The Final of Doxbridge III: Return of the King was won by They're taking the ballots to Bidengard (Tin Puljić, Lovro Šprem; Zagreb) in Opening Government, speaking against Runner Up Maternal Damnation (Srishti Krishnamoorthy-Cavell, Tudor Musat; Cambridge) in Opening Opposition, Belgrade MD (Janko Đorđević, Miloš Marjanović) in Closing Government, and Yale QE (David Edimo, Eva-Marie Quinones). The debate on the motion " was judged by Aisling Tully as chair together with Hadar Goldberg, Jason Xiao, Kit Mercer, Lucie Slamova, Niki Linganur and Uphie Abdurrahman. Fitting the tournament theme, the final motion read "Assuming the One Ring has been destroyed and Sauron defeated, TH, as a Hobbit, ...

Princeton 1 (Greg Weaving, Xiao-Ke Lu) in Opening Opposition has won the Open category of the United States University Debating Championships 2020. Speaking against them were Chicago 1 (Devesh Kodnani, Brian Li) in Opening Government, Princeton 2 (Shreyas Kumar, Preston Johnson) in Closing Government, and Chicago 2 (Jaewon Park, Jay Gibbs) in Closing Opposition. They spoke on the motion "THBT it is in the interest of the US to take measures to significantly reduce its economic ties and connections with China (e.g. reducing investment and redirecting trade, and shifting away from yuan in its reserve currency basket)". Chairing the adjudication ...

The winners of the Asian British Parliamentary Championship 2020 in Malaysia are Ateneo 1 (Mikko Vitug, Ignaceo Villareal). They won the grand final out of Closing Opposition, speaking against  UPD 2 (Alia Yao, Clarice Tee) in Opening Government, NUS 1 (Tao En Qi, Shaun Lee) in Opening Opposition), and Taylor's 1 (Har Naveenjeet Singh, Ploopy) in Closing Government. The final was chaired by Piali Bopanno. Judging with them were Boby Andika Ruitang, Connor O'Brien, Dominic, EnTing Lee, Erica Liu, Fardeen Ameen, Taha Iqbal, Udai Kamanth. The motion read "TH, as the feminist movement, would advocate for aggressive government intervention to counteract behaviours which the feminist movement determines are ...

The final of the Hart House Inter-Varsity 2020 was won by the team in Opening Government Yale EQ (David Edimo, Eva-Marie Quinones). They defeated MDU FP (Naomi Panovka, Matt Farrell; McGill) in Opening Opposition, UADS BJ (Karel Brandenbarg, Emma Jones; Alberta) in Closing Government and Princeton JW (Greg Weaving, Daniel Ju) in Closing Opposition. The motion of the final read "THBT it is in the interest of countries that experienced Japanese colonial occupation (e.g., South Korea, China, Singapore, Philippines, Vietnam) to boycott the 2021 Summer Olympics in Tokyo if far-right paraphernalia (e.g., displays of the Rising Sun flag) are permitted".  ...

The Women and Gender Minorities Online Debate Open 2020 was hosted by Livi McAlrea and Emily Xie on the 25th and 26th of July. It featured 68 teams and a break to open quarterfinals and to a novice final. The tournament was founded and initially organized alongside Meehakk Mulani. A panel discussion was organized, and included a series of question and answers as well as broader discussions of womxn and gender minority experiences in debate. The Adjudication Team included Ivy Xu, Noam Shurin, Micaela Lewis, Hadley Parum, and Eva-Marie Quinones. Tab was run by Reed Herter and initially organized alongside ...

The Open Final of the Suzhou Debate Open 2020 has been won by Cambridge JH (Joshua Yeung, Han Yang; Cambridge Union) from Closing Opposition. Speaking against them were Sun Fuji (Tota Takahashi, Kanan Ishizaka; Tokyo) in Opening Government, anyideas (Andrius Budiono, Matthew Ling; Chinese University of Hong Kong) in Opening Opposition, and Team Ascension (Fardeen Ameen, Zobayer Ahmed; Independent University of Bangladesh) in Closing Government. The motion before the house was that "Assuming feasibility, THW allow individuals to sell their units of Intelligence Quotient (IQ)," for which there is a recording available as part 1 and part 2. The adjudication panel ...

[caption id="attachment_34093" align="alignleft" width="150"] View of Lake Jasna, Kranjska Gora - © Duncan Crowe[/caption] With over 225 participants, including students, teachers and trainers the World Schools Debate Academy 2018, the biggest version of the WSDA so far, came to a successful end after taking place from the 23rd to 30th of June. The WSDA is a debate academy that teaches school students between the ages of 13 to 18 everything about debating in the World Schools Debating format in Kranjska Gora, Slovenia. The students participate in a very intense week of debate training, followed by a three day tournament. The educational part of ...

Once again the anglophone World Universities Debating Championship (WUDC) took place during the turn of the year. This year's location was Mexico City. The tournament started the 27.12.17 and ended the 04.01.18. After nine preliminary rounds the teams breaking to the outrounds were announced on New Year's Eve. At the WUDC, teams participate classified as one of three language categories: EPL (English as a Proficient Language), ESL (English as a Second Language) and EFL (English as a Foreign Language). EPL-classified teams can only participate in the Open Break, ESL-teams depending on their ranking either in the Open Break oder the ...

[caption id="attachment_33120" align="alignright" width="400"] USA Red, the winner of the tournament - © EurOpen[/caption] The EurOpen 2017 (taking place 9.11.-15.11.) was won by USA Red (Ella Michaels, Piper Doyle, Emily Grantham) from Opposition on the motion "THBT capitalism does more harm than good for women’s liberation". The final was judged by Anna England Kerr as chair together with Miha Andrič, Tracey Lee, Bedrich Bluma, Klaus-Peter Heil, Ann-Sophie Zeipekkis and  Devin van den Berg. Best speaker of the tournament was Samuel Wooddell from American Logos Glacier with an average of 73.13. Best ESL speaker was Brian Li from SAS China with an average of 72.35 speaker points. EurOpen is an annual World Schools ...

[caption id="attachment_32286" align="alignleft" width="309"] Winning team Toronto 1 - © UTS Speech and Debate Society[/caption] The tournament at the World Schools Debate Academy 2017 was won on a 6 - 3 split desicion by Toronto 1 (Gautam Manohar, Adithya Chakravarthy, Angela Li, Andrei Comlosan Pop and Mia Richmond; Canada) in Opposition on the motion "THBT developed nations should not recruit high skilled workers such as doctors and engineers from developing countries". They debated in the final against the team North European Trade Agreement (Sonia Meehan, Leo Ohl, Julius Schillinger, Luesa Vallin and Mariam Kojo; Finnland/Germany). The final was adjudicated by Duncan Crowe (c), Kristina Loayza, Jenny Tumas, Rok Hafner, Penny Sadeghi , Malvika Kala, Roel Becker, Elizabeta ...

[caption id="attachment_31673" align="alignright" width="400"] Left to right: Samantha Malone (finalist), Tessa Holtzman (champion), Abigail Westberry (champion) and Katherine Ziegler (finalist) - (c) Jan Hovden[/caption] Bates sophomores Bates HW (Tessa Holtzman, Abigail Westberry) were recognized Champions of the 2017 North American Women & Gender Minorities Debating Championships (NAW*DC) on a tight 3-2 call for Closing Government, beating out fellow Bates MZ (Samantha Malone, Katherine Ziegler) across the closing bench as well as UADS JK (Moira Kelly, Emma Jones) of the University of Alberta in Opening Government and University of British Columbia & Hart House team Hybrid FB (Gozal Farrokh, Jayun Bae) in Opening Opposition. In the ...

[caption id="attachment_31637" align="alignright" width="400"] The finalists and CAs - ©Private[/caption] The Alfred Tuna Snider International World Schools Tournament was won by Toronto Mix (Sarah Rana, Zain Daudi, Dori Zhoud, Sophie Wu) in Proposition on a 3:2 split decision. They debated the final on the motion "This House believes that the West should not portray ‘’The Great Explorers’’ (e.g. Christopher Columbus, Vasco da Gama) as heroes" against UTS A (Martine Duffy, Alykhan Jetha, Adithya Chakracarthy, Gautam Manohar; Canada) in Opposition. The final was judged by Adnan Muttalib, Cornell in chair together with Duncan Crowe, UK/Vermont, Nae Sovaiala, Romania, Zheng Bo, China and Wanda Gibson, ...

[caption id="attachment_31345" align="alignright" width="163"] Winners of the Manchester IV Open Final 2017: Owen Mooney (left), Eileen De Souza (right) - © Craig McDonald[/caption] Congratulations to the three winning teams of this year’s Manchester IV! The Open Final was won by GUU Clubs of alcohol and depravity (Owen Mooney and Eileen De Souza) in Closing Government. They defeated Oxford HC (Jure Hederih and Louis Collier) in Opening Government, UCL Janeway (Martin Devenney and Leo Yung) in Opening Opposition, and Edinburgh Nevertheless, She Persisted (Ethan Silver and Nishith Hedge) in Closing Opposition on the motion “This house believes that militaries in new democracies should ...

Lots of experienced debaters keep discussing what might be the best way to adjudicate in British Parliamentary Style. Today, Stefan Torges wants to discuss the perfect adjudicator's position. ...

The team Bailey orders asian Teck-a-Wei (Teck Wei Tan & Bailey Reid, Oxford/KC London) won the final of Centrale Open 2016 from Opening Opposition. They won over Tilbury House Minions (Agnes Putri & Leonard Münstermann, Cologne) in Opening Government, There is but one God and He is not called Jesus (Dan Lahav & Muhammad Asadullah Khan, Tel Aviv/Cambridge) in Closing Government and Cardiff A (Raphael Hill & Calan Eskandar) in Closing Opposition on the motion "THBT the Democratic Party should take on a much more centre-leftist position and support a mass redistribution of wealth agenda". The final was judged by Harish Natarajan in chair, together with Sharmila Parmanand, Nika ...

After Tim Squirrel provoked a debate on free speech, Amanda Moorghen, deputy chief adjudicator of this year's European Universities Debating Championship in Vienna, proposed in a comment on Facebook that chief adjudicators (CAs) should take the debaters' feelings into consideration when setting motions: "Your race, your gender – these are things which affect the feelings a motion creates in you. It is wrong when, even unintentionally, we only selectively attempt to avert the suffering of others."  The post got a lot of attention. Shengwu Li, European Champion 2009 and best speaker of the World Univeristies Debating Championship in 2010, answered ...

The CA team at EUDC Manchester has introduced changes to the way POIs are treated; in particular, they have introduced a compulsory POI requirement, and have asked judges to more stringently enforce the allowance for 15 seconds of speaking time during a POI. Michael Shapira wrote a constructive criticism about those new rules. Now Shengwu Li, writing on behalf of the CA team, explains the thought process behind these rulings. He says that they were happy and thankful for the lively debate on this important issue, but he feels, that there need to be some clarifications as to theire reasons ...