The European Universities Debate Championship 2017, taking place in Tallinn, have come to an end. On the day of the finals both the last four teams of the Open track and the English as a Second Language (ESL) track came together at the Nordea Concert hall for the two finals. ...

[caption id="attachment_32163" align="alignright" width="400"] The GUU delegation at the Durham Open with winners Bethany Garry (standing) and Owen Mooney (green shirt) - © GUU[/caption] The Durham Open 2017 was won by GUU A (Bethany Garry and Owen Mooney) in Opening Opposition on an open motion. They debated against Consider Phlebas (Sam van Elk, Cambridge and Joe Roussos, LSE) in Opening Government, Oxford RJ (Jure Hederih and Raffy Marshall) in Closing Government and Cambridge E (Camilo Ruiz and Matt Hankin) in Closing Opposition. The final was judged by Kez Exley (C) Dee Courtney, Aislin Flynn, Rory Flynn and Chris Paschali Best speaker of the tournament was ...

[caption id="attachment_32158" align="alignright" width="400"] Winners Katherine Dunbar (left) and Etsuko Lim (right) during prep time - © TCD Hist/Phil[/caption] The Trinity Open 2017 was won by Cambridge B (Etsuko Lim & Katherine Dunbar) in Closing Government. They debated against Oxford Tecks and Sophie (Teck Wei Tan & Sophie Large) in Opening Government,  Upgrading from Aodhan (Adam Stairs & Clíodhna Ní Chéileachair, UCD Law) in Opening Opposition and Edinburgh A (Tim Squirrel & Nish Hegde) in Closing Opposition on the motion "You are an author who has just been granted a power such that any book you write would be taken as gospel by all who read it. ...

[caption id="attachment_31902" align="alignright" width="400"] Enting Lee speaks as Leader Opposition in the final round of the 2017 HWS Round Robin (c) Howard and William Smith Colleges[/caption] The HWS Round Robin has claimed yet another weekend of the lives of some of the best debaters in the world. In a tradition that began at the 2016 HWS Round Robin, two judging panels watched each round and delivered oral adjudications independently, with the aggregate number of points & speaker points used to determine the break (tab here). After a struggle for team spots, which can be achieved either through winning a prestigious named tournament or ...

[caption id="attachment_31732" align="alignright" width="171"] Cardiff Open Winners (Rebecca Tan left, Bailey Reid right) - © Craig McDonald[/caption] Congratulations to the team ‘Bailey’s white privilege’ (Bailey Reid, Rebecca Tan; KCL/Bristol) for winning the final of the Cardiff Open 2017. They won the final from Closing Opposition defeating ‘Oxford That Shakespeherian Rag’ (Richard Ngo, Steve Heo; Oxford) in Opening Government, ‘London University School College Economics London’ (Hamish Barker, Aiden Patrick; LSE/UCL) in Opening Opposition, and ‘Oxford Not Wong (literally – we’re not him)’ (Teck Wei Tan, Will Prescott; Oxford) on the motion "This House believes that marginalized groups should abandon respectability politics". The final ...

Note by the editors: This article will be updated to reflect the top novice speaker & Spanish division motions when such information is released. [caption id="attachment_31574" align="alignright" width="400"] left: Pan-American Champions Miriam Kohn & Chris Perkins. right: ESL top speaker Syed Reefat Aziz - © Brady Fletcher.[/caption] In the English division of the 2017 Pan-American Universities Debating Championships, the team Rochester PK (Miriam Kohn, Chris Perkins) emerged victorious from Closing Government on the grand final motion “This house prefers a world where American and Canadian Multi-National Corporations in South America adhere to the environmental and labour standards of their home countries." They debated against ULV LM (Kandin ...

[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 ...

[caption id="attachment_31072" align="alignright" width="242"] Winners of the Inner Temple IV 2017 - © Michael Dunn Goejikan[/caption] The team Fulfilling MDG's Virtue Signalling Quota (Michael Dunn Goejikan & Muhammad Assadullah Khan) has won the final of the Inner Temple IV 2017. The motion was "This house supports a norm where adult children take in their elderly parents, even in cases where their parents have the financial means to support themselves." The final was judged by Steven Ramesh Rajavinothan  in chair, together with Tek Wei Tan, Ibrahim Steele, Mackenzie Tse, Bruce Weaver and Penny S. Best speaker was Michael Dunn Goejikan with an average of 84.25 speaker points. The Novice Final ...

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 ...

[caption id="attachment_30238" align="alignright" width="400"] The winning team of this year's Munich Open: Calyxx Peucker & Philipp Müller - © Jan-Gunther Gosselke[/caption] From October 28th till October 30th, the first Munich Open took place after substantial preparations by conveners Katharina Heinrich and Christian Rausch. CAed by Monica Forman, Ben Shaw and Melda Eren, it extended the former trio of important international tournaments in the German circuit (Berlin IV, Tilbury IV, Vienna IV) by a fourth. Following five preliminary rounds, 'Berlin B' (Stefan Torges & Julian Stastny) , 'Clash and Burn' (Friedrichshafen/Munich, Calyxx Peucker & Philipp Müller), 'Heidelberg Rennehardt' (Benedikt Rennekamp & Martin Reinhardt), 'My minority ...

[caption id="attachment_29548" align="alignright" width="400"] Team England wins the WSDC 2016 - © Dominique Brewing[/caption] The English high school students Rosa Thomas, Archie Hall and Kenza Wilks won the grand final of the WSDC 2016 in Stuttgart as proposition on the motion „This house believes that states should be allowed to pay other states to relocate and settle refugees.“ The English team debated against the opposing Canadian team represented by Dasha Metropolitansky, Rory Flynn and Alex Wu. In the WSD format, teams consist of five students, three of which speak per debate. Therefore, Edward Bracey and Ife Grillo of Team England also ...

The World Universities Debating Championship 2015 in Malaysia has its champions:And the winners are...The Open CategorySydney A (Edward Miller, Nick Chung) won the final in the Open Category. They debated the motion "This House believes that humanitarian organisations should, and should be allowed to, give funding, resources or services to illegal armed groups when this is made a condition for access to vulnerable civilians." and won against Oxford A (Patrick Bateman, Natasha Rachman) in Opening Government, BPP A  (Steven Rajavinothan, Michael O'Dwyer) in Opening Opposition and Harvard A (Bo Seo, Fanelesibonge Mashwama) in Closing Opposition. The final was adjudicated by Shafiq Bazari (chair), Dominic ...