text and facts from the “Convention of Civilized Systems/Legends” article on Wookieepedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0. Modified for this site.