Resolved: The United States ought to submit to the jurisdiction of an international court designed t

Yea, LD rules are good. I too look at Martin Luther King Jr as one of the wisest men to live as of this day. And I full agree with his quote, however, the context in which he said it does not apply to this debate round. Not one type of people as of the status-quo are being suppressed by our "individualistic concerns". We are all human, and we all do have individual concerns, its just natural and the way it is. It is ok to strive to fulfill those individual concerns, as long as no one is being put down in the process. When we look to the status-quo we see a judicial system that is working. Lowering ourselves to an international court will take away us autonomy and strip us of the very thing our nation stands on, individuality and independence. Definitions- Thank you for picking definitions that are fair to both sides of the debate, I truly do appreciate it. However, there is a minor problem in your "crimes against humanity" definition that I believe works against you. The definition is in context to war. All of those things are crimes against humanity when a country is at war. "before or during the war". So by this definition we see that any war at all that a person dies, is a crime against humanity. However, if this is true we see that the United States of America is the biggest offenders of "crimes against humanity". Now if you vote for the affirmative team based on these definitions the United States of America will be the first to be imprisoned based on the international code that defines "crimes against humanity" as murder that occurs in war. But because I do agree that this is a fair definition, we will keep it. The only thing is that it will hurt the affirmatives case drastically. I believe that Justice is a fair Value, so i am adopting it;the topic essentially calls for this value Your value Criterion is also fair, so I am adopting it, but will work against you in this debate. I will go over this in my case later on, just to keep it organized. Onto his case His first contention essentially says "America isnt good for C.A.H. but the international court will be" and, with all due respect, the argument is fundamentally flawed. If you look to who is driving for the international court, we see that it is the US. As of the status-quo, the United States has remained the hegemon and what we say goes. The world follows our norms, our habits, and conforms to what we want them to. When there is an international court, the same will happen. The US will be leading this court and what it says should be punishment will be. The only difference now is that the US has more power to reach around the whole world and not just in the US. So take this argument and completely turn it against the affirmative team. What will happen in an international court is that it will be American lead, and nothing will change from the status-quo except now America has even more power to serve "injustices". On his second contention. He says the court will be unbiased. However, if you look to the countries that are currently involved in the ICC, you see that they are just a bunch of random countries that have no pull whatsoever in the world, so of course they will not push their agenda on another country and they see as equals. A number of states, including China, Russia, India and the United States, have not joined the ICC, when the US joins it will push its agenda on the world immediately. The US is the biggest violators of rules, if they were to join they would change the court to what they saw fit. The US sees that the ICC has done absolutely nothing and will make changes to make it "better" these changes will push the western agenda. When you see that the affirmative case is self destructive, you cannot vote for it. Upon first reading the arguments you may think his way of thinking is best, however, when you look deeper into his definitions and contentions you see that they work against him, not for him. And my case. Contention 1- The ICC is horrible. The status-quo sees an international court system, and they have gotten absolutely nothing done. Look to the genocides happening in Rwanda and in the DRC. Thousands of people are dying, the people in the lead are not being dealt with. The ICC is just a bunch of random countries that mean nothing to world that are trying to come together. Their efforts are honorable, but the bottom line is that they are getting nothing done even by their own definitions. If they believe that "murder in war" is a C.A.H. then the US government should already be in jail. If they think that genocide is a C.A.H. they should have thrown everything they had behind efforts to stop thousands of women and children from being killed in Sub-Saharan Africa today. Contention 2- If the US went into it, they would just mold it to status-quo USA This destroys any reason for the US to succumb to the courts. Nothing would change at all. The USA is the world police status-quo and will continue to follow the same ethics in a world post plan. When this happens there are just more countries following the same ethics that the affirmative thinks is bad So when you look at the details of what will really happen after you affirm the resolution, you see that nothing changes. If anything, more crimes against humanity will be committed because the USA is now at the head of this court system. Thank you affirmative debater, I look forward to hearing a response.