The team debates one topic for the entire year. At each tournament, students must affirm and negative these resolutions, giving them important perspectives on both sides of the topic.  
 

CURRENT 2009-2010 TOPIC AREA

Should the United States decrease reliance on nuclear weapons

 PAST RESOLUTIONS

2008-2009 AGRICULTURE

Resolved: that the United States Federal Government should substantially reduce its agricultural support, at least eliminating nearly all of the domestic subsidies, for biofuels, Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, corn, cotton, dairy, fisheries, rice, soybeans, sugar and/or wheat.

2007-2008 MIDDLE EAST

Resolved: The United States Federal Government should increase its constructive engagement with the government of one or more of the following countries: Afghanistan, Iran, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority, and Syria, and it should include offering them a security guarantee(s) and/or a substantial increase in foreign assistance.

2006-2007 SUPREME COURT

Resolved: The United States Supreme Court should overrule one or more of the following decisions: Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992); Ex parte Quirin, 317 U.S. 1 (1942); U.S. v. Morrison, 529 U.S. 598 (2000); Milliken v. Bradley, 418 U.S. 717 (1974).

2005-2006 CHINA

Resolved: The United States Federal Government should substantially increase diplomatic and economic pressure in one or more of the following areas: trade, human rights, weapons proliferation, Taiwan

 2004-2005 ENERGY POLICY

Resolved: that the United States Federal Government should establish an energy policy requiring a substantial reduction in non-governmental fossil fuel consumption in the United States.

 2003-2004 US-EU RELATIONS

Resolved: that the United States Federal Government should enact one or more of the following:

·        Withdrawal of its World Trade Organization complaint against the European Union’s restrictions on genetically modified foods;

·        A substantial increase in its government-to-government economic and/or conflict prevention assistance to Turkey and/or Greece;

·        Full withdrawal from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization;

·        Removal of its barriers to and encouragement of substantial European Union and/or North Atlantic Treaty Organization participation in

·        peacekeeping in Iraq and reconstruction in Iraq;

·        Removal of its tactical nuclear weapons from Europe;

·        Harmonization of its intellectual property law with the European Union in the area of human DNA sequences;

·        Rescission of all or nearly all agriculture subsidy increases in the 2002 Farm Bill.

2002-2003 TREATIES

Resolved: that the United States Federal Government should ratify or accede to, and implement, one or more of the following:

·        The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty;

·        The Kyoto Protocol;

·        The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court;

·        The Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights aiming at the Abolition of the Death Penalty;

·        The Treaty between the United States of America and the Russian Federation on Strategic Offensive Reductions, if not ratified by the United States.

2001-2002 INDIAN POLICY

Resolved: That the United States Federal Government should substantially increase federal control throughout Indian Country in one or more of the following areas: child welfare, criminal justice, employment, environmental protection, gaming, resource management, taxation.

TOPICS FROM 1946-2000

To see additional debate resolutions, from 1946-2000, Click Here (http://www.wfu.edu/organizations/NDT/HistoricalLists/topics.html)