On 24 and 25 October 2024, the Asser Institute in The Hague will host the 2024 edition of the International Sports Law Journal (ISLJ) Conference. The ISLJ is the leading academic journal in transnational sports law and governance and is proud to provide a platform for transnational debates on the state of the field. The conference will address a number of issues of interest to the ISLJ and its readers.
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Drivers and effects of reform in transnational sports governance
Transnational sports governance seems to be in a permanently unstable state of crisis and reform. At regular interval, international sports governing bodies face scandals triggered by corruption investigations or human rights violations, as well as adverse judidicial decisions. These are often followed by waves of institutional reforms, such as the creation of new bodies (E.g. the Athletics Integrity Unit), the adoption of new codes and regulation (such as Codes of Ethics) or human rights commitments (e.g. FIFA and the IOC’s Human Rights Policy/Strategy). This dynamic of crisis and reform will be at the heart of this year’s ISLJ conference, as a number of panels will critically investigate the triggers, transformative effects and limited impacts of reforms in transnational sports governance.
Football in the midst of international law and relations
As the war in Gaza and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continue to rage, it has become even clearer that the football world can hardly be entirely abstracted from international relations. Yet, FIFA and UEFA continue to insist on their neutrality and to deny that their governance is (or should be) affected by the world’s political affairs. During the conference, we will engage with case studies in which football is entangled with international politics and law. In particular, the speakers will delve into the role of FIFA and UEFA in such situations and on the legal standards and processes that should be applied throughout their decision-making.
Olympic challenges of today and tomorrow
While the Paris 2024 Olympics have come to a close, the legal questions they have raised are far from exhausted. Instead, the Olympics have highlighted new issues (such as the question of the legality of the hijab ban imposed by the French Federation on its athletes) or old ones (such as the question whether Olympians should be remunerated by the IOC or the international federations), which will be discussed by our speakers. Finally, with the help of our keynote speaker, Prof. Jules Boykoff, a longstanding critique of the current Olympic regime, we will explore the IOC’s capacity to adapt to challenges while resisting radical change to the current model of olympism.
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Online participation available
Following the success of our webinar option in the past years, we are once again allowing online participation to the conference at an affordable price. Thus, we hope to internationalise and diversify our audience and to reach people who are not in a position to travel to The Hague.
We look forward to welcoming you in person in The Hague or digitally to this new iteration of the ISLJ conference.
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Speakers
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The Editors of the International Sports Law Journal (ISLJ) invite you to submit abstracts for the next edition of the ISLJ Conference on International Sports Law, which will take place on 24 and 25 October 2024 at the Asser Institute in The Hague. The ISLJ, published by Springer and TMC Asser Press, is the leading academic publication in the field of international sports law and the conference is a unique occasion to discuss the main legal issues affecting international sports and its governance with renowned academic experts.
We welcome abstracts from academics and practitioners on all issues related to international and transnational sports law and their impact on the governance of sport. We also welcome panel proposals (including a minimum of three presenters) on specific issues of interest to the Journal and its readers. For this year’s edition, we specifically invite submissions on the following themes and subthemes:
Reformism in transnational sports governance: Drivers and impacts
- Legal and social drivers of reforms in transnational sports governance
- The role of strategic litigation (before the EU/ECtHR/National courts) as a driver of reform;
- The role of public/fan pressure groups on clubs, competition organisers and governments as a driver of change.
- The impact of internal reforms in transnational sports governance: Cosmetic or real change? (e.g. IOC Agenda 2020+5, FIFA governance reforms, CAS post-Pechstein changes, WADA sfter the Russian doping scandal)
- Emerging alternatives to private sports governance – the UK’s Independent Football Regulator.
The organization and regulation of mega sporting events: Current and future challenges
- Mega-sporting events as legalized sites of digital surveillance
- Greening mega-sporting events (e.g. carbon neutral pledges, environmental footprints of events, the impact of multiple hosting sites)
- Mega-sporting events and the protection of human rights and labour rights (e.g. Paris 2024 Social Charter, Euro 2024 human rights commitments)
- The Olympic Games and athletes’ economic rights (remuneration/advertisement)
- Reviews of the legal issues raised at Euro 2024 in Germany and the Paris 2024 Olympic Games
- Previews of the legal issues likely to have an impact on the FIFA 2026 World Cup and the Milano-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games
Please send your abstract of 300 words and CV no later than 15 July 2024 to a.duval@asser.nl. Selected speakers will be informed by 30 July.
The selected participants will be expected to submit a draft of their paper by 1 October 2024. Papers accepted and presented at the conference are eligible for publication in a special issue of the ISLJ, subject to peer-review.
The Asser Institute will provide a limited number of travel & accommodation grants (max. 300€). If you wish to be considered for a grant, please explain why in your submission.
Editor's Note: Ryan Gauthier
is Assistant Professor at Thompson Rivers University in Canada. Ryan’s
research addresses the governance of sports organisations, with a
particular focus on international sports organisations. His PhD research
examined the accountability of the International Olympic Committee for
human rights violations caused by the organisation of the Olympic Games.
Big June 2019 for Olympic Hosting
On June 24, 2019, the International
Olympic Committee (IOC) selected Milano-Cortina to host the 2026 Winter Olympic
Games. Milano-Cortina’s victory came despite a declaration that the bid was “dead”
just months prior when the Italian government refused
to support the bid. Things looked even more dire for the Italians when 2006 Winter Games
host Turin balked at a three-city host proposal. But, when the bid was presented to
the members of the IOC Session, it was selected over Stockholm-Åre by 47 votes to 34.
Just two days later, the IOC killed
the host selection process as we know it. The IOC did this by amending two
sections of the Olympic Charter in two key ways. First, the IOC amended Rule 33.2, eliminating the
requirement that the Games be selected by an election seven years prior to the
Games. While an election by the IOC Session is still required, the
seven-years-out requirement is gone.
Second, the IOC amended Rule 32.2 to
allow for a broader scope of hosts to be selected for the Olympic Games. Prior
to the amendment, only cities could host the Games, with the odd event being
held in another location. Now, while cities are the hosts “in principle”, the
IOC had made it so: “where deemed appropriate, the IOC may elect several
cities, or other entities, such as regions, states or countries, as host of the
Olympic Games.”
The change to rule 33.2 risks
undoing the public host selection process. The prior process included bids
(generally publicly available), evaluation committee reports, and other
mechanisms to make the bidding process transparent. Now, it is entirely
possible that the IOC may pre-select a host, and present just that host to the
IOC for an up-or-down vote. This vote may be seven years out from the Games,
ten years out, or two years out. More...
My latest article has just been published online by the Journal of Law and Society. It is available open access here.
The article stems from a conference organised by Jiri Priban from Cardiff University on Gunther Teubner's idea of societal constitutionalism applied to transnational regimes. My role was to test whether his descriptive and normative framework was readily applicable to the lex sportiva, and in particular its overarching "constitutional" text: the Olympic Charter.
As you will see my conclusion is mixed. I find that the Olympic Charter (OC) displays many constitutional features and is even able to regularly defend successfully its autonomy vis-à-vis national states and their laws. However, while I document some inception of limitative constitutional rules, such as the ban on discrimination or the principle of fair play, I also conclude that those have limited impact in practice. While constitutional changes to the OC can be triggered by scandal, resistance and contestation, as illustrated by the emergence of environmental concerns after the Albertville Games and the governance reshuffle of the IOC after the Salt Lake City scandal, I am also sceptical that these were sufficient to tackle the underlying problems, as became obvious with the unmatched environmental damage caused by the Sotchi Games in 2014.
In conclusion, more than sporadic public outrage, I believe that the intervention of national law and, even more, European Union law will be capable and needed to rein the Olympic regime and impose external constitutional constraints on its (at least sometimes) destructive operations.
Here is the abstract of the article: This article examines various aspects of Teubner's theory of societal constitutionalism using the lex sportiva as an empirical terrain. The case study focuses on the operation of the Olympic Charter as a transnational constitution of the Olympic movement. It shows that recourse to a constitutional vocabulary is not out of place in qualifying the function and authority of the Charter inside and outside the Olympic movement. Yet, the findings of the case study also nuance some of Teubner's descriptive claims and question his normative strategy.
Good read! (And do not hesitate to share your feedback)
This is a follow-up
contribution to my previous blog on human rights
implications of the Olympic Games published last week. Together with
highlighting some of the most serious Olympic Games-related human rights
abuses, the first part has outlined the key elements of the Host City Contract
('HCC') as one of the main legal instruments regulating the execution of the
Olympic Games. It has also indicated that, in February 2017, the International
Olympic Committee ('IOC') revised the 2024 HCC to include, inter alia, explicit human rights
obligations. Without questioning the potential significance of inserting human
rights obligations to the 2024 HCC, this second part will refer to a number of
outstanding issues requiring clarification in order to ensure that these
newly-added human rights obligations are translated from paper to actual practice. More...
Editor’s note:
Tomáš Grell is currently an LL.M. student
in Public International Law at Leiden University. He contributes to
the work of the ASSER International Sports Law Centre as a part-time
intern.
In its press release of 28 February 2017,
the International Olympic Committee ('IOC') communicated that, as part of the
implementation of Olympic Agenda 2020 ('Agenda 2020'), it is
making specific changes to the 2024
Host City Contract with regard to human
rights, anti-corruption and sustainable development. On this occasion, IOC
President Thomas Bach stated that ''this
latest step is another reflection of the IOC's commitment to embedding the
fundamental values of Olympism in all aspects of the Olympic Games''.
Although the Host City of the 2024 Summer Olympic Games is scheduled to be
announced only in September this year, it is now clear that, be it either Los
Angeles or Paris (as Budapest has recently withdrawn its bid), it will have to abide by an additional set of human
rights obligations.
This two-part blog will
take a closer look at the execution of the Olympic Games from a human rights
perspective. The first part will address the most serious human rights abuses
that reportedly took place in connection with some of the previous editions of
the Olympic Games. It will also outline the key characteristics of the Host
City Contract ('HCC') as one of the main legal instruments relating to the
execution of the Olympic Games. The second part will shed light on the human
rights provisions that have been recently added to the 2024 HCC and it will seek
to examine how, if at all, these newly-added human rights obligations could be
reflected in practice. For the sake of clarity, it should be noted that the
present blog will not focus on the provisions concerning anti-corruption that
have been introduced to the 2024 HCC together with the abovementioned human
rights provisions. More...
Editor's Note: Ryan is Assistant Professor at Thompson Rivers University, he defended his PhD at Erasmus University Rotterdam in December 2015. His dissertation examined human rights violations caused by international sporting events, and how international sporting organisations may be held accountable for these violations.
Introduction
On Sunday, August
21, the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro will end. The spotlight
will dim not only on the athletes who return to their home countries to ply their
trade in relative obscurity, but also on the country of Brazil.[1]
Once the Games have ended, life will go ‘back to normal’, although for many
residents of Rio de Janeiro, what is ‘normal’ is anything but. More...
The 40 recommendations of the Olympic Agenda 2020 are out! First
thought: one should not underplay the 40 recommendations, they constitute (on
paper at least) a potential leap forward for the IOC. The media will focus on the hot stuff: the Olympic
channel, the pluri-localisation of the Games, or their dynamic format. More
importantly, and to some extent surprisingly to us, however, the IOC has also fully embraced
sustainability and good governance. Nonetheless, the long-term legacy of the
Olympic Agenda 2020 will hinge on the IOC’s determination to be true to these
fundamental commitments. Indeed, the devil is always in the implementation, and
the laudable intents of some recommendations will depend on future political choices
by Olympic bureaucrats.
For those interested in human rights and
democracy at (and around) the Olympics, two aspects are crucial: the IOC’s
confession that the autonomy of sport is intimately linked to the quality of
its governance standards and the central role the concept of sustainability is
to play in the bidding process and the host city contract. More...
Three weeks ago, I gave a talk for a group of visiting researchers
at Harvard Law School on the accountability of the IOC for human rights abuses
caused by hosting Olympic Games. On the day of that talk, Human Rights Watch announced
that the International Olympic Committee (“IOC”) would insert new language into
the Host City Contract presumably for the 2022 Olympic Games onwards. The new
language apparently requires the parties to the contract to:
“take all necessary measures to ensure that
development projects necessary for the organization of the Games comply with
local, regional, and national legislation, and international agreements and
protocols, applicable in the host country with regard to planning,
construction, protection of the environment, health, safety, and labour laws.”More...
The IOC has trumpeted it worldwide as a « historical
milestone »:
the United Nations has recognised the sacrosanct autonomy of sport. Indeed, the
Resolution A/69/L.5 (see the final draft) adopted by the General Assembly on 31 October states
that it “supports the independence and autonomy of sport as well as the
mission of the International Olympic Committee in leading the Olympic movement”.
This is a logical conclusion to a year that has brought the two organisations closer
than ever. In April, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon appointed former IOC President, Jacques Rogge, Special
Envoy for Youth Refugees and Sport. At
this occasion, the current IOC President, Thomas Bach, made an eloquent speech celebrating a “historic step forward to better
accomplish our common mission for humanity” and a memorandum
understanding was signed between the UN and the IOC. This is all
sweet and well, but is there something new under the sun?More...
