Instigator / Con
11
1644
rating
64
debates
65.63%
won
Topic
#2956

THW Grant India Permanent Membership on Security Council

Status
Finished

The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.

Winner & statistics
Better arguments
3
3
Better sources
4
4
Better legibility
2
2
Better conduct
2
0

After 2 votes and with 2 points ahead, the winner is...

Undefeatable
Parameters
Publication date
Last updated date
Type
Standard
Number of rounds
4
Time for argument
Three days
Max argument characters
10,000
Voting period
One month
Point system
Multiple criterions
Voting system
Open
Contender / Pro
9
1697
rating
556
debates
68.17%
won
Description

Burden of proof is shared.

Whiteflame and Misterchris must comment before accepting. (I will extend argument time to one week due to their greater debate ability)

Security council: The United Nations Charter established six main organs of the United Nations, including the Security Council. It gives primary responsibility for maintaining international peace and security to the Security Council, which may meet whenever peace is threatened.

Information about permanent membership: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permanent_members_of_the_United_Nations_Security_Council

Con will argue that India should not be granted permanent membership to the security council.

Criterion
Con
Tie
Pro
Points
Better arguments
3 point(s)
Better sources
2 point(s)
Better legibility
1 point(s)
Better conduct
1 point(s)
Reason:

This is a frustrating one because neither side does a particularly good job spelling out what should be the standard for determining whether the UN Security Council should bring on another member. That should underpin this whole debate, but both sides just kind of assume that and move onto discussing whether or not India should be that country. Hell, neither side even bothers to mention that India has been a non-permanent member of the Security Council for 8 terms, meaning that there's a decent track record to suggest what India would do if it got permanent status. Trouble is that without it, neither side establishes a particularly objective reason to support their position. Pro wants it to be based on total GDP, representative population, and generally just being better than other countries on the Security Council. Con wants it to be based on GDP per capita, income disparities, its potential for military conflict and its willingness to act in the face of various abuses worldwide. No one ever gives me a solid reason to pick one or more of these. I can go through them and tell you who is winning each, but the practice seems pointless because I'm not sure which I'd pick in the end.

And it really doesn't help that both sides seem to shift strategies as the debate goes on. Most of Pro's R3 is focused on other members of the Security Council, with the aim being to show how they are all bad actors in their own ways. Con's R4 introduced several new arguments far too late, especially this point about just disbanding the permanent membership on the Security Council (might have been interesting to bring this up sooner).

Still, I'll work with what I've got. The only explanation I get for what the Security Council should be comes from Con's framework. Pro challenges it a couple of times, asking why certain elements should matter to a country going on the Security Council, but he misses what I see as crucial elements that Con keeps quoting. I say that Con quotes it, though honestly, there's little actual discussion of why the framework matters or what makes those particular sections more important. Despite that missing element, I have a hard time dismissing India's willingness to get involved fighting major human rights abuses worldwide, since that was a point that Pro kept leaving on the table. I'm told straight up at the start of the framework: "The Security Council's main purpose has been to establish peace, and security." Later, I'm told by Con that "India has also long pursued a policy of silence on most of the other burning issues in international security which UNSC permanent members are often concerned with, from nuclear proliferation in Iran and North Korea, to human rights violations in Syria." That's never addressed, and none of Pro's points demonstrate that India would be committed to policies seeking the aims of the Security Council. That would have been enough by itself, since it has nothing to do with military or economic capabilities and everything to do with political will. I think this possibility of increasing or collapsing the size of the permanent Security Council could have been interesting to explore as well, particularly since each of these countries has veto power (really frustrating that that barely got mentioned), though while that also appears in the framework, there's little expanded discussion of it and I can't do anything with what I'm given.

Nonetheless, much as there are other arguments on the table that I think each side is winning, this is the only argument that appears to take any kind of precedence and it's cold dropped by Pro. I wish Con had pushed it more, but it's on the flow, and it stands out, so Con wins arguments. I also give him conduct due to Pro's forfeit.

Criterion
Con
Tie
Pro
Points
Better arguments
3 point(s)
Better sources
2 point(s)
Better legibility
1 point(s)
Better conduct
1 point(s)
Reason:

Argument:
This was an interesting read - and a tip to both debaters: Please elaborate "what is the security council? What are its goals? Are new members being added? Etc etc" these kinds of foundational elaborations would vastly increase the quality of the debate. Next, I do indeed buy Pro's argument that a good majority of Con's last round arguments were new - and though I will still consider them - they will be minor points compared to the things mostly discussed.

Economy; So the argument goes essentially as follows - Con says that India is among the worst nations financially speaking, as it struggles with equity of income and so and so forth, Pro then argues that India is doing just fine making it to the top 5 in GPD earnings. So, for Con to win this, he has to demonstrate that the Security Council wants to establish equity of wages.... but it never does that - there are no sources from the SC declaring this to be its mission, its just not demonstrate by Con - and Pro actually demonstrates that the members of the SC aren't actually necessarily doing what's "right", so Con's appeal to humanitarian efforts kinda falls flat here. I see no reason why India's poor equity of outcome would prohibit its place on the council, and its rather high general GPD per capita would make it a good candidate as far as we've established. I'd say the point, though it is fairly close, goes to Pro here.

Miiltary: This argument goes that India has done some bad stuff, attack and perpetuate wars on Pakistan, and oppressed its people. Pro rebuts by arguing that not only have all of the other nations of the SC do that, but most still do it. Furthermore, that the attack on Pakistan was provoked. Con does point out that the mere fact that others in the SC do bad stuff that doesn't mean that they should allow others that do "bad stuff" to join the council... a couple of problems that stop me from buying that argument: Con establishes that these nations are supposedly leading by example, yet Con has demonstrated time after time that three of the five continue to lead in an oppressive, problematic way - so adding another nation would not change that- ESPECIALLY because Pro proves that India has done more to help a lot of the causes that Con points out than harm-unlike several other SC members. Furthermore, Con never establishes that India would continue to act in its ways, it is more plausible to me that India would simply change to fit the SC's guidelines than continue on - especially because nothing Con has shown would put India on the level of China or even Russia. It seems to me that this point does also go to Pro.

Overall, though I think both debaters were much to dogmatic in regard to what and who should be allowed into the SC, and very.... vague in regards to what the SC even is - overall I buy Pro's points much more - he's demonstrated that India should get a seat, it's economically prosperous generally, and has seemed to be fair, even helping stabilize the global economy according to Pro's arguments. Con's arguments were filled with assumptions regarding the humanitarian... and he never set that up (except for the last round, and not directly - but as previously mentioned - the new points by Con are not being considered majorly). So, overall - I give arguments to Pro - India should be granted a permanent seat in the SC.

Conduct: Pro forfeited a round