The World University Debating Championship 2020 in Thailand is over and the winners come from Oxford, Open University of Israel and Institut Teknologi Bandung. The break after the preliminary rounds can be found here.

EFL category

EFL winners Mohammad Akbar (l.) and Vincentius Michael (r.) – © Mauditra Matin

The team IT Bandung A (Mohammad Akbar, Vincentius Michael) won the EFL final as Closing Opposition against Opening Government Rosario A (Jorge Portocarrero, Juanita Hincapie), Opening Opposition TEC CEM A (Benjamín Vigueras, Ruben Sanchez; Monterrey) and Kyushu A (Khac Hung, Anonymous).

The teams debated the motion “This House would abolish the private ownership of (housing) property in major metropolitan areas”. The adjudication panel consisted of Dan Lahav as chair as well as Archie Hall, Mubarrat Wassey, Sarah Tay and three other anonymous judges.

Top-10 speakers (speaks on average):
1. Vincentius Michael (IT Bandung A) – 78.67 spks
1. Jorge Portocarrero (Rosario A) – 78.67 spks
1. Javier de la Puerta Cresis (UDIMA A) – 78.67 spks
1. Juanita Hincapie (Rosario A) – 78.67 spks
5. Marta Vasic (Belgrade B) – 78.44 spks
6. Miri Muntean (Vienna A) – 77.89 spks
6. Aika Miyazawa (ICU A) – 77.89 spks
8. Klaudia Maciejewska (Jagiellonian A) – 77.78 spks
8. Sunghyun Park (Seoul B) – 77.78 spks
10. Djordje Radosavljevic (Belgrade B) – 77.67 spks

ESL World Champions Maya Saveliev (l.) and Hadar Goldberg (r.) – © Monica Forman

ESL category

In the ESL final, the team OU Israel A (Hadar Goldberg, Maya Saveliev) took home the victory from Closing Opposition against Opening Government Solbridge A (Leomar Doctolero, Sally Lee; South Korea), Opening Opposition North South A (Asif Mehedi, Miraz Rahman; Bangladesh) and Berlin C (Calyxx Peucker, Josef Moscovici).

The debate on the motion “„THBT the United States government should cede the authority to prosecute criminal trials involving African Americans (as either victims or alleged perpetrators) to African American interest groups, and allocate funding for this“ was judged by a panel of Teck Wei Tan (chair), Amrit Agastia, Harish Natarajan, Jessica Musulin, Julio Meyer, Lovro Šprem and Parth Maniktala.

Top-10 speakers (speaks on average):
1. Tin Puljić (Zagreb A) – 82.22 spks
2. Milos Marjanovic (Belgrade A) – 82.11 spks
3. Luka Petrovic (Zagreb A) – 82.00 spks
4. Janko Djordjevic (Belgrade A) – 81.78 spks
5. Mohammed Wasif Amin Khan (IBA Dhaka B) – 81.44 spks
6. Joona Suhonen (Helsinki A) – 81.22 spks
7. Sajid Khandaker (IBA Dhaka A) – 81.11 spks
8. Kazi Ashfaq Huq (IBA Dhaka B) – 81.11 spks
9. Ploopy (Taylor’s B) – 80.56 spks
9. Milla Huuskonen (Helsinki A) – 80.56 spks

Open/EPL

The Open final was won by a team of Oxford out of Opening Opposition against Belgrade A (Milos Marjanovic, Janko Djordjevic) in Opening Government, Yale A (Shruti Baxi, William Arnesen) and Macquarie B (Dominic Guinane, Ben Jackson; Sydney). The motion read “TH as China would grant universal suffrage to Hong Kong”. The debate was judged by three anonymous judges, Cliff Simataa, Sebastian Dasso, Sella Nevo and Yarn Shih.

The name of the winners as well as those of several judges were removed from the tab (on demand) to prevent compromising situations as was declared by the Equity team in a statement which can be found here. Due to several speakers not giving consent to be videotaped, the recording of the final won’t be published.

Top-10 speakers (speaks on average):
1. Anonymous – 83.67 spks
2. Arth Mishra (LSE A) – 83.44 spks
3. Abhinav Reddy Bathula (LSE A) – 83.11 spks
3. Ben Jackson (Macquarie B) – 83.11 spks
5. Anonymous – 82.67 spks
5. Shruti Baxi (Yale A) – 82.67 spks
7. Rachel O’Nunain (Oxford B) – 82.44 spks
7. Eden Blair (Sydney A) – 82.44 spks
9. William Arnesen (Yale A) – 82.22 spks
9. Aditya Dhar (Harvard A) – 82.22 spks
9. Tin Puljić (Zagreb A, ESL) – 82.22 spks
9. Dominic Guinane (Macquarie B) – 82.22 spks

The tournament was organised by the Assumption University Bangkok with Thepparith Senamngern as main convenor. The chief adjudication panel consisted of Jasmine Ho Abdullah, Lucía Arce Cubas, Archie Hall, Ayal Hayut-man, Julio Meyer, Jessica Musulin and Cliff Simataa. Michael Dunn Goekjian who was also part of the CA-panel stepped down before the tournament because of conflicting schedules.

Responsible for the tab were Viran Weerasekera, Benjamin Randall Goh, Alex Murray, Andree Sulistio and Jose Yip. Sebastian Dasso, Vihasini Gopakumar, Annie Hazelton, Seyoung Jeon, Lucien Mendela and Teck Wei Tan were acting as the equity team. The language team included Amrit Agastia, Diego Duarte, Parth Maniktala, Angela Portocarrero, Boby Andika Ruitang and Huyen Thi Thanh Nguyen.

The Motions:

R1: Infoslide: The BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) is legally required to cover the news impartially. This means:

1. It cannot take sides on controversial issues.
2. The amount of coverage each viewpoint gets should roughly reflect the level of support that viewpoint has in society.
3. It is not required to be neutral on certain fundamental issues like the rule of law and the legitimacy of the democratic process.

This House would impose a BBC-style impartiality requirement on all news platforms.

R2: This House supports the rapid global elimination of both tariff and non-tariff barriers to free trade.

R3: Infoslide: Indoctrination means teaching someone to accept beliefs uncritically. In the case of religion, this can include (but is not limited to) emphasising strict adherence to religious teachings and not presenting alternative viewpoints.

This House would allow children to sue their parents for religious indoctrination.

R4: This House would abolish the Olympic Games.

R5: This House believes that the Mexican government should adopt measures that enable one cartel to monopolise the drug market. (These measures can include but are not limited to: targeting enemy cartels; selective arrests; stopping military deployments to areas controlled by this cartel; and renouncing the headhunt on its current leaders.)

R6: Infoslide: A Social Credit System is a national government-facilitated rating system that rewards citizens for good behaviour and sanctions them for bad behaviour.

1. It evaluates a defined set of actions that includes but goes beyond illegal or legally-obligatory acts (e.g., charitable donations, recycling, volunteer work; or jaywalking, and littering).
2. Scores can be given by members of the public, corporations, NGOs, and the government.
3. Based on these scores, the government applies rewards and sanctions (e.g., fast-track through airport security, government-subsidised mortgages, free public transportation; or higher tax, slower document-processing times, and increased barriers to public sector jobs).

In liberal democracies, This House would implement a Social Credit System.

R7: Infoslide: The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) comprises Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.

At its formation, ASEAN adopted principles that have come to be known as “the ASEAN Way.” These principles place strong emphasis on national sovereignty, and a commitment to non-intervention in the affairs of member states. All ASEAN decisions are made unanimously.

This House believes that ASEAN should abandon “the ASEAN Way”.

R8: This House believes that the feminist movement should support the narrative that “beauty does not matter” over the narrative that “all bodies are beautiful”.

R9: This House would abolish primary and secondary school grades/years that group children based on age, and instead group them by competency and intelligence.

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EFL SF: This House prefers a world where, starting today, all humans have identical intellectual abilities (equivalent to the current global average).

EFL F: This House would abolish the private ownership of (housing) property in major metropolitan areas.

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ESL QF: Infoslide: Under the “deferred happiness model” of parenting, there is strong emphasis on setting children up for a successful adulthood, including through a focus on academic or extracurricular achievement, structure, and discipline.

Under the “protected sphere model” of parenting, there is strong emphasis on “letting children be children”, including through a focus on playtime and personal enjoyment.

In a relatively equal society where the “protected sphere model” is the norm, This House, as a parent, would raise their children according to the “deferred happiness model”.

ESL SF: Infoslide: A highly-valued startup has invented Neuralink technology, which allows people’s consciousnesses to be irreversibly uploaded into a powerful supercomputer and maintained indefinitely.

This House prefers a world without the Neuralink.

ESL F: This House believes that the United States government should cede the authority to prosecute criminal trials involving African Americans (as either victims or alleged perpetrators) to African American interest groups, and allocate funding for this.

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Open PDO: This House prefers religions in which all individuals have roughly equal religious obligations and are encouraged to develop a personal connection with the divine, over religions in which religious obligation and access to the divine are concentrated in religious authority figures.

Open OF: This House prefers a cynical and pessimistic perception of democratic politics to an idealistic and optimistic one.

Open QF: This House believes that developing countries should acquire, on the open market, large stakes in major publicly-traded global corporations (eg. Google, JP Morgan, Shell, and Pfizer).

Open SF: Infoslide: A “Brave New World” has these characteristics:

1. People are genetically engineered and socially conditioned by the state for specific societal roles.
2. People’s material and physical needs are unfailingly met.
3. There is no possibility of changing the social order.

This House prefers a “Brave New World” to the status quo in Western Liberal Democracies.

Open F: This House, as China, would grant universal suffrage to Hong Kong.