St. Petersburg Open 2002: An Adjudicator's Notes Vadim Goloubev

Chief Adjudicator of St. Petersburg Open 2002
Associate Professor, Department of English Philology and Translation,
St. Petersburg State University

The St. Petersburg Open 2002 International Parliamentary Debate Tournament, sponsored by the International Debate Educational Association and National Parliamentary Debate Association (USA) was held on January 25-28, 2002, in St. Petersburg, Russia. It was the first English language international student parliamentary debate tournament ever organized in the Russian Federation. The St. Petersburg Open 2002 was part of the International Youth Forum of UN Associations. Since the activities of the Forum itself such as meetings, conferences, seminars, and round-table discussions were held in parallel with the tournament, some of the tournament motions reflected the resolutions adopted at the UN Associations discussion panels. The tournament's aim was to attract the attention of young people from various countries to world integration processes, war on drugs and terrorism, developing international cooperation, promoting the idea of finding peaceful solutions to world's many problems through dialogue and constructive debate. By including the tournament in the larger international event we reached not only those who had come to participate in the tournament or was interested in debate alone but all those who are interested in international policy, future policy-makers in their countries.

A lot of preparation work had been carried out by the organizers of the tournament over several months since the idea to organize the tournament had first been conceived in March 2001. The organizers of the tournament were: the St. Petersburg United Nations Association Parliamentary Debate Program; the UN Youth Association of St. Petersburg; the International Cooperation Association, St. Petersburg; the English-speaking Union, St. Petersburg; St. Petersburg State University; the United Nations Development Center in St. Petersburg.

The combined opening of the forum and the tournament took place in the prestigious venue of the Commonwealth of Independent States Parliamentary Assembly in the historic Tavrichesky Palace of St. Petersburg between on January 25, 2002. The venue is normally used as a Council of CIS Parliaments where parliamentarians discuss various matters pertaining to the legislation common to all member States of the union. The 3-hour-long program of the Opening Ceremony featured greeting speeches from Professor Troyan, Academic Vice Rector of St. Petersburg State University; Klas Ronnback, member of the international organization, European Cities Against Drugs (Sweden); Andrew Hume, Secretary of the English-speaking Union (Scotland); Manolis Polychronides, Chairperson of the World University Debate Council (Greece). The following day was the first debating day of the tournament. After registration the teams and adjudicators had a chance to listen to Klas Ronnback's lecture on drugs. The speaker represented an organization, European Cities Against Drugs, which has helped NGOs, governmental bodies, and people to reduce drug-related problems in Sweden and all over Europe. As Chief Adjudicator, I gave instructions to novice adjudicators and my colleague Artyom Dmitriev held a debating workshop for first-time debaters. All participants, guests and organizers were then given general instructions as to the principles of debating and adjudication at the tournament.

The tournament program consisted of 4 preliminary rounds held on the second day and quarterfinals, semifinals and a final held on the third day of the tournament. Since the tournament was the first such tournament in Russia we expected a lot of teams from Russia who had never taken part in a debate tournament, let alone in an English language international tournament. So for educational reasons the Organizing Committee decided to dedicate the first three preliminary rounds to the topic of the lecture given in the morning, i.e. drugs. The first round motion was This House considers taking drugs to be a crime, the second round motion was This House considers that drug addicts have no right to study at school and at higher educational institutions, and the third round motion was This House will set death penalty for drug trafficking.

I believe the idea worked very well as most debaters made great progress with each round by polishing their argumentation on drugs. So by the fourth round most teams were ready to debate an open and lively motion of the second topical area of the tournament, terrorism: This House believes that globalization is a form of terrorism. While the first day closed with the Havana Disco Club where debaters had a chance to meet each other and dance, the second day's evening was dedicated to a four-hour bus sightseeing tour of St. Petersburg by night. The day closed at midnight when the participants arrived back at the hostel of St. Petersburg State University.

The last working day of the tournament saw the quarterfinals, semifinals and the final. The Quarterfinals and semifinals were hosted by the House of Friendship, headquarters of the St. Petersburg Association for International Cooperation and the English-speaking Union, St. Petersburg. The venue is located just a few meters off the main avenue of St. Petersburg, Nevsky Prospect, an easy-to-reach location. For this reason and also because the International Youth Forum of UN Associations also had its discussions in the same building, the debates drew large audiences both from the city and the Forum.

Expecting that the Organizing Committee had chosen the following motions: for the quarterfinals - This House believes that the State cannot negotiate with terrorists, and for the semifinals - This House believes that a World Government should be established. The motions reflected heatedly debated issues in Russia and the international community. It was especially interesting to see how debaters from the USA, the United Kingdom, France, Greece, Estonia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia would tackle this topic. The result was not highly surprising: a quarterfinal debate between an Estonian team as Government and a Russian team as Opposition was centered around the issue of self-determination for Chechnya.

The final game brought together debaters from the Universities of Oxford and Tartu. The motion, This House believes that an international organization's interference in a country's internal affairs is justified, was interpreted by the Government as the right of WTO to impose environmental standards on its member States. The adjudication panel was unanimous to declare the Oxford team (Matthew Spence and Nicole Evans) winner of the final debate and the tournament. The second best team was the Tartu University team (Mai-Liis Raud and Marianna Drozdova) and the third was a Russian team of Moscow State Institute of International Relations (Olesya Dianova and Aleksandra Bukachyova). The tournament was covered by Russian mass media. The St. Petersburg TV Channel ran a story about the tournament putting the Opening Ceremony in its evening news block. The results of tournament were announced over the St. Petersburg Radio.

After the tournament was over, St. Petersburg State University hosted a world champion in parliamentary debate and lead adjudicator at the tournament, Andrew Hume, who gave a talk on British Parliamentary Debate in the English-speaking Union, in which he touched upon parliamentary debate history, debating formats and the activity of the ESU, Scotland, in running debate tournaments. The lecture drew a large, interested student and faculty audience.

In conclusion, I would like to emphasize the importance of the St. Petersburg Open 2002 International Parliamentary Debate Tournament for both the world and Russian debate movements. Now the Russian debating community has been put on the international debating map not only as participants of debate competitions around the world, but also as hosts of such a competition. According to Prof. Wayne Kraemer, teaching argumentation and debate at Southwest Texas State University, St. Petersburg Open had been given a good start and it must become an annual event, a goal the Organizing Committee is determined to achieve.

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© Vadim Goloubev, 2002

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