The Canadian University Society for Intercollegiate Debate is the national organization which governs all English language competitive university debating and public speaking in Canada. It sanctions several official annual tournaments and represents Canadian debating domestically and abroad. Its membership consists of student debating unions, sanctioned by their respective universities, from across Canada. CUSID has been described as "a student-run, parliamentary debate league with close ties to the American Parliamentary Debate Association".
The North American Debating Championship is one of the two official university debate championships of North America. It is sanctioned by the national university debating associations in the United States and Canada, the American Parliamentary Debate Association and the Canadian University Society for Intercollegiate Debate. It has been held each winter on an alternating basis between the United States and Canada since 1992. The host university arranges all judging and is not allowed in the competition. The most frequent hosts have been the University of Toronto and McGill University, which have each hosted the championship three times. Bates College, Cornell University, Johns Hopkins University, and Queen's University have each hosted twice. This tournament, often abbreviated as NorthAms, is not to be confused with the North American Universities Debating Championship, abbreviated as NAUDC, which is hosted separately in the fall of each year as a British Parliamentary Style tournament. The two events are coordinated such that each is hosted by a different country, the United States or Canada, in a given year.
The World Universities Debating Championship (WUDC) is the world's largest international debating tournament and one of the largest annual international student events. WUDC is held in the British Parliamentary format.
The World Schools Debating Championships (WSDC) is an annual English-language debating tournament for high school-level teams representing different nations.
Parliamentary style debate, colloquially oftentimes just Parliamentary debate, is a formal framework for debate used in debating societies, academic debate events and competitive debate. It has its roots in parliamentary procedure and develops differently in different countries as a result.
The World Individual Debating and Public Speaking Championships (WIDPSC) is an annual English language debating and public speaking tournament for individual high school-level students representing different countries. It is the public speaking equivalent of the World Schools Debating Championships.
The National Academy of Legal Studies and Research (NALSAR), is a public law school and a National Law University located in Shamirpet, Hyderabad, Telangana, India, and is considered as one of the best law schools in India.
There are several venues of competition for policy debate in the United States.
The Otago University Debating Society (OUDS) is a debating society established in June 1878 and is the oldest society of the University of Otago, the first university to be founded in New Zealand. Echoing trends in Australia and the United States, in the latter decades of the nineteenth century debating was seen as an important talent for New Zealand's thought leaders, and was one of the three sports in the New Zealand University Games from 1902.
The Australasian Intervarsity Debating Championships (known colloquially as "Australs") is an annual debating tournament for teams from universities in the Australasian region. It is one of the world's largest debating tournaments, second only in size to the World Universities Debating Championship (WUDC), the European Universities Debating Championships (EUDC) and one of the largest annual student events in the world. Australs follows the Australia-Asian Debating format (three speakers plus replies), rather than the British Parliamentary Style used at WUDC. It is held every year in early-July under the auspices of the Australasian Intervarsity Debating Association (AIDA). The host university is selected a year before at a meeting of the Council of the Australasian Intervarsity Debating Association.
Square Off is a television debate program broadcast on the ABS-CBN News Channel (ANC). It broadcasts every Friday at 6:00 pm PST, with replays throughout the week. The show is hosted by Maiki Oreta and is primarily sponsored by the Philippine Graphic.
The Yale Debate Association (YDA) is Yale University's only competitive intercollegiate debate team. Founded in 1908, it is the most prolific winner of the American Parliamentary Debate Association's Club of the Year award. The YDA was also the first American team to win and have the top speaker at the modern World Championships. Currently, the YDA is the fourth-ranked collegiate debate society in the world, and as of January 2024, the highest ranked in North America.
The Harvard College Debating Union is Harvard University's only internationally competitive debate team. The union has won the most American Parliamentary Debate Association National Championships and the 2014, 2016 and 2018 World Universities Debating Championships.
The Debattierclub Stuttgart (DCS), also known as the Stuttgart Debating Union, is the debating society of the University of Stuttgart. It holds debates in both German and English. It was founded in 2004 and is now one of the internationally most successful German debating societies. The DCS is Vice World Champion and provided the Second Best Speaker of the World in English as a foreign language (EFL) at the World Universities Debating Championship (WUDC) 2010. At WUDC 2011, the DCS provided the Fourth Best Speaker of the World in English as a second language (ESL) as well as the Best Speaker of the World in EFL.
The World Universities Debating Championship in Spanish or Campeonato Mundial Universitario de Debate en Español (CMUDE) is the world's largest and most important debating tournament in Spanish.
The Queen's Debating Union is the debating society of Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. It was founded as Canada's first debating society in 1843 and became one of the four founding organisations of Canadian University Society for Intercollegiate Debate. It continues to be an active club on campus and has a strong presence both domestically and internationally as a competitive parliamentary debating club.
The Asociación Mexicana de Debate (AMD) is the regulating body for debate in México, formed by students, former students and debate coaches with experience at the most important debating competitions in the world, such as the World Universities Debating Championship, the World Universities Debating Championship in Spanish and the World Schools Debating Championship, and it is the only body that organizes British Parliamentary, Karl Popper and World Schools debate competitions in the country, including two national championships. AMD has the objective of spreading debate all around the country.
The US Universities Debating Championship (USUDC) is the largest British Parliamentary debating tournament in the United States, and one of the largest debate tournaments in the world. The event is held for college and university students attending school in the United States, and is hosted by a different university each year. The host is selected by the member schools of the US Universities Debate Association. The event determines the National Champions for the year.
Bo H. Seo is a Korean-Australian journalist, author, and two time world debating champion, having won both the World Universities Debating Championship in 2016 and the World Schools Debating Championships in 2013. Seo is the author of Good Arguments, a book about how skills transferred from debating can be applied to public discourse and personal relationships.
The HWS Round Robin (HWS RR) is an invitational British Parliamentary (BP) debate tournament hosted annually by the Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, New York. Participation in the HWS RR is considered prestigious among BP debaters as it is limited to exactly 16 teams that qualify via either an automatic bid given to the champions of major debate tournaments that happen throughout the year, or a competitive application to the tournament's selections committee, with auto-bid teams given priority.
