WUDC 2014: Full List of Motions

The motions at the 2014 World Universities Debating Championships were the highlight of the Chennai tournament amid shortcomings in other organizational aspects. Most of them, especially the mandatory ones, were fair and relevant. The most controversial was the open octofinal motion that led to the demise of several favorite teams that had to defend it. Here is the full list of WUDC 2014 motions:

Preliminaries
R1. THBT the United States of America should fund moderate madrassas throughout the Islamic world
R2. THW allow first-time offenders to, with the consent of the victims, pay compensation to them in place of a prison sentence
R3. TH regreats the rise of a 'hookup culture'
R4. THBT developing countries should ban members of political dynasties from standing for elected office
R5. THBT the Trans-Pacific Partnership is in the interests of the small and medium-sized negotiating countries
R6. THW make the receipt of welfare payments to raise children conditional on the use of long-term, but reversible, contraception
R7. THBT government agencies that regulate drugs should only test whether a drug is safe, not whether it is effective, before approving it for public use
R8. THBT NATO should unconditionally offer membership to the states of the former Soviet Union, excluding Russia
R9. TH regrets the commodification of indigenous cultures

EFL Out-rounds
EFL SF. THBT the gay rights movement should abandon the claim that sexuality is not a choice
EFL GF. THBT multinational companies should be liable for human rights abuses that occur anywhere in their supply chain

ESL Out-rounds
ESL QF. THW remove all copyright protection for material deemed to be morally objectionable
ESL SF. THBT Pope Francis should publicly encourage Catholics to support radically redistributive government policies
ESL GF. THW allow countries to pay other countries to settle asylum seekers who reach their borders

Open Out-rounds
Open PDOF. THW abolish gated communities in the developing world
Open OF. THBT Japan should shame its soldiers who participated in World War II, including those who did not commit war crimes themselves
Open QF. THW auction off the long-term right to govern bankrupt cities for profit
Open SF. THBT women should reject practices that alter the appearance of their genitalia
Open GF. THBT India should adopt aggressive free market policies

Masters
Masters R1. THBT the feminist movement should actively fight to liberate men from their prescribed gender roles
Masters R2. THW redraw the borders of Africa
Masters GF. THW never categorize people by their race

WUDC 2014: Victorious Harvard Debaters End US Drought, Aussie Reign

#4 Harvard University A (Josh Zoffer & Ben Sprung-Keyser) became the first American team for more than a decade or even two, depending on how one sees it, to triumph in the most prestigious debate tournament on the planet. Their victory in the 2014 World Universities Debating Championships in Chennai ended a long drought for the United States since New York University Law School won it in 2002.

Interestingly, both of the NYU Law speakers were students from the United Kingdom. The last true American pair to win WUDC also came from Harvard but they did it in 1993 when the format was 2-on-2, not the 4-team British Parliamentary style that is currently used.   

Harvard A (Ben Sprung-Keyser/Josh Zoffer)

In the recent final, Harvard acted as the Opening Government and proposed the motion "This House Believes That India Should Adopt Aggressive Free Market Policies" in front of an audience that included top government officials of India's Tamil Nadu state. Their stance arguing that India can only rise to become a world economic power if they radically change their protectionist policies stood until the end.

The victory was an upset because many had placed their bets on Closing Opposition #1 University of Sydney B (Chris Bisset & Elle Jones) who set a new record on points collected in the preliminary round with a whopping 26 from 8 wins and a second place finish. The other finalists were  #10 University of Cambridge B (Ben Adams & Kitty Parker-Brooks) and #27 University of Glasgow (John McKee/Duncan Crowe).

Harvard also stopped a four-year Australian reign. A Sydney team won it in 2010 and then their countrymen from Monash University secured the title for three straight years. The Australian strength was apparent on the speaker tab. The top four all come from Australia with Sydney's Elle Jones as the number one debater in WUDC 2014.

WUDC 2014: ITB Puts Indonesia on the Map, Wins EFL Title

Fauzan Reza Maulana (ITB)in red batik offers POI in WUDC 2014 EFL Final

#8EFL Institut Teknologi Bandung A (Fauzan Reza Maulana & Vicario Reinaldo) proved Indonesian debaters can excel on the world stage after winning the English-as-Foreign-Language category of the 2014 World Universities Debating Championships. This is the first time an Indonesian team championed a category in WUDC.

In the final, ITB A successfully knocked down the motion "This House Believes That Multinational Companies Should Be Liable for Human Rights Abuses That Occur Anywhere in Their Supply Chain". They defeated #1EFL University of Warsaw A, Russia's #3EFL New Economic School A and #6EFL Eberhard Karls University Tubingen A from Germany.

Although they came to the final as the lowest ranked team among the four, they put up a brave fight. Their strategy as Opening Opposition to attack the failure of the government bench to characterize the relations between MNCs and their outsourced supply chain in developing countries paid off. Their tenacity from the beginning until the end of the debate also bore fruit. The ITB pair persistently threw damaging points of information at the opponents to strengthen their  arguments. In the end, many of their points, from the impact of capital flight, as the by-product of the proposal, for rural areas in poor countries to the lack of direct control in the hands of the MNCs on their abusive suppliers, were left standing. 

In the other restricted category, Berlin Debating Union A (Dessislava Kirova & Kai Dittman) from Germany became the English-as-Second Language champion of WUDC 2014. In the final, they defeated teams from Lund, Belgrade and Romania's Babes-Bolyai University.

ESL is a higher class than EFL. The latter is only for speakers with none to less than 6 months study in an English speaking country or institution with English as its language of instruction. A requirement that has made some Indonesian teams, including from Universitas Indonesia and Binus International, to compete as ESL participants. 

Nobody from an Indonesian institution got into the top 10 speakers of the three categories (EFL, ESL and Open) but Stevensen Chen, an Indonesian debater representing Japan's Hitotsubashi University, became the 6th best EFL speaker. The best EFL speaker was Belgrade University's Helena Ivanov while Mubarrat Wassey from International Islamic University of Malaysia took the individual ESL title.

WUDC 2014: ITB Boys Become First Indonesians to Reach a Worlds' Final

ITB A (Fauzan Maulana & Vicario Reinaldo)

#8EFL Institut Teknologi Bandung A (Fauzan Maulana & Vicario Reinaldo) defeated their opponents in the English-as-Foreign-Language semifinal of the 2014 World Universities Debating Championships to become the first ever Indonesians to reach a WUDC final. In the penultimate debate, the pair, who won the 2013 Asian English Olympics in Jakarta, will face #1EFL University of Warsaw A from Poland, Russian #3EFL New Economic School A and Germany's #6EFL Eberhard Karls University Tubingen A.

No Indonesian has broken into the main WUDC knockouts. Several Indonesian teams have progressed into the ESL and EFL elimination stages since these categories became available less than a decade ago. ITB A became the first among them to earn the honour to debate in front of more than 1,000 debaters and judges from around the world. 

The EFL final, which will take place at the 5-star Taj Coromandel Hotel in Chennai, will be streamed live via  http://www.rajalakshmi.org/webinars/chennaiworlds.html around 3 pm local time or 16.30 WIB. Results will only emerge around 10.30 pm or 00.00 WIB 

WUDC 2014: ESL & EFL Knockout Brackets

ESL

1. Lund A
16. Belgrade C	1. Lund A
8. Babes-Bolyai B	8. Babes-Bolyai B
9. Zagreb B		1. Lund A
4. Babes-Bolyai A		4. Babes-Bolyai A
13. Tilbury A	4. Babes-Bolyai A
5. Ben-Gurion A	13. Tilbury A
12. Magdeburg A			CHAMPION
2. Berlin A			2. Berlin A
15. Kyung Hee A	2. Berlin A
7.  IBA-Dhaka A	10. IIUM B
10. IIUM B		2. Berlin A
3. Belgrade B		3. Belgrade B
14. IBA-Dhaka B	3. Belgrade B
6. RRIS A	6. RRIS A
11. Ewha EDIS A

EFL

1. Warsaw A
4. Kyoto B	1. Warsaw A
5. BLCU A	8. ITB A
8. ITB A		CHAMPION
2. Hitotsubashi A		8. ITB A
3. NES A	3. NES A
6. EKU Tubingen A	6. EKU Tubingen A
7. UGM A