Tournament: Meadows | Round: 2 | Opponent: Westview RS | Judge: Sierra Inglet
1NC against nuclear renaissance
T
A. Interpretation: On the 2016 September October topic, the affirmative must specify in the AC advocacy text which countries ought to ban nuclear power.
B. Violation: Your advocacy text is all countries, you do not specify which countries should ban.
C. Standards: The nuclear power debate focuses on country-specific approaches to solve issues due to the past failure and lack of research of international means. Berry
Taking a broad view of recent literature, several trends emerge:
First, while focusing heavily on ways to prevent the emergence of new nuclear weapons states and further proliferation, there has been a renewed focus—particularly since the abortive 2005 NPT Review Conference (RevCon)—on the perceived shortcomings of the original nuclear weapons states (NWS) in meeting their NPT obligations. In this regard there has been a perceptible focus on the perceived dangers of the unilateral policies pursued by the current US Administration, in contrast to the lead position in consolidating the NPT regime which most observers argue it should be playing. There are, however, divergent views on whether the time is ripe for a more serious effort to move towards full nuclear disarmament. However, serious movement towards this objective has been encouraged in the past two years by authoritative statements from a number of former statesmen from a number of countries, led by four prominent Elder Statesmen from the United States.
Second, there is a growing tendency to focus on the claimed rights and wrongs of states seeking application of their claimed unfettered rights under Article IV of the NPT to civilian nuclear energy and the associated technology and equipment. The literature also examines the increasing resistance to efforts, led principally by Western NWS and other leading civilian nuclear powers, to restrict the spread of such technology, which is cast in an ‘us’ and ‘them’ dichotomy similar to the ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’ division of the original nuclear weapons debates.
Third, few recent studies advocate the drafting of new multilateral treaties, although there are suggestions for more regional and bilateral agreements and arrangements which might plug some of the existing and emerging gaps in the current regime. There is wide agreement that amending the NPT is not feasible, though reinforcing it with additional protocols is not ruled out by some. Otherwise, the focus of recent literature is on identification of violations of existing treaties and agreements, how to respond to such violations, and ways of improving verification and compliance more generally.
Fourth, perhaps unsurprisingly, given the concentrated debate in the past five or so years on the nuclear programs of North Korea, Iran and Syria, and the cessation of WMD programs by Libya, there is an increasing tendency for the literature to take a country-specific approach to some nuclear issues, particularly relating to proliferation and civilian nuclear energy programs. Case studies abound, and there are increasing numbers of regionally-focused studies, concentrating principally on civilian nuclear energy programs which raise broader proliferation concerns. These cover mainly the Middle East, but also increasingly South East Asia, and to a very much lesser extent Latin America.
A. Debateability- Not specing who ought to prohibit nuclear power makes the debate irresolvable since if the aff is winning under the specific approach of one country and the neg is winning under a different country’s approach there’s no way for the judge to determine who wins since different actors would be able to prohibit nuclear power under our conceptions. Speccing solves since we know which groups of people we’re talking about. Resolvibility key since every debate needs a winner. Debatability is an independent voter because it is a prior question to education or fairness whether we can debate.
B. Stable Advocacy- Their interp makes 1AR advocacy shifts inevitable and skews my strat since the aff will always try to reclarify which country-specific approach they are using based on whatever strat I pick. Strat is key to fairness since I need a strategy to have a coherent ballot story. And, the aff must have carded evidence showing that the nuclear debate does not focus on country specific approaches: otherwise you must reject the counter-interp because they obviously aren’t being topical if no authors in the lit support them. Turns the aff—your AC advocacy destroys accountability because it allows you to shift.
C. Clash- by retaining the ability to shift out of the responses on the aff they are mooting the possibility of having any substantive clash. That is the strongest link to education because it is the only unique thing we get from having a debate round- otherwise we would just read philosophy and topic literature.
CX can’t solve-1) judges don’t flow CX so there’s no way to verify what exactly they said 2) even if they do there’s still a risk I forget to ask or that it’s unclear.
Fairness is a voter because debate would determine the better cheater and not the better debater without it. Education is a voter because it is the only long-term impact from debate.
Drop the Debater: 1. This will discourage my opponent from running such types of arguments in future rounds and create better norms. 2. I was forced to spend time on this to check back the in round abuse. 3. My opponent has made the round impossible for me to win by implicating an abusive definition and pertaining to a scope of arguments, which are not in the topic literature. 4. Dropping the argument allows the aff to sever his AC in the 1AR and collapse to another issue.
Competing Interps over Reasonability: 1. It’s very easy to put defense on the topicality shells. This makes debate worse because doesn’t force debaters to answer to the topicality shell. 2. Reasonability is arbitrary and invites judge intervention.
No RVIs: 1. Never have an RVI on topicality because just proving that you were fair and being topical is a required action is debate. It doesn’t justify why you deserve an RVI. 2. Topicality is exclusive to the neg. It is created to check back abuse on the aff, not the other way around. 3. It deters legitimate topicality debate since they can always bait topicality.
T comes first:
- T determines whether or not you have access to arguments so it comes first.
2. Being topical is a required action in debate regardless of the arguments made within the debate space.
3. Abuse from topicality outweighs: if you are not topical you moot all clash and arguments that the negative has prepared for.
4. The judge has no jurisdiction to vote on a debater that is not topical.
