[ISLJ conference 2025] Twenty years of the World Anti-Doping Code in action

06 November - 07 August 2025

Starts at: 00:00h
Fee: Early bird fee (until 15 September) 175€ | Full fee 350€ | Student fee 75€ | Online fee 75€ | Dinner fee 50€
Venue: T.M.C. Asser Instituut
Organiser: Research Chair on Responsible Sport of the University of Sherbrooke; International Sports Law journal; Asser Institute
Address: R.J. Schimmelpennincklaan 20-22
2517 JN The Hague
Netherlands
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The 2025 ISLJ Conference focuses on assessing the first 20 years (2004-2024) of operation of the World Anti-Doping Code (WADC) since its entry into force in 2004, while also discussing its future prospects, in light of the new version of the Code due to be adopted at the Busan Conference in December 2025 and the 10th Conference of the Parties to the International Convention against Doping in Sport, to be held in Paris from 20 to 22 October 2025.

The aim of the conference is to take a comprehensive stock of the operation of the private-public transnational regulatory regime which emerged in the wake of the WADC. This regime is structured around a complex network of national and global institutions engaged in anti-doping work (WADA, NADAs, IFs, accredited laboratories) and guided by an equally complex assemblage of norms located at the global (WADC and the WADA Standards), international (UNESCO Convention against Doping in Sport), regional (Council of Europe Anti-Doping Convention), and national (various national anti-doping legislations) level. This makes for a fascinating and convoluted transnational legal construct in need of being studied, analysed and criticised by scholars.

The conference will start with an opening speech delivered by Travis Tyggart, the CEO of USADA, who is a prominent anti-doping executive, but also a critical observer of the current operation of the world anti-doping system. It will be followed by a range of panels touching on the governance of the World anti-doping regime, the role of national institutions in its operation, the due process rights of athletes in anti-doping proceedings, the boundaries of athlete responsibility in doping cases, the main legal pillars (such as strict liability) underpinning the of the WADC, and the enforcement of the WADC.

You will find a more detailed programme here.

Organising parteners

Research Chair on Responsible Sport of the University of Sherbrooke

International Sports Law journal

Keynote speaker

Travis T. Tyggart (USADA)

Speakers