Die vom 28.12.18 bis 03.01.19 stattgefundene World Universities Debating Championship (WUDC) 2019 im südafrikanischen Kapstadt sind beendet und die neuen Weltmeister kommen aus aus Sydney, Hebrew Jerusalem and Keio A. Während des Open Finals kam es zu Protesten der schwarzen afrikanischen Debattiercommunity. Aus dem deutschsprachigen Raum erreichte Münster das ESL-Halbfinale.

Open

Kevin Lee and Bostan Nurlanov – © private

Das Finale der Open-Kategorie wurde von Sydney D (Kevin Lee, Bostan Nurlanov) als Schließender Regierung gewonnen. Weitere Finalteilnehmer waren Cornell B (Denny Lee, Aniroodh Ravikumar) als Eröffnende Regierung, Sydney A (Imogen Harper, James Stratton) als Eröffnende Opposition und das bestplatzierte ESL-Team Zagreb A (Tin Puljić, Lovro Šprem) in der Schließenden Opposition. Das Finalthema lautete „This house believes that the present condition of humanity is better than it would be in 100 years time“. Für Sydney ist dies der dritte Weltmeistertitel in den letzten fünf Jahren (2015, 2017, 2019).

Protesters took the stage at the Open final © Manuel J. Adams

Kurz vor Start des Finals wurde die Bühne von Mitgliedern der afrikanischen Debattiercommunity besetzt, um eine Entschuldigung der WUDC Cape Town-Verantwortlichen für mehrere Vorfälle während des Turniers zu erzwingen. Während der Protest und Verhandlungen mit dem CA-Panel und den Organisatoren liefen, wurde das Finale insgeheim in einem anderen Raum ausgetragen. Dabei kam es zu Änderungen des Jurorenpanels.

Roy Schulman and Elaye Karstadt – © private

ESL

Hebrew Jerusalem B (Elaye Karstadt, Roy Schulman) sind die neuen Weltmeister in der ESL-Kategorie (English as Second Language). Als Eröffnende Regierung setzten sie sich gegen HSE Moscow A (Aleksandr Zhuravlev, Mikhail Shuganov) in der Eröffnenden Opposition, Tokyo A (Mayu Arimoto, Yutaro Kurihara) in der Schließenden Regierung and IIU Malaysia A (Hilmy Yazid, Shitab Akash) in der Schließenden Opposition zum Thema „In the lead up to the 1994 negotiated settlement in South Africa, this house believes that the ANC should have demanded further concessions (e.g. removing the amnesty provision in the TRC, greater land and economic rights) even at the expense of prolonging the conflict“ durch.

The final wurde von Brian Wong (Hauptjuror), Ayal Hayut-man, Elisha Kunene, Eva-Marie Quinones, James Pacino, Jamie Jackson, Lex Sundarsingh, Lucian Tan und Teck Wei Tan juriert.

EFL

Das Finale der EFL-Kategorie (English as Foreign Language) konnte das japanische Team Keio A
(Takua Baba, Yusuke Fuse) aus der Schließenden Regierung gewinnen. Sie setzten sich gegen die Eröffnende Regierung IT Bandung A (Vincentius Michael, Ahmad Kushay), die Eröffnende Opposition Rosario B (Juanita Hincapie, Jorge Portocarrero) und die Schließende Opposition Binus B (Everild Agnes, Felix Kurniawan) durch. Das Thema lautete „This House believes that it is unjustified to assist evil regimes in systematically persecuting members of their identity group in order to mitigate and moderate the regime’s abuses (e.g. Israel Kasztner in Nazi-controlled Hungary, Wang Jingwei in Japan-occupied China)“.

Das Jurorenpanel bestand aus Ashish Kumar (Hauptjuror), Amrit Agastia, Dan Lahav, Daniel Berman, Enting Lee, Jehanna May, Lehakoe Masedi, Steph White and Yoni Cohen-Idov.

VDCH:

Fototermin für Christoph Saß und Anton Leicht nach dem Break – © Matthias Carcasona

Aus dem deutschsprachigen Raum erreichte Münster A (Anton Leicht, Christoph Saß) mit 15 Punkten als einziges Team den ESL-Break. Nachdem sie sich im Viertelfinale aus der Eröffnenden Regierung gegen Teams aus Malaysia und Dhaka durchsetzen konnten, mussten sie sich im Halbfinale aus der gleichen Position den Teams Tokyo A und IIU Malaysia A geschlagen geben.

Als Juror erreichte zudem Christof Kebschull von der Berlin Debating Union (für den australischen Circuit antretend) den Break und wurde im Partial Double Octofinal eingesetzt.

Ebenfalls für den VDCH waren in Kapstadt die Teams Streitkultur A (Marius Hobbhahn, Samuel Scheuer; 13 P.), Berlin A (Lena Kolle, Elena Müller; 13 P.) und Wien A (Joy Edobor, Tommi Deimel; 10 P.).

Der vollständige Break aller drei Sprach-Kategorien ist hier zu finden. Zusätzlich wurden die 10 besten RednerInnen jeder Kategorie ausgezeichnet. Diese waren (Gesamtpunktzahl und Punkteschnitt):

Open Top 10
1. James Stratton (Sydney A) – 744 | 82,67
2. Rory Flynn (Durham A) – 743 | 82,56
3. Imogen Harper (Sydney A) – 742 | 82,44
4. Louis Collier (Oxford A) – 739 | 82,11
4.  Connor O’Brien (Melbourne B) – 739 | 82,11
4. Sophia Caldera (Harvard B) – 739 | 82,11
7. Theodora Von Arnim (Sydney E) – 738 | 82,00
8. Maddie Bosler (Sydney E) – 737 | 81,89
8. Kit Mercer (Oxford A) – 737 | 81,89
10. Bryan Yan (Oxford C) – 736 | 81,78

ESL Top 10
1. Gigi Gil (Oxford B) – 734 | 81,56
2. Tin Puljić (Zagreb A)  – 733 | 81,44
3. Sajid Khandaker (IBA Dhaka A) – 728 | 80,89
3. Sourodip Paul (IBA Dhaka A) – 728 | 80,89
5. Lovro Šprem (Zagreb A) – 727 | 80,78
6. Antonio Fabregat Marianini (Comillas A) – 724 | 80,44
7. Hamza Tariq Chaudhry (LSE A) – 721 | 80,11
7. Marike Breed (Leiden) – 721 | 80,11
9. Milos Marjanovic (PEP Belgrade A) – 720 | 80,00
9. Srijon Sheikh (Stanford F) – 720 | 80,00

EFL Top 10
1. Antonio Fabregat Marianini (Comillas A) – 724 | 80,44
2. Javier De La Puerta (Comillas A) – 717 | 79,67
3. Yutaro Kurihara (Tokyo A) – 710 | 78.89
4. Jovan Petronijevic (PEP Belgrade A) – 703 | 78.11
5. Jessica Andriani Liong (Indonesia A) – 701 | 77.89
6. Ahmad Kushay (IT Bandung A) – 698 | 77.56
6. Adfikri Kevin Marvel (Indonesia A) – 698 | 77.56
8. Jorge Portocarrero (Rosario B) – 697 | 77.44
8. Carl-Martin Keerberg (Tartu A) – 697 | 77.44
10. Erik Haamer (Tartu A) – 695 | 77.22

Die Themen:

R1:Infoslide: Afrikaaners are a white South African ethnic group descended from predominantly Dutch settlers.

This House, as South Africa, would forcibly break up exclusive Afrikaaner enclaves

R2: This House believes that the protections of international law conventions and treaties should not apply to combatants from terrorist organisations (e.g. prohibition on torture, prisoner of war status, guarantee of post-conflict release)

R3: This House opposes the norm that romantic love should be the primary source of fulfilment in a person’s life

R4: Infoslide: Decolonisation refers to the process of critiquing and moving away from value systems and influences that were imposed on countries during colonialism. Some examples include: removing statues of colonial figures e.g. Cecil Rhodes, prioritising indigenous narratives of history over colonial narratives, replacing colonial authors with local authors in curricula.

This House believes that the ongoing process of decolonisation should include actively disempowering religions that were imposed on the country during colonialism

R5: This House would implement substantial measures to impose long-termism in corporate investment culture (e.g. minimum holding periods for shares, yearly rather than quarterly financial reporting, long-term executive compensation plans)

R6: Infoslide: Megacities are cities with a population of over 10 million people

This House supports granting megacities autonomous control over their economic and social policy (e.g. immigration, health, criminal justice) with national taxation policy remaining under the control of the federal government

R7: This House would actively encourage women not to have children

R8: This House believes that the United States should disengage from Syria

R9: This House believes that developing countries should privatise their State-Owned Enterprises (such as airlines, railway utility companies)

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EFL:

SF: Infoslide: In most legal systems, in order to initiate legal proceedings, potential plaintiffs must demonstrate that they are directly involved in the issues of a case in a way that is distinct from general members of the public. This means that an ordinary citizen cannot challenge a law as unconstitutional if they cannot prove that it has, or is imminently likely to, directly affect them. A doctrine of open standing would allow anyone to initiate legal proceedings in court. Plaintiffs would still need to demonstrate a valid legal argument. For example, under the status quo, new healthcare legislation which may increase many people’s premiums could not be challenged by a general member of the public. Under a doctrine of open standing it could be.

This House would grant individuals and organisations open standing to challenge the constitutionality of laws enacted by their government

F: This House believes that it is unjustified to assist evil regimes in systematically persecuting members of their identity group in order to mitigate and moderate the regime’s abuses (e.g. Israel Kasztner in Nazi-controlled Hungary, Wang Jingwei in Japan-occupied China)

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ESL:

QF: This House would subsidise art that glorifies the working class

SF: Infoslide: Recently there has been an increased use of big data and sophisticated algorithms in making various policy judgements. As technology in machine learning and artificial intelligence advances, it is becoming more feasible to apply such methods to more government decision making process.

This House supports governments significantly increasing their use of big data-based predictive models in decision-making to replace human judgements (e.g. criminal justice policy, allocation of healthcare resources, housing development)

F: In the lead up to the 1994 negotiated settlement in South Africa, this house believes that the ANC should have demanded further concessions (e.g. removing the amnesty provision in the TRC, greater land and economic rights) even at the expense of prolonging the conflict

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Open:

PDOF: Infoslide: The World Health Organisation has adopted conventions on various health topics which can impose binding regulations on member states.

This House believes that the WHO should adopt a convention which bans the sell of drugs with high resistance tendencies (e.g. antibiotics) to countries which do not comply with WHO guidelines regarding their medical and agricultural use

OF: Infoslide: For the purposes of this debate, „Political Expansionism“ is an approach to international relations which involves exerting pressure over and intervening in the internal affairs of other states. It seeks to spread ideology and exercise influence over the political and information environments of the targeted countries through channels such as economic investment and backing political groups.

This House believes that an approach of Political Expansionism on the part of the Chinese state is in the interests of the Chinese people

QF: This House supports a norm of embracing anger in public discourse rather than one of aspiring to dispassionate objectivity

SF: Infoslide: In the status quo, financial institutions use the money deposited by customers (e.g. in a bank account) to make loans and investments. Deposits could alternatively be used to buy government-back safe assets (e.g. treasury bonds), which tend to have the lowest risk of default of all assets. In this debate, an “equity account” would be an account where the financial institution can use deposits for loans and investments. The value of an equity account fluctuates based on the value of its underlying assets. A “narrow banking” regulation is the requirement that all financial institutions back up all deposits with an equivalent value of government-back safe assets, unless customers choose to deposit their money in an “equity account”.

This House would impose a narrow banking regulation

F: This house believes that the present condition of humanity is better than it would be in 100 years time

jm.