Current Resolution

2023-2024 RESOLUTION:

RESOLVED: THE UNITED STATES SHOULD RESTRICT ITS NUCLEAR FORCES IN ONE OR MORE OF THE FOLLOWING WAYS:
-ADOPTING A NUCLEAR NO-FIRST USE POLICY;
-ELIMINATING ONE OR MORE OF THE LEGS OF ITS NUCLEAR TRIAD;
-DISARMING ITS NUCLEAR FORCES.

PAST RESOLUTIONS

  • 1971–1972 – Resolved: That the US should withdraw its ground combat forces from bases located outside the Western Hemisphere.
  • 1972 Fall – Resolved: That the penal system in the US should be significantly improved.
  • 1973 Spring – Resolved: That the US should seek to restore normal diplomatic and economic relations with the present government of Cuba.
  • 1973 Fall – Resolved: That “victimless crimes” should be legalized.
  • 1974 Spring – Resolved: That the US should reduce its commitment to Israel.
  • 1974 Fall – Resolved: That the federal government should grant amnesty to all those who evaded the draft during the Vietnam War.
  • 1975 Spring – Resolved: That American television has sacrificed quality for entertainment.
  • 1975–1976 – Resolved: That education has failed its mission in the US.
  • 1976–1977 – Resolved: That legal protection of accused persons in the US unnecessarily hinders law enforcement agencies.
  • 1977–1978 – Resolved: That Affirmative Action promotes deleterious hiring practices.
  • 1978–1979 – Resolved: That the US policy significantly directed toward the furtherance of human rights is desirable.
  • 1979–1980 – Resolved: That compulsory national service for all qualified US citizens is desirable.
  • 1980 Fall – Resolved: That protection of the national environment is a more important goal than the satisfaction of American energy demands.
  • 1981 Spring – Resolved: That activism in politics by religious groups harms the American political process
  • 1981 Fall – Resolved: That unauthorized immigration into the US is seriously detrimental to the US.
  • 1982 Spring – Resolved: That the American judicial system has overemphasized the rights of the accused.
  • 1982 Fall – Resolved: That a unilateral freeze by the US on the production and development of nuclear weapons would be desirable.
  • 1983 Spring – Resolved: That individual rights of privacy are more important than any other Constitutional right.
  • 1983 Fall – Resolved: That US higher education has sacrificed quality for institutional survival.
  • 1984 Spring – Resolved: That federal government censorship is justified to defend the national security of the US.
  • 1984 Fall – Resolved: That the method of conducting presidential elections in the US is detrimental to democracy.
  • 1985 Spring – Resolved: That the US is justified in providing military support to nondemocratic governments.
  • 1985 Fall – Resolved: That significant government restrictions on coverage by US media of terrorist activity are justified.
  • 1986 Spring – Resolved: That membership in the UN is no longer beneficial to the US.
  • 1986 Fall – Resolved: That improved relations with the Soviet Union are a more important objective for the US than increased military preparedness.
  • 1987 Spring – Resolved: That regulations in the US requiring employees to be tested for controlled substances are an unwarranted invasion of privacy.
  • 1987 Fall – Resolved: That continued US covert involvement in Central America would be undesirable.
  • 1988 Spring – Resolved: That the American judicial system has overemphasized freedom of the press.
  • 1988 Fall – Resolved: That significantly stronger third party participation in the US presidential elections would benefit the political process.
  • 1989 Spring – Resolved: That increased restrictions on the civilian possession of handguns in the US would be justified.
  • 1989 Fall – Resolved: That violence is a justified response to political oppression.
  • 1990 Spring – Resolved: That the trend toward increasing foreign investment in the US is detrimental to this nation.
  • 1990 Fall – Resolved: That government censorship of public artistic expression in the US is an undesirable infringement of individual rights.
  • 1991 Spring – Resolved: That the US Supreme Court, on balance, has granted excessive power to law enforcement agencies.
  • 1991 Fall – Resolved: That US colleges and universities have inappropriately altered educational practices to address issues of race or gender.
  • 1992 Spring – Resolved: That advertising degrades the quality of life in the US.
  • 1992 Fall – Resolved: That the welfare system exacerbates the problems of the urban poor in the United States.
  • 1993 Spring – Resolved: That the United Nations implementation of its Universal Declaration of Human Rights is more important than preserving state sovereignty.
  • 1993 Fall – Resolved: That the national news media in the United States impair the public’s understanding of political issues.
  • 1994 Spring – Resolved: That United States military intervention to foster democratic government is appropriate in a post-Cold War world.
  • 1994 Fall – Resolved: That throughout the United States, more severe punishment for individuals convicted of violent crime would be desirable.
  • 1995 Spring – Resolved: That the United States should significantly increase the development of the earth’s ocean resources.
  • 1995 Fall – Resolved: That the United States should substantially change its foreign policy towards Mexico.
  • 1996 Spring – Resolved: That the United States should substantially change its foreign policy towards Mexico. (selected to repeat Fall topic)
  • 1997 Fall – Resolved: The United States Federal Government should substantially increase its security assistance to one or more of the following Southeast Asian nations: Brunei, Burma(Myanmar), Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam.
  • 1998 Fall – Resolved: That the United States Federal Government should amend Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, through legislation, to create additional protections against racial and/or gender discrimination.
  • 1999-2000 – Resolved: That the United States Federal Government should adopt a policy of constructive engagement, including the immediate removal of all or nearly all economic sanctions, with the government(s) of one or more of the following nation-states: Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Syria, North Korea
  • 2000–2001 – Resolved: That the United States Federal Government should substantially increase its development assistance, including increasing government to government assistance, within the Greater Horn of Africa.
  • 2001–2002 – 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.
  • 2002–2003 – 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.
  • 2003–2004 – 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.
  • 2004–2005 – Resolved: That the United States Federal Government should establish an energy policy requiring a substantial reduction in the consumption in the total non-governmental consumption of fossil fuels in the United States.
  • 2005–2006 – Resolved: The United States Federal government should substantially increase diplomatic and economic pressure on the People’s Republic of China in one or more of the following areas: trade, human rights, weapons nonproliferation, Taiwan.
  • 2006–2007 – 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).
  • 2007–2008 – Resolved: That the United States Federal Government should increase its constructive engagement with the government of one or more of: 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.
  • 2008–2009 – 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.
  • 2009–2010 – Resolved: The United States Federal Government should substantially reduce the size of its nuclear weapons arsenal, and/or substantially reduce and restrict the role and/or missions of its nuclear weapons arsenal.
  • 2010–2011 – Resolved: The United States Federal Government should substantially increase the number of and/or substantially expand beneficiary eligibility for its visas for one or more of the following: employment-based immigrant visas, nonimmigrant temporary worker visas, family-based visas, human trafficking-based visas.
  • 2011–2012 – Resolved: The United States Federal Government should substantially increase its democracy assistance for one or more of the following: Bahrain, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Tunisia, Yemen.
  • 2012–2013 – Resolved: The United States Federal Government should substantially reduce restrictions on and/or substantially increase financial incentives for energy production in the United States of one or more of the following: coal, crude oil, natural gas, nuclear power, solar power, wind power.
  • 2013–2014 – Resolved: The United States Federal Government should substantially increase statutory and/or judicial restrictions on the war powers authority of the President of the United States in one or more of the following areas: targeted killing; indefinite detention; offensive cyber operations; or introducing United States Armed Forces into hostilities.
  • 2014–2015 – Resolved: The United States should legalize all or nearly all of one or more of the following in the United States: marijuana, prostitution, online gambling, the sale of human organs, physician assisted suicide.
  • 2015–2016 – Resolved: The United States should significantly reduce its military presence in one or more of the following: the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, the Greater Horn of Africa, Northeast Asia.
  • 2016–2017 – Resolved: The United States Federal Government should establish a domestic climate policy, including at least substantially increasing restrictions on private sector emissions of greenhouse gases in the United States.
  • 2017–2018 – Resolved: The United States Federal Government should establish national health insurance in the United States.
  • 2018- 2019 – Resolved: The United States Federal Government should substantially increase statutory and/or judicial restrictions on the executive power of the President of the United States in one or more of the following areas: authority to conduct first-use nuclear strikes; congressionally delegated trade power; exit from congressional-executive agreements and Article II treaties; judicial deference to all or nearly all federal administrative agency interpretations of statutes and/or regulations; the bulk incidental collection of all or nearly all foreign intelligence information on United States persons without a warrant.
  • 2019- 2020 – Resolved: The United States Federal Government should establish a national space policy substantially increasing its international space cooperation with the People’s Republic of China and/or the Russian Federation in one or more of the following areas:
    • arms control of space weapons;
    • exchange and management of space situational awareness information;
    • joint human spaceflight for deep space exploration;
    • planetary defense;
    • space traffic management;
    • space-based solar power.
  • 2020–2021 – Resolved: The United States Federal Government should reduce its alliance commitments with Japan, the Republic of Korea, North Atlantic Treaty Organization member states, and/or the Republic of the Philippines, by at least substantially limiting the conditions under which its defense pact can be activated.
  • 2021-2022 – Resolved: The United States Federal Government should substantially increase prohibitions on anticompetitive business practices by the private sector by at least expanding the scope of its core antitrust laws.
  • 2022-2023 - Resolved: The United States should vest legal rights and/or duties in one or more of the following: artificial intelligence, nature, nonhuman animal species.