WUDC 2012: Updates, Motions, Bid News from Prelim Day 1

De La Salle University Manila - the venue for WUDC 2012

Preliminary rounds of the 2012 World Universities Debating Championships began yesterday at Manila's De La Salle University with 3 rounds. Despite livestreaming difficulties, missing teams and elevator clogs, the tournament ran relatively smooth.

Several of Indonesia's 17 participating teams won their early debates, including Universitas Indonesia A (Adlini Ilma Ghaisany & Roderick Sibarani) and Binus University B (Rosmi Yana & Radite Adjie) that both wrapped up the day with 6 VPs. UI A won R2 from CO in a debate that had a team from the renowned Princeton University as CG. Usually, teams need 18 VPs after 9 rounds to make the cut for the main WUDC break.

At least 6 teams enter R4 with a perfect score of 9 VPs, including reigning Euro champions University of Oxford A (Ben Woolgar & Hugh Burns) and an ESL team, University of Utrecht A (Danique von Koppenhagen & Tomas Beerthuis).

After a buzz that Indonesia might table a bid for WUDC 2014, country representative Bryan Gunawan tweeted the Education Ministry wants to host the championships in 2015. According to the WUDC Constitution article 15, a bid must come from a college or a debating society, suggesting the government should find a varsity partner to be the eligible bidder.

The motions on Day 1 of the preliminaries are as follows:
R1 THW make fathers take paternity leave
R2 THW prevent politicians from making fact claims, that, while not technically lies, are substantially misleading to voters
R3 THW force large companies who leave an area to pay the costs of any resulting structural unemployment