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.
Good Governance = Autonomy
“Good governance and autonomy are
strongly linked; they are two sides of the same coin”
This statement is to be found in the only
document that really matters to understand the depth of the reforms envisaged: The context and background report. It is a confession; there is no autonomy of
sport, unless this autonomy is in the hands of irreproachable institutions. The
IOC is prone to consider itself as abiding to such standard, but it is not for itself
to judge. The global public will be the sole arbiter of this pledge to good
governance, as the IOC recognises: “Autonomy has to be earned”.
In this regard, the IOC’s Agenda 2020 proposes
a certain number of institutional and “good governance” reforms:
Recommendation
27 Comply with basic principles of good governance
The Agenda 2020 foresees that “all
organisations belonging to the Olympic Movement [are] to accept and comply with
the Basic universal Principles of Good
Governance of the Olympic and Sports movements”. To this end, the organisations will be
monitored and mentored and self-evaluation tests (probably similar to WADA’s compliance test) will be introduced. Furthermore, the IOC will
update the principles of good governance with the help of a working group
composed of “experts”. Obviously, the impact of this recommendation depends
very much on the stringency of the monitoring and of the nature of the good
governance requirements imposed.
Recommendation
29: Increase Transparency
The IOC vows to publish financial statements
according to the International Financial Reporting
Standards and to
produce an annual activity and financial report, including the allowance policy
for IOC members. This is an important step, since it enables external observers
to better scrutinise the financial flows in the Olympic movement and to have a
full picture of the allowances received by each individual member of the IOC. It
will be easier to follow where the IOC’s money is going and it will make money
laundering harder. However, external revenues received by IOC members will stay
undeclared, leaving the door open for suspicions.
Recommendation
30: Strengthen the IOC Ethics Commission independence
This recommendation aims at securing the IOC’s ethics commission independence by proposing to elect its chair
and its members via a secret ballot of the Session (the IOC’s parliament,
assembling all IOC members). This seems quite an obvious thing in a democratic
society, but for an institution versed in nepotism, it is a big step. Once
implemented, the nomination process of the members of the Commission will be
more difficult to control, and, thus, reinforce the independence of the sole
potential counter-power (to the executive board) inside the IOC’s institutional
structure. Again, this is no cure-all, and the Ethics Commission has yet to
prove itself as an effective control mechanism, but it is a first step towards
a more balanced institutional game.
Recommendation 32: Strengthen ethics
Here it is suggested to revise the Code of ethics, so that it “be fully aligned with the Olympic
Agenda 2020’s drive for more transparency, good governance and accountability”.
This is a vague, but potentially important, commitment to rethink the IOC’s
Code of Ethics. Only time will tell if this revision will lead to better and
accountable governance. In any event, only heightened public scrutiny can force
the IOC to adopt governance standard ensuring full transparency and
accountability.
Recommendation
37: Address IOC membership age limit
The IOC is recommending a complex system to
allow members over 70 to go beyond the official age limit entrenched in Article
16 of the Olympic Charter. In practice, the Session will be able to vote on
allowing each member the right to stay on for maximum four years more than the
age limit. This is a (minimal) concession to the IOC members strongly opposed
to the age limit.
Recommendation
38: Implement a targeted recruitment process
Recommendation 38 concerns the selection
process of new IOC members. The IOC is no democratic institution. The
“citizens” of the Olympic family do not elect their representatives. In fact,
the IOC members are not necessarily part of the “Olympic family”. Historically,
its selection process has been marred by nepotism (e.g. the Samaranch dynasty) as it is based on co-optation. The
Agenda 2020 does not do away with this fundamentally oligarchic procedure, but
it is slightly correcting it by empowering (and constraining) the nominations
Commission, which is in charge of proposing candidates. The choice of the Commission
is to be constrained by specific selection criteria, the most prominent being:
gender balance; geographical balance; and the existence of an athletes’
commission within the organisation for representatives of Ifs/NOCs. As from now
on, the press and the public will be able to blame the IOC if it does not
follow its self-imposed requirements (gender balance being the one to watch
closely) in the future.
Some changes are also on the books concerning
the Scope and Composition of IOC Commissions (Recommendation 40). Unfortunately,
they are of unclear nature and magnitude.
These institutional innovations, if implemented,
are positive steps forward to constrain power inside the IOC and to open it to outside
scrutiny. The most remarkable outcome of the Olympic Agenda 2020 remains the crystal
clear acknowledgment by IOC that the autonomy of sport is necessarily tied to
the quality of the governing processes in place. This essentially means that
the Agenda 2020 can only be the beginning of a dynamic institutional reform
process that must lead the IOC to be more inclusive of the many constituencies
of the sporting world. This is not enough, however; the IOC must also be
receptive to the needs of society as a whole.
Sustainability and Human rights
in the bidding process
The bidding process should be at the centre of
all critical attention. It is clear that it is the bidding process that entrusts
the IOC with real political leverage. At this point, it takes fundamental decisions
that will impact the life of millions (if not billions) of citizens Therefore,
the brunt of the substantial (in contrast with the institutional measures
discussed above) reforms was expected to impact on the bidding procedure (see
the joint paper by the Swiss, German, Austrian and Swedish
NOCs). It is also on the bidding process that the IOC received the most
contributions in the framework of the Agenda 2020 (more than 90). In this
regard, Sochi was a wake-up call, due to the abuses recorded on the human rights and anti-discrimination front, and the environmental sustainability side. The IOC Agenda 2020 is not shy of
tackling these issues and, with caveats
discussed below, should be praised for doing so. First, and this is a fundamental
point, the Host City Contract will from now on be made publicly available (for
now we only have leaked draft documents as for the 2022 contract). This is a necessary move for an institution
claiming to follow good governance principles. Indeed, it will ease the work of
critics and commentators scrutinising the contract and the public as a whole
will have access to the official document itself.
Recommendation
1: Shape the bidding process as an invitation
This first recommendation contains a variety of
proposals. The spirit of which is “to invite potential candidate cities to
present an Olympic project that best matches their sports, economic, social and
environmental long-term planning needs”. Thus, for “reasons of sustainability”,
the IOC will tolerate that events do not take place in the Host-city but in
another nearby city or country (modification of article 34 of the Olympic Charter). The Host City Contract will include a provision
banning discriminations, as was previously announced and celebrated by Human Rights Watch. In addition to this,
article 21 of the 2022 Host City Contract will impose sustainability
requirements on the Host city. Yet, the transformative quality of these
provisions is still to be demonstrated. The main point remains that new regulations
for the bidding procedure will be drafted. These will be key to set in stone
the sustainability and Human rights turn of the Olympic family and will be the
place to look at in order to assess whether the IOC is really serious about the
changes put forward in the Olympic Agenda 2020.
Recommendation
2: Evaluate bid cities by assessing key opportunities and risks
The evaluation of the bids is key to the IOC’s impact
on sustainability or human rights aspects (and not only to ensure that its
commercial interests are safeguarded). Hence, it is good news that the IOC is to
consider as positive aspects of a bid: “the maximum use of existing facilities
and the use of temporary and demountable venues where no long-term venue legacy
need exists or can be justified”. Furthermore, the Evaluation Commission is “to
benefit from third-party, independent advice in such areas as social, economic
and political conditions, with a special focus on sustainability and legacy”. In
fact, the final reports by the Evaluation Commission are to include “an
assessment of the opportunities and risks of each candidature, as well as of
sustainability and legacy” (modification of bye-law to rule 33) and third-party
independent risk-assessments are to be conducted. This will be a powerful tool
in the hands of NGOs to decisively influence the selection process by providing
in depth (and public) assessments of the sustainability of the different bids. It
will also, and perhaps mainly, offer critical ammunitions in case the IOC is
inclined to disregard the sustainability assessment provided by the Evaluation
Commission. There is no rock solid guarantee that the IOC will in the end take
into account the sustainability of a bid to allocate the Games. Yet, a full-blown
neglect of this assessment would give way to damaging public criticism.
Recommendation
4: Include sustainability in all aspects of the Olympic Games
This recommendation is aimed at ensuring that
sustainability “is included in all aspects of the planning and staging of the
Olympic Games”. Sustainability is to be achieved via “a sustainability strategy
to enable potential and actual Olympic Games organisers to integrate and
implement sustainability measures”. The IOC wants to assist the Organising
Committees “to establish the best possible governance for the integration of
sustainability throughout the organisation”. To this end, the “[n]ext Host City
Contract [is] to reflect, through a number of additional obligations” these
policy goals. Moreover, the IOC considers signing a “MoU with the United
Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) for possible independent assessment of
OCOG sustainability performances”. Again, depending on the extent to which the
Host City Contract will be modified, these changes are substantial. However,
the UNEP might need concrete commitments to be convinced to deepen its existing collaboration with the IOC, especially after the disaster of the Sochi Games. The Host City Contract is certainly
an important lever to impose obligations on the Host City, but to effectively
do so it needs to be accompanied by clear and potent procedures ensuring its
enforcement.
Recommendation
5: Include sustainability within the Olympic Movement’s daily operations
The IOC’s administration in its day-to-day
operations is to follow sustainability standards. Most notably, it aims to
“introduce sustainable sourcing policies in tendering processes, sponsorship,
licensing and supplier agreements for renewals or new contracts”. This is an
instance of IOC greening its own administrative operations to improve its
image.
Recommendation
14: Strengthen the 6th Fundamental Principle of Olympism
In a symbolic gesture, the 6th
fundamental principle of Olympism, which forbids all types of discrimination,
is to be re-written into a hybrid text of Article 14 of the European Convention
of Human Rights and Article 2 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human
Rights. This is a tricky move and
guessing the way the new principle will be interpreted in the future is an
impossible deed. On one side, it seems that the principle is now completely in
line with anti-discrimination standards widely recognised under international
law. On the other, one has the impression that the new wording narrows its
scope of application. Indeed, discrimination is not “incompatible with
belonging to the Olympic Movement” anymore, it is merely inadmissible when
exercising the rights and freedom granted by the Olympic charter. In general,
this is a symbolic provision, the wording of the Host City Contract or the
bidding requirements have way more practical relevance, but this development is
not necessarily a sign of a more stringent action from the part of the IOC
against discriminations.
Conclusion: The Devil is in the
implementation/interpretation
This leads us to a final, and crucial, caveat. Law is very much about the
interpretation of the meaning of words. In our case, the IOC will be the main
responsible to give a practical meaning to the sweet words enshrined in the
Agenda 2020’s recommendations. Starting with the IOC Session on the 8 and 9
December in Monaco, which will decide on the modifications to the Olympic
Charter or its byelaws. The legal meaning of transnational concepts such as
sustainability, good governance and discrimination is more or less shared
around the globe. The IOC cannot afford to betray it; there is no space for the
use of newspeak, or for any other word games leading to a practical
disregard of the essential gist of those concepts. The IOC and its president
have raised high expectations with this set of recommendations indicating a
willingness to change from the side of the Olympic movement. Such expectations
cannot be disappointed over and over again; it would certainly be suicidal for
the Olympic movement to betray its grand promises. Now comes the time to
deliver!