LC debaters face off with Brits over the ICC

by Beka Feathers

On Monday, Nov. 18, the Lewis & Clark Forensics team welcomed their British national counterparts to campus for their second annual debate. The event, which was open to the entire campus, pitted LC Forensics members Paul Bingham and Nathan Whittaker against British national debaters Anna Kirk and Richard Osborne.

The trip to Oregon marked the end of Kirk and Osborne's 17-state American tour, in which they debated against college debate teams across the country.

"It's quite an honor that we have them here," said LC team member Shelby Long, who introduced the debaters. "Debate is a way that we can transcend these different cultures and it's a way that we can get along with everybody."

Although, the subject of the debate was the relevance of an International Criminal Court, an issue that has caused tensions between the United States and many European countries, both LC and the British duo seemed to have plenty of time for friendly bantering outside the topic.

"[The British] share a long cultural bond with [America]," said Osborne. "You gave us Walt Disney you gave us Elvis, and you gave us Britney Spears. We gave you John Lennon?and you shot him."

"When we were thinking of ideas for topics for the debate," said Whittaker, a senior at LC and in his 8th year of debate, "We thought of things like ?Why beer should be served cold' and ?We hate the French more than you do'."

Beyond the jokes, however, both teams quickly settled into debate over the ICC and the Bush administration's refusal to participate in its creation. Kirk and Osborne, speaking for the existence of such a court, argued that the ICC would provide a consistent, permanent foundation on which to rest judgements, and that the US had nothing to fear from such a court if its soldiers had committed no war crimes.

"It's a court that deals with individual responsibility as a justice mechanism," said Kirk.

In addition, Osborne argued, the United State's consistent refusal to take part in the court was hurting its reputation abroad.

"This is a dream the world is engaged in, and the US is not," he said.

Bingham and Whittaker, opposing the court, contested that the ICC would take away the power of local systems of justice to punish perpetrators of crimes.

"Local organizations are much better equipped to deal with crimes, because they witnessed them," said Bingham. "The ICC strips jurisdiction from where the crimes happened."

The LC debaters also warned that the ICC might be detrimental to peacekeeping operations, if the US was afraid American peacekeepers could be called to account for their actions, especially by malicious parties.

"We got involved in Kosovo, but we might not get in [next time] if we have the fear of being tried unduly," Bingham said.

Whittaker felt that, in addition, the court depended too much on having rational actors on all sides of a situation.

"[The ICC] is based on the assumption that actors are rational," he said. "Now, it seems to me that if someone is committing genocide and war crimes, they cannot be called rational. [The ICC] deters intervention and it ultimately allows genocides to continue."

The debate lasted an hour and a half, with a question-and-answer period for the audience at the end. It was considered a success by both participants and audience members.

"I think an exchange of views in any civilized format is always preferable," said President Micheal Mooney, who served as Speaker of the House for the debate.