春T感想文① written by JV

どうもみなさんこんにちは！ブログ担当のFです！今日は春tの感想文を、Jayvee Saludに書いてもらいました！

JPDU Spring Tournament 2015

Once a year, Japan’s best collegiate debaters converge for the annual National Championships in the Asian format of debating.  On the 25^th and 26^th of April this year, the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies (TUFS) and the International Christian University (ICU) shared the responsibilities of hosting more than 60 teams from Japan’s top universities. For its part, the University of Tokyo Debate Society (UTDS) was represented by six (6) teams, each formidable enough to make a run for the championship.  Undeterred by the pressures of going into the tournament as defending champions, all 6 of Todai’s best teams fought hard to recapture the illustrious Spring Tournament Trophy.

Consisting of 8 rounds overall (4 preliminary rounds, 4 main break rounds), each team had to argue difficult and timely motions from a wide range of topics such as Corporate Practices, LGBT rights, Democracy and International Relations.    After the preliminary rounds, Tokyo A, B, C and E broke to the main octofinal breaks, while Tokyo D broke to the rookie quarterfinals. 

In very tight matches, Tokyo C and E were eliminated in the Octofinals (unfortunately, Tokyo E by Tokyo B).  Tokyo D, for its part, reached the Rookie Semi-Finals. 

In the semi-Finals, UTDS was represented in both rooms.  Tokyo B met Waseda A on the motion TH, as South Africa, opposes the use of “Apartheid” as an analogy in describing the Israel-Palestine Conflict.  In a very close match, Waseda A won the match setting up a grand final match against Tokyo A who beat Waseda E in the other semi-finals. 

In the Grand Finals, Tokyo A argued in favor of the motion THBT a fetus harmed in a criminal attack should be considered as a victim of crime in its own right.   Tokyo A set up the debate as a right of a fetus to be born, as such, regardless of whether the fetus was the direct or indirect subject of an attack, the criminal must be held accountable for the harm on the fetus.  Tokyo A conceded that a fetus does not have the same rights as a human being, but that its rights are non-commensurate to that of the former does not negate that unborn children have inchoate rights.  That at the moment the crime was committed, there was a living, existing being in the womb of a woman.  Therefore, it is at that moment that a fetus’s rights must be measured and determined.

Waseda’s clash was based principally on the non-commensurability of rights, that fetuses do not have equal rights to that of living human beings.  So, they asked, why should the State prioritize an unborn child over that of a criminal who is alive.   However, this was disproven by Tokyo A by pointing out that even if animals do not have the same rights as human beings, society still punishes – as a criminal act – animal cruelty.

In a Point of Information, Waseda asked whether Tokyo A was defending abortion.   Catching Waseda off-guard, Tokyo A responded that it was unwilling to defend abortion because it was defending the right of the unborn child.   Likewise, Waseda relied on the idea that since fetuses are not yet alive, there is a possibility that they will not be born.  However, Tokyo A already anticipated this by arguing that it is at the moment of the attack that a fetus’s rights must be determined. Waseda’s logic was flawed because it doesn’t mean that if somebody “hastens” your death by killing you, that the murderer shouldn’t be punished because everyone will die anyway. 

In an almost unanimous 8-1 split, Tokyo A successfully defended the championship.  Together with the championship trophy, UTDS debaters also figured significantly in the speaker awards, both in the main and rookie categories.