1 Steve: We'll 'ave to go to Africa to talk to Jane Goodall.
2 Terry: But Steve, you travelling there will violate three UN conventions!
3 Steve: Crikey Terry, everyone knows you can violate those at the drop of an 'at.
4 Steve: They're like the Romulan Neutral Zone!

Ah, the good old Romulans. Did you know Star Trek has two Neutral Zones, one buffering the Federation from Romulan space and one from Klingon space? (What am I saying; if you're reading this, you're probably geeky enough to be answering, "Uh, yes," out loud right now.) I guess they figured if one Neutral Zone was good, two would be even better.

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2014-05-19 Rerun commentary: There's also a Demilitarised Zone between the Federation and the Cardassian Union. This is really just yet another neutral zone, but I guess the treaty organisers had a thesaurus this time.

The other thing from Star Trek that you can violate at the drop of a hat is of course the Prime Directive.

If there's one thing to be learnt from all this it's the following: If you write absolutely inviolable laws into your fictional setting, it's a guarantee that one day your heroes will have to break them and then come up with an excuse for doing so.

Not that this is a bad thing - I'm just sayin'.