In the past few years, FIFA underwent intense public
scrutiny for human rights violations surrounding the organisation of the
World Cup 2018 in Russia and 2022 in Qatar. This led to a
reform process at FIFA, which involved a number of policy changes, such
as:
- Embracing the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights;
- The inclusion of human rights in the FIFA Statutes;
- Adopting new bidding rules including human rights requirements;
- And introducing a Human Rights Advisory Board.
To take stock of these changes, the Asser Institute and the
Netherlands Network for Human Rights Research (NNHRR), are organising a
conference on the Fédération Internationale de Football Association
(FIFA) and human rights, which will take place at the Asser Institute in
The Hague on 8 May 2019.
This one-day conference aims to take a deeper look at FIFA’s
impacts on human rights and critically investigate the measures it has
adopted to deal with them. Finally, we will also address FIFA’s
potential legal responsibilities under a variety of human rights
laws/instruments.
Preliminary Programme
9:00 Registration & Coffee
9:45 Welcome by Antoine Duval (Asser Institute) & Daniela Heerdt (Tilburg University)
10:00 Opening Remarks by Andreas Graf (Human Rights Officer, FIFA)
10:30 Panel 1: FIFA & Human Rights: Impacts
- Zoher Shabbir (University of York) – The correlation between forced evictions and developing nations hosting the FIFA World Cup
- Roman Kiselyov (European Human Rights Advocacy Centre) - FIFA World Cup as a Pretext for a Crackdown on Human Rights
- Eleanor Drywood (Liverpool University) - FIFA and children’s rights: theory, methodology and practice
12:00 Lunch
13:00 Panel 2: FIFA & Human Rights: Policies
- Lisa Schöddert & Bodo Bützler (University of Cologne) – FIFA’s eigen-constitutionalisation and its limits
- Gigi Alford (World Players Association) - Power
Play: FIFA’s voluntary human rights playbook does not diminish
Switzerland’s state power to protect against corporate harms
- Brendan Schwab (World Players Association) & Craig Foster - FIFA, human rights and the threatened refoulement of Hakeem Al Araibi
14:30 Break
15:00 Panel 3: FIFA & Human Rights: Responsibilities
- Daniel
Rietiker (ECtHR and University of Lausanne) - The European Court of
Human Rights and Football: Current Issues and Potential
- Jan Lukomski
(Łukomski Niklewicz law firm) - FIFA and the International Covenant on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights : Obligations, duties and remedies
regarding the labour rights protected under the ICESCR
- Raquel
Regueiro Dubra (Complutense University of Madrid) - Shared international
responsibility for human rights violations in global events. The case
of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
- Wojciech
Lewandowski (Polish Academy of Sciences/University of Warsaw) - Is Bauer
the new Bosman? – The implications of the newest CJEU jurisprudence for
FIFA and other sport governing bodies
17:00 Closing Remarks by Mary Harvey (Chief Executive, Centre for Sports and Human Rights)
More information and registration at https://www.asser.nl/education-events/events/?id=3064