The day of reckoning is near – on New Year’s Day, the WUDC Council is going to sit in Gaborone, Botswana, and decide over who will be hosting the World Universities Debating Championships (WUDC, or Worlds) in 2013. So far, two candidates from Europe bid for Worlds 2013: Berlin and Zagreb.

The OrgComm from Berlin Debating Union (BDU) started their PR tour in mid-November. Therefore, they made a video that shows the strong will of Berlin for peaceful freedom and her inhabitants’ penchant for big words such as in JFK’s “Ich bin ein Berliner.” According to the video, when it comes to temperature in late December and early January the German capital cannot compete with other Worlds venues such as Gaborone or Manila. But the convenors suggest that this might be faced with cool German beer.

More content on debating is provided for by the adjudication team BDU has obligated: Sharmila Parmanand and Doug Cochran announce their adjudication policy: They promise serious, challenging and fair motions. To achieve that they will debate all motions among themselves in secret. Moreover, they believe in respect for EFL and ESL debates and will assign a DCA who is dedicated to ESL and EFL debating. Last but not least, Sharmila and Doug want to make sure to have a top quality adjudication pool.

Jonathan Leader Maynard published a paper on adjudication policy for the Zagreb bid. At first, Jonathan announced his colleague on the chief adjudicators’ team: Joseph Roussos, chief adjudicator of this year’s Pan-African Universities Debating Championships, South African champion and Secretary to the WUDC Council.

Together, they have ambitious plans: As with the Berlin bid’s adjudication policy, they promise to have a DCA dedicated to ESL and EFL debating, fair motions and a high quality judge pool. Therefore, they introduce a new tracking system to secure judge rotation. On top of that, Jonathan and Joseph want to have a re-modelled Masters’ competition and a guide book to the Worlds.

Meanwhile, the Zagreb bid’s legitimacy is doubted from Croatia itself: Branka Marušić, predecessor of Jens Fischer in the office of president of the EUDC Council, published an open letter just a few days before christmas. In her letter, Branka points out that Zagreb University does not support the bid, be it financially or logistically, nor is the designated convenor of Zagreb Worlds 2013, Petar Bezjak, an enrolled member of this institution. She talks about “other problems”, too, but does not want to go into further details in this open letter. She warns the two on the adjudication team that there will not be enough man power to support the Zagreb bid. Future will show if the Zagreb bid was harmed by this letter. New Year’s Day will be the day of reckoning – the delegates from all over the world will decide if Berlin or Zagreb is going to host Worlds in 2013.

The WUDC Council is the assembly of the delegates of all nations participating at the annual Worlds. The WUDC Council is similar to the EUDC Council, the part which is different is the number of votes: Individual delegates may have up to four votes depending on the number of institutions of their respective nations having sent teams to the Worlds in the past two years, as is recorded in the Constitution of the World Universities Debating Championships. Presenting the bid at the Council is the only official part of bidding for convening the Worlds. So there might be other bidders for Worlds 2013 – but that is very unlikely.

Since 1981, debaters from all over the world have been competing at the World Universities Debating Championships (WUDC) at alternating locations across the planet. It was not before 1996 that the British Parliamentary Style became the mandatory format for this annual tournament. The African continent has been host to previous Worlds and stages the Worlds now for a third time, this year from 27 December 2010 to 4 January 2011 at the University of Botswana, Gaborone. Language of debate is English and there are three categories: “Main” for native speakers, “ESL” (English as a Second Language, for those who prove great proficiency in English) and “EFL” (English as a Foreign Language, for those who studied English as a mere subject).

In 1999, the Berlin Debating Union (BDU) was founded by Jens Fischer and Kai Monheim, back then with the name “Streitzeit (Berlin Debating Union)”. Since then, the society has gained some experience in convening national and international tournaments: BDU has twice been host of the German Debating Championship (2001 and 2008), the biggest tournament on the German speaking debating circuit. In 2006, Berlin was stage of the European Universities Championships (EUDC). In addition to that, the Berlin Debating Union invented the Central and Eastern European Debating Tournament, later renamed Berlin Open and then Berlin IV, thus open to debaters from Western Europe as well as to Israel.

apf / glx