The World Schools Debating Council
The World Schools Debating Championships is governed by the World Schools Debating Council, made up of representatives of each of the countries who participate in the championships. Decisions are made by democratic votes of the Council members (though only representatives of countries who have entered teams in at least two of the past three WSDCs may vote on amendments to the championship rules). The Council decides which countries will host the tournament, monitors and revises the WSDC rules, and elects an Executive Committee to handle matters such as adjudication, language issues, education and finance.
There is a Charter which contains the Aims of the championship and three basic principles. The principles ensure that there is no censorship of motions for debate, and that all teams take part on an equal basis. All participants and all hosts must agree to abide by the Charter before taking part. A consequence is that a country which will not allow particular teams to enter the country is unable to host. The team from Israel, for example, is unable to enter several of the countries taking part, and those countries are currently unable to host the championship. By contrast, Israel itself permits all teams to enter its country, and was therefore able to host the championship in 1998.
Read more about this topic: World Schools Debating Championships
Famous quotes containing the words the world, world, schools, debating and/or council:
“Please stop using the word “Negro.”... We are the only human beings in the world with fifty-seven variety of complexions who are classed together as a single racial unit. Therefore, we are really truly colored people, and that is the only name in the English language which accurately describes us.”
—Mary Church Terrell (1863–1954)
“The world ‘s a bubble, and the life of man
Less then a span:
In his conception wretched, from the womb
So to the tomb;
Curst from his cradle, and brought up to years
With cares and fears.”
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626)
“We’re for statehood. We want statehood because statehood means the protection of our farms and our fences; and it means schools for our children; and it means progress for the future.”
—Willis Goldbeck (1900–1979)
“Scepticism, as I said, is not intellectual only; it is moral also; a chronic atrophy and disease of the whole soul. A man lives by believing something; not by debating and arguing about many things. A sad case for him when all that he can manage to believe is something he can button in his pocket, and with one or the other organ eat and digest! Lower than that he will not get.”
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881)
“I haven’t seen so much tippy-toeing around since the last time I went to the ballet. When members of the arts community were asked this week about one of their biggest benefactors, Philip Morris, and its requests that they lobby the New York City Council on the company’s behalf, the pas de deux of self- justification was so painstakingly choreographed that it constituted a performance all by itself.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)