Azzy Xiang is a varsity debater in the Dublin Jerome team, and a two time OSDA state championship qualifier and one time NCFL national qualifier. She is a volunteer at Kankee and Isegora, organizations that offer in-depth LD briefs at no cost. She is also currently a reporter for The Red Folder, a current events publication under Equality in Forensics, a national organization assisting low-income debaters through free resources and coaching.

While it is late into the Jan/Feb LD season, upcoming are some important circuit and TOC bid tournaments, including the Digital Speech and Debate Series. For that reason, this topic analysis focuses less on case-building and more on four parts: (1) definitions and important ways to frame the debate, (2) framework strategies, and (3) crucial arguments with potential responses. 

Before we start getting into the nitty-gritty, it’s important to note that many LDers tend to err towards the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) side of the resolution when it comes to impacts over deontological arguments. UNCLOSdebate is an extremely useful tool when it comes to quickly prepping individuals out and making blocks here, since it provides plenty of potential cards and arguments. For the International Criminal Court (ICC), this Human Rights Watch article can give you a refresher of the court’s basic functions.

Definitions and Framing

Resolved: The United States ought to become party to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and/or the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

United States: Plans must be related to how the United States government would change or involve in the treaties. A common mistake that debaters make is to detail the specific benefits of the treaties without warranting why the United States would be relevant, making it easy for opponents to claim non-unique ground. 

Become party to: The UN defines becoming party to as following a treaty in good faith. This can be very useful in setting the moral debate when it comes to arguments about circumvention or “the US won’t follow”. However, Oxford Languages defines it as “be involved in,” so that can be contested. 

And/or: This is the most crucial part of the resolution’s wording, since NSDA LD topics have never included multiple options. The Free Dictionary defines it as: “Used to indicate that either or both of the items connected by it are involved. Usage Note: And/or is widely used in legal and business writing. Its use in general writing to mean ‘one or the other or both’ is acceptable but often sounds stilted.”

However, in more progressive tournaments, this may be subject to a substantial definition-based debate as some legal writings and court rulings interpret “and/or” as “and”. It can be expected that some debaters will try to force the affirmative to defend both treaties, and if they lack arguments regarding one, it can be interpreted as a violation. See the following interpretation for clarity.

Interp: The AFF must defend both the UNCLOS and the ICC.

A court case that interprets “and/or” as “and”: https://www.adamsdrafting.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Redmond-v-Sirius-Intern-Ins-Corp.pdf 

“The plaintiff contends that the court must reconsider its denial of his motion for summary judgment because the use of “and/or” in the policy rendered it ambiguous [...] because “and/or” could be read as stating the conjunctive or disjunctive, it is ambiguous. If the term is ambiguous”.

The opponent exploits the wording to obliviate half of the best ground for the negative, so we must drop the debater.

Framework

Affirmative ground

Morality: Always a common value for debaters to follow. Since “ought” implies a moral obligation according to Britannica, the debate should be whether the United States has a moral burden to become a party. You can pair this with any value criterion, utilitarian or deontological.

Governmental Legitimacy or National Security: Since UNCLOS and the ICC both have the potential to align with US interests and bolster credibility, it’s entirely possible to run relevant contentions under this value and value criterion.

Human Dignity: Great for affirmative cases involving the ICC which centers around human rights, this is a framework I personally used for the topic. This allows for lots of ground about the ICC’s jurisdiction over atrocities, but is still suitable for including additional utilitarian contentions.

Negative ground

Structural Violence and Minimizing Structural Oppression: Since UNCLOS and the ICC are both governing structures responsible for international relations, it’s easy to point out structural flaws that lead to favoring developed nations. This can still be utilitarian because the amount of people oppressed could be a significant factor into weighing, but if your opponent gets into massive impacts like extinction and nuclear war, you can also explicate that these existential risks are not only unlikely, but also distract attention from the suffering of marginalized communities at hand.

Political realism and Sovereignty: Since the treaties are international and do not perfectly align with constitutional rights and the democratic nature of the United States, it’s viable to argue that the treaties hurt American sovereignty and impede on the nation’s ability to govern itself. This often leads to highly deontological arguments of a government’s duty. 

Contention-level debate

AFF A2 NC (Affirmative answers to negative)

A2 UNCLOS: Deep sea mining is bad, and the treaty expands rights to it

The US would not engage in deep sea mining, so this problem is non-unique. Full article: We don’t need deep-sea mining 

For those with governmental legitimacy or sovereignty frameworks: The Chinese rare earth monopoly threatens national security and the defense industrial base, but UNCLOS gives the US more mining rights and an advantage over China. Full article: Putting the “Us” Back in the U.S. Defense Industrial Base: The Case of Rare Earths 

You can turn all of their impacts because the treaty is about whether the United States ought to join, and the United States would have no effect on these aspects of the treaty. You can also deontologically nullify environmental impacts if you are able to win the framework-level debate and prove in the round that sovereignty and political realism is more important for society to even function.

A2 UNCLOS: Sovereignty and undermining US interests

Since sovereignty and governing principles focus around the social contract, the United States should attune to the interests of the people. Polls show that 79% of the general public believes the US should ratify UNCLOS. Full article: Eight in ten surveyed support US Ratification of UN Convention on Law of the Sea 

There is a net gain in sovereignty, because ratifying UNCLOS enables the US to participate in the Law of the Sea Tribunal and the Continental Shelf Commission. Full article: Op-Ed: Ratifying Law of Sea Treaty Gives America Seat at the Table | Washington Diplomat 

The US has already been heavily involved in the wording of the UNCLOS articles, so there cannot be any that directly violate our interests. “...rather than UNCLOS being forced on the United States by the United Nations, it was instead negotiated with the full participation of the United States, and later specifically amended to answer the objections of President Reagan.” Full article: Neo-Isolationists Scuttle UNCLOS

You can lay a three-prong response on any cases following the general idea of national interests and governance:

1. (Philosophical analysis) Since most people in the US support UNCLOS, and a government's duty is to reflect the interests of its people, the US ought to become a party.

2. (Turn) We actually gain sovereignty by having a "seat at the table" in shaping international law for our benefit, that gives us more sovereign power.

3. (Defense) Since the US was the primary power behind wording the treaty, and it fulfills all of the concerns of President Reagan when it was initially proposed under his presidency, there should be no detrimental impacts. 

A2 ICC: The court is biased

These claims fail to take into account that currently, the vast majority of the most influential countries in the court are African and a primary way to bring people to trial is to have countries refer their own citizens. “'Accusations of "selective justice" have been rife since the establishment of the ICC,' she said. 'The court is reviewing seven situations in Africa, but one must bear in mind that [all but two] were self-referrals.'” Full article: IBA 2012: ‘No western bias at International Criminal Court’ | News | Law Gazette 

A2 ICC: The court has no enforcement mechanism

Even if there is no enforcement mechanism, the ICC still has a deterrent effect and works in reducing crime. “...studies have found suggestive evidence that ratification of the ICC by a government tends to be correlated with a pause in civil war hostilities or reduction in human rights violations. Sikkink’s research on domestic trials suggests that prosecutions have been associated with human rights improvements. Along with Dancy she makes the important point that the history of impunity has hardly racked up a stunning record for peace. There may be some cases in which the unreasonable insistence on prosecution could be antithetical to the more practical idea of ‘making deals’ and ‘compromising’ with atrocity offenders, and we do not deny that carefully calibrated amnesties may in some circumstances support peace processes, but as a general matter there is little evidence to suggest the peace versus justice tradeoff is anything other than a false’”. Full article: Can the International Criminal Court Deter Atrocity? Hyeran Jo Department of Political Science Texas A&M University 2010 All 

NEG A2 AC (Negative answers to affirmative)

O/V for UNCLOS: There is no enforcement

• A2 UNCLOS reduces conflict

• A2… Anything about UNCLOS that requires the treaty to actually enforce something so impacts happen!

Most affirmative cases including UNCLOS tend to base their warrants on the treaty having enforcement power, or being able to sustain real impacts via action. It’s important to note that the treaty has zero enforcement power and no mechanism to get countries to comply, and this can be read against any case.

9 off: The treaty is completely useless. (This offense has won me many a round, and I would advise you to at least look into similar cards and warrants!)

1. The legal framework has a broad range of stakeholders with opposing interests, leading to inconsistencies.

2. It’s very difficult to update UNCLOS despite the dynamic nature of ocean activities, leading to legal uncertainty.

3. Enforcement relies on states willing to listen, and it’s impossible to monitor any regulatory gaps.

4. Fragmentation and isolation of governing bodies of UNCLOS like the ISA fail to coordinate with other organizations, leading to the lack of a unified framework.

5. UNCLOS operates with very limited resources, making it impossible to monitor any activities, with only $9 million to govern an ocean worth $24 trillion.

6. UNCLOS is more susceptible to the biases of developed countries and private investors than the needs of developing nations due to underfunding.

7. Strategic interests of powers like China and Russia influence implementation and prevent equity.

8. All the important provisions of UNCLOS are already part of binding customary law to all nations, the US does not have to become a party.

9. UNCLOS provisions and conflicting mechanisms were responsible for starting tensions in places like the South China Sea in the first place. 

Full article: THE UNITED NATIONS CONVENTION ON THE LAW OF THE SEA AT FORTY: Have the Constraints on the Implementation of Part XI Finally Debunked the Myth of the Common Heritage of Mankind? 

If the affirmative has specific warranting on how the US would support a specific part of UNCLOS and be involved itself, one can always note that this is non-unique since the US can quite literally do anything they want via customary international law and bilateral agreements in the status quo. 

O/V for the ICC: US support DA

• A2 Global Justice

• A2… Anything about the ICC that requires US involvement, which is essentially almost every ICC affirmative case!

It’s important to note that the United States has not endorsed the ICC or expressed support in a very long time, and in fact it has been adding damaging sanctions and restrictive rules to the court in recent days with the rise of the Trump administration. This means that the US is far more likely to undermine the ICC or use it as a political tool than to fully comply or allow itself to be held accountable for any crimes. Though the affirmative may use a UN definition of becoming party to as following the treaty “in good faith,” this can be contested with practical examples: China has become party to many treaties in the past, but as a revisionist power it has committed many violations even with party status.

“Its name notwithstanding, the ICC is rapidly turning into a Western court to try African crimes against humanity. It has targeted governments that are U.S. adversaries and ignored actions the United States doesn’t oppose ... effectively conferring impunity”. Full article: https://www.tesble.com/10.1111/1468-2346.12185 

In addition, here is some evidence that is quite recent from January 2025: US House votes to sanction International Criminal Court over Israel | Reuters It may be important to stay tuned to current events regarding the US’s reaction to the ICC via Google News or some other platform.

However, there are some things to keep in mind:

1. Biden had lifted sanctions on the ICC in the previous presidency. The affirmative may try to contest that the United States may change their attitude and no longer try to undermine the court in future years. But the US is a long-time supporter of Israel which is unlikely to change, and since the ICC sent out an arrest warrant for Netanyahu, an Israel DA supporting that opposition to the ICC is likely long-term could suffice.

2. The United States has a lot of power on the UN Security Council, and can defer cases from the ICC whenever it would like to. This is a powerful warrant against any US accountability argument that doesn’t necessarily require the US itself enforcing clauses of the ICC.

Hopefully, this topic analysis was helpful to your last-minute prepping for any local or national circuit tournament you may have in mind. Good luck, and see you around for March/April!

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