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Debate Motions

The selection of debate motions presented here is a selection made on the basis of motions debated in the last three years at different tournaments and trainings. We tried to  make a very diverse list of motions from different content areas and for different  publics and occasions. Motions are a combination of classical ones and very specific ones. We intentionally did not divide them in different categories as we believe it is easier to find a suitable one when a person is exposed to very different ones. 

 

Below, you can also find links to two websites which systematically collect debate topics from different tournaments, one from European tournaments only, the other from tournaments all around the world. 

  • Blogger Black Round
  • Blogger Black Round
  • This House believes nuclear energy is a way to go

  • This House would apologise to Native Americans

  • This House would ban make up  in middle schools

  • This House believes video games make more harm than good

  • This House believes there is too much violence in media

  • This House believes violence in media causes violence in society

  • This House would eliminate age restrictions for marriage

  • This House believes there is too much sex in the media

  • This House would abolish ZOOs

  • This House advocates human colonisation of outer space

  • This House believes that politicians should not be allowed to publish their autobiographies during their lifetimes

  • This House would go to the elections   

  • This house supports military intervention to deliver emergency aid in humanitarian crises 

  • This house believes that governments have a duty to bail out failing financial institutions

  • This house would ban the use of unethically obtained data in scientific research

  • This house would make the directors of multinational companies personally liable for environmental abuses committed by their companies in the developing world

  • This house would expand the permanent membership of the UN Security Council

  • This House would ban the broadcast of recordings produced by terrorists

  • This House would require all schools to teach safe sex to children from age 10 regardless of parental consent

  • This House would pay morbidly obese people to lose weight

  • This House believes developed countries should not accept skilled migrants from developing countries

  • This House would make fines relative to wealth

  • This House would use military force where necessary to deliver emergency aid

  • This House would require people to work in return for welfare payments

  • This House believes the European Union should declare that energy security is a legitimate reason for military action

  • This house would ban the physical punishment of children by parents

  • The mixed sex schools are better than unisex schools

  • English should become a  common global language

  • Bollywood is better than Hollywood

  • Our children’s lives will be better than ours

  • We should stop eat meat

  • War is never justified

  • McDonalds should be banned

  • Advertising degrades the quality of life

  • We should let convicted criminals to raise their children in prisons

  • We should ban advertising which targets  children

  • Governments should put a limit on individual energy use

  • Obama should be tried at International Criminal Court

  • EU experiment failed

  • Development aid should be conditioned with recognition of gay rights

  • We should tax unhealthy food

  • We should ban plastic bags

  • THBT online activism is counterproductive

  • Hacking is a legitimate way of protest against multinational corporations

  • Free Internet is a myth

  • In the era of Internet privacy lost its  importance

  • We should abandon the authorship rights for music and films

  • THBT the internet should be regulated just like all other media

  • THBT the internet is a public good

  • THBT that an unregulated internet does more harm than good

  • In the era of Internet we should introduce a global hate law speech

  • Capital controls Internet

  • We support censorship on pornography at Internet

  • We support Anonymous actions agains governments and corporations

  • Citizens should be involved in all the decisions connected with Internet

  • THW implement the electronic vote

  • We should vote for pirat political parties

  • Democracy failed us

  • We should abandon democracy

  • We support direct democracy

  • THBT the European public education system is out of touch with the job market

  • THW sanction EU members states that do not ensure protection of sexual minorities

  • THBT we should tax products according to their environmental and social footprint

  • THBT can not be no equal opportunities without  strong welfare state

  • THBT sports should not receive any public funding

  • THW make EU universities free

  • THB there cannot be equal opportunities without a strong welfare state

  • Voting should be obligatory

  • We should lower the voting age to 16

  • Representative democracy has failed us

  • E-elections would increase the participation of youth

  • The democratic potential of the Internet is overvalued

  • A conscious consumer does for democracy more than a voter

  • Invalidate any election result with a turnout below 70%

  • Children should be excluded from any religion until adulthood

  • We support parents who secretly install spyware on their children’s electronic devices

  • Install condom vending machines in all high schools

  • We should not force children to sing the national anthem in schools

  • Require large online social networks to be controlled democratically by their users

  • Allow minors who pass a test on civics to vote

  • Parents should have access to their children's social networking sites

  • This house would prohibit the media from using software to cosmetically improve an individual’s appearance

  • This house believes that hacking is an acceptable form of protest against large corporations

  • This house would legally require priests to report all serious crimes that they hear of in confessions

  • This house would require persons who work in the media to wait four years before running for public office or working for the government

  • This house believes that elective cosmetic surgery should be banned

  • This house believes that doctors should never lie to their patients, including one for their own good

  • This house would authorise nudism on beaches and in public pools

  • Romantic relationships between university instructors and their students should be illegal

  • The state should prohibit all items of clothing that cover the face

  • Allow companies to refuse hiring smokers

  • Criminalise the payment of ransom

  • European governments should pay parents to have children

  • We should ban boxing

  • Women should get an equal position in war with men

  • All citizens ought to perform a period of national service

  • Have harsher sentences for celebrity criminals

  • Marriage is an outdated concept

  • Prostitution should be legalized

  • Students  in public school should wear school uniforms

  • Public money should not be used to finance art 

  • Strong dictatorship is better than weak democracy

  • We should be willing to negotiate with terrorists

  • All politicians should be limited to two terms in office

  • Nationalism is a virtue

  • Convicted rapists should be chemically castrated

  • Testing products for humans on animals is immoral

  • After cohabiting for six months, couples should be considered as married

  • Parents should lose custody of morbidly obese children.

  • Child abusers should not be allowed to have more children

  • Every citizen should be provided with internet access

  • THBT Europe 2020 has failed youth  

  • THBT The European Parliament needs a trans-European pirate party

  • THBT Poverty is the biggest threat to social peace and security 

  • THBT high youth unemployment makes EU longterm prosperity impossible

  • This house supports Anonymous  

  • THBT Anonymous are terrorists

  • THBT The fear of economic crisis has more negative effects than the crisis itself 

  • THBT Assimilation is a better model than integration for creating cohesive EU societies

  • THBT Countries of the EU should have a common history book

  • THBT There can be no EU economic union without a political one

  • THBT We should introduce a tax on transactions in the EU

  • THW favour employers that hire young people over those that hire older workers

  • THBT today's young generation of Europeans has less opportunities than they're parents did

  • THBT the EU should strongly encourage young families to have more than one child

  • THBT social media has made traditional media obsolete

  • THBT the EU is in a crisis of democracy

  • THBT the youth of Europe is not properly represented in decision making

  • THBT Facebook should be controlled democratically by it's users

  • THW implement the electronic vote for European Parliament elections

  • EU member states should provide primary education for Roma children in their native language

  • All European countries should enforce affirmative action for the employment of the Roma

  • Roma should be recognised as the first transnational minority in the European union

  • We should ban all religious holidays as national holidays

  • The EU should grant amnesty to all illegal aliens currently living within its borders

  • EU countries should pursue a stronger assimilation policy

  • Governments should pay for minorities to be educated in their native language

  • EU should sanction its members for denying practice of religious freedom in public

  • Governments  should impose common minimal housing and living conditions for low-skilled workers from other countries

  • All citizens should be entitled to a basic income without the requirement to work

  •  All workers should be legally entitled to profit sharing

  • Welfare payments should be done through voucher

  • University graduates should pay the cost of their university education through a graduate tax

  • Unions have lost their power in the European Union

  • Competitiveness breads equality

  • THBT improving urban living conditions should be the priority of the 21st century

  • THBT Europe should not support the French ban on headscarves

  • THW ban government funding of religious schools

  • THW have a European passport

  • THW require migrants wishing to have European citizenship to pass language and value tests

  • THW follow the Swedish model for integration

  • This house supports  quotas for women at the elections for parliaments

  • This house would  not allow public sector employees wear religious clothing or symbols in the workplace

  • This house believes that affirmative action to remedy the effects of discrimination is justified

  • THW allow people to choose religious courts to rule on family matters

  • THW allow polygamy/polyandry in Europe

  • We should apologize to the colonies

  • This House would include Iran in negotiations for peace in Siria

  • THBT Egypt will be better off with a secular authoritarianism than a democratic government

  • TH condemn the EU Troika’s reliance on mainly austerity measures as a solution for at risk Eurozone economies

  • THBT governments should actively discourage consumerist lifestyles 

  • THBT all corporations should become workers' co-operatives

  • TH supports the creation of a feminist political party

  •  THW allow legislation through voter initiated referenda

  • TH  prefers to prosecute the  clients  rather than the prostitutes

  • THW spread asylum seekers over EU countries on the basis of their relative population sizes

  • THBT it is legitimate for environmental campaign groups to use ecoterrorism to achieve their goals

  • THBT foreign visitors to Islamic countries should dress and act according to local sensibilities in public even if not obliged to by law

  • TH supports the Ukrainian government decision to make a trade deal with Russia rather than seek integration with the EU

  • THW aggressively prioritize the posting of female diplomats to countries with poor women's rights records

  • THW not grant developing countries the right to host major international sporting events

  • The feminist movement should actively fight to liberate men from their prescribed gender roles

  • THBT political parties should adopt non-hierarchical organisational structures 

  • EU member states should have an uniform immigration policy

  • THBT EU nations should stop cooperating with the USA on intelligence matters

  • This house supports EU initiative to ban plastic bags

  • THW automatically dismiss all appointed government officials with a higher disapproval rate than 75 percent

  • THW eject national sports teams from international competitions if their fans or players are found to have committed racist or fascist acts during matches 

  • EU membership brought EU new members more harm than good

  • THW terminate  EU  membership

  • THW legalize the sale and purchase of human organs practice 

  • THW ban companies from advertising their products in a sexualized manner practice 

  • TH regrets the European court's decision to afford people the right to be forgotten on the internet

  • That vegetarians and vegans have a moral obligation to aggressively lobby their friends and community to not consume animal products

  • That the West should not import food from nations with chronic food shortages 

  • That we should ban all advertising and education which implies that addictive or dangerous substances cannot be enjoyable 

  • TH would boycott works from artists (painters, musicians, movie directors, etc.) that personally hold discriminatory views, even when you like their art 

  • THW create a common history curricula for the entire European Union 

  • THW not import food from nations with chronic food shortages 

  • THW enforce complete gender equality in religious institutions 

  • This house believes that governments should prioritize policies that reduce social inequality over economic growth 

  • THBT life-extending medical procedures should be denied to the terminally ill

  • THW Prohibit Religious Organisations from Speaking out against Homosexuality

  • THBT states should take active measures to limit the spread of American pop culture

  • THBT that developing countries should support commercial surrogacy

  • THS worldwide comprehensive and aggressive sanctions against countries that criminalize homosexuality 

  • TH welcomes the rise of art, music and film that celebrates lack of economic wealth 

  • This House would grant immediate EU admission to regions like Scotland or Catalonia who choose to declare independence from countries that are already in the EU

  • THW eliminate any legal or ethical limitations from the field of genetic research on improving the human body

  • THBT Facebook, Google+,and other social media platforms should remove all content produced by extremist political parties

  • THBT past colonial empires should pay reparations to their former colonies who are still classed as developing

  • THBT feminist political activists should form a separate political party based on feminist ideology, rather than joining existing parties 

  • THS affirmative action policies targeted at women in business 

  • THW apply universal jurisdiction to crimes against the environment 

  • THW require major polluters to open their borders to environmental refugees. 

  • THW allow prisoners to raise young children in prison 

  • THBT Pope Francis I should publicly endorse Socialist political parties and candidates. 

  • THBT the International Community should recognize an independent Iraqi Kurdistan, and arm it to fight against ISIS

  • THBT drone strikes are a legitimate tool of foreign policy

  • THW Disallow Unvaccinated Children From Attending Public Schools

  • THW Lift Tax Exemptions from Religious Institutions that Refuse to Recognize Marriage Equality

  • HW Ban Children From Becoming Professional Models

  • THW Allow Prisoners To Volunteer for Drug Trials in Exchange for A lighter Sentence

  • That we should abolish NATO

  • This House supports the creation of exclusive schools for students that identify as LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning)

  • This House would impose a sin tax on the consumption of meat

  • THW ban all commercials that promote stereotypical norms of beauty and femininity

  • THW impose a "gender imbalance" tax on corporations 

  • THW ban unpaid internships 

  • THB that States of the Former Yugoslavia Should not Commemorate the Events of the Yugoslav War

  • THBT that States of the Former Yugoslavia should create common history curricula for schools

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