What are Global Debates?

The Global Debates were a yearlong initiative developed to give high school students and their teachers an opportunity to actively participate and initiate public discussion around critical international issues. It was also a platform to exchange views and share courses of action that need to be taken around the world to combat these issues.

The Global Debates were originally organized by The People Speak, an organization dedicated to engaging young people on global issues around the world. In fact, The People Speak organization began in 2003 as an initiative the United Nations Foundation.  Since then, The People Speak has had 60,000 activities reaching people in all 50 states and people in more than 60 nations. In approximately 2009, the Global Debates became an initiative of the UN Foundation, IDEA debate, the NFL (National Forensic League), and other domestic and international partners. In total, Brother Rice participated in all four seasons – and all eight debates – of Global Debate competition (since the inception of the program).

The Global Debates program lasted from 2007-2011; now they are available only for college students.

Structure and Competition:

Two topics were debated per year, one in the first (“fall”) semester and one in the second (“spring”) semester. For each of these topics, a debate between Brother Rice teams was held, subsequently uploaded to YouTube, and submitted to the event organizers. Competing teams also had to earn “points” which determined worldwide team rankings. Points were earned through a variety of activities: service projects pertaining to the topics, writing press releases, obtaining press coverage, getting elected officials to attend the debate or service event, to name a few. The native Michigan garden in the courtyard by the ARC is one such service project conducted as part of the Global Debates.

The breakdown of points among the top teams (which were recorded by the organizers) for the four seasons are documented in the spreadsheet “Global Debates Four Year Results.” A review of the list of registered schools for the 2010-2011 Global Debates reveals that over 300 schools from across the globe and from every continent, except Antarctica participated. To the best of our knowledge for the first two years, thousands of teams competed in the Global Debates; moreover, Brother Rice is the only known high school in Michigan to have participated.

Brother Rice’s participation was fully documented on the website, as part of a “points” activity for the Global Debates: http://www.freewebs.com/waterfortheworld/.

Note: United Nations Foundation primarily coordinated the first two seasons, IDEA (International Debate Educational Association) primarily coordinating the final two seasons).

Topics:

Fall 2007 – Resolved: Market mechanisms are preferable to regulatory approaches in reducing carbon emissions.

Spring 2008 – Resolved: Water should be considered national property.

Fall 2008 – Resolved: The World should adopt our plan to significantly combat climate change.

Spring 2009 – Resolved: Developed countries have a higher obligation to combat climate change.

Fall 2009 – Resolved: When it cannot do both, the United Nations should prioritize poverty reduction over combating climate change.

Spring 2010 – Resolved: Annex I countries of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) should provide significantly increased aid to developing countries specifically for climate change adaptation.

Fall 2010 – Resolved: Nations of the world should increase protection of the social and economic rights of migrants.

Spring 2011 – Spring 2011: All states should immediately ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of Migrant Workers and their Families.