The Berlin IV took place from 8th to 10th July 2011 and Debattierklub Wien sent four teams and three adjudicators to, what some people consider as the big brother of Austria, Germany. The tournament, with participants coming from nearly 14 countries, was quite international. For some reason there were quite many Scandinavian teams – maybe because they were not required to pay reg fee.
Friday started off with Round 1 (“This house would financially incentivize parents to have two or more children“) and 2 (“This house believes that any language which needs protection is not
worth protection), and ended with a with a party on the rooftop of our hostel, which was located directly beneath the big “Hauptbahnhof” Berlin with an astonishing view over the river Spree and Havel. The party, as other people said, was really nice and there were lots of mixed cocktails, all the more the author of this article regrets to instead have preferred one good night’s sleep.On Saturday, prelims continued and were interrupted for some tasty Chinese noodles.
The motions:
Round 3: This house would make all prison sentences indefinite until the prisoner is deemed rehabilitated.
Round 4: This house would privatise water.
Round 5: For peacekeeping missions in Africa, this house would only use African troops
Round 6: This house would only hold team sports competitions with mixed-sex teams.
Then we had time to dress ourselves up for the break party, which was hosted far away from the hostel, at least it is when your debate-mates decide that walking is healthy and should be preferred to the tube. The break night, as everywhere ,was a long one – we were therefore thankful to not had to use our brains some 6 hours later. Teams that had to, came from Mainz, Cork, London, Utrecht and Leiden and on the next day had to debate wether or not “This house would only hold team sports competitions with mixed-sex teams.”
The finals motion was “This house believes that animal cruelty is acceptable in a work of art”. From starving dogs to suffocating panda bears – the speakers provided a very interesting and polarizing final debate. The final was won by UCC Law B, Becky West and Gearoid Wrixon from University College Cork.
Berlin was a foretaste to what Berlin Worlds 2013 are going to be. We found it was a rather nice foretaste and wish the Berlin Debating Union much success for their upcoming challenge. We’ll be there, that’s for sure.
Round: 1 This house would financially incentivise parents to have two or more children.
Round 2: This house believes that any language which needs protection is not worth protection.
Round 3: This house would make all prison sentences indefinite until the prisoner is deemed rehabilitated.
Round 4: This house would privatise water.
Round 5: For peacekeeping missions in Africa, this house would only use African troops.
Round 6:This house would only hold team sports competitions with mixed-sex teams.
Semi Finals: This house would introduce universal jurisdiction for cyber-crimes.
Finals: This house believes that animal cruelty is acceptable in a work of art.
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