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

Please join us on Thursday 6 November and Friday 7 November for the 2025 International Sportslaw Journal (ISLJ) Conference at the Asser Institute in The Hague. This year's edition of the ISLJ conference will focus on assessing the first 20 years (2004-2024) of operation of the World Anti-Doping Code (WADC) since its entry into force in 2004. It will also discuss 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 ISLJ 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 legislation) 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 of the WADC, and the enforcement of the WADC.

Read the full programme. 

When: Thursday 6 November (12.30 hrs - 17.30 hrs CET) and Friday 7 November (09.30 hrs - 17.15, followed by a reception). 
Where: Asser Institute, R.J. Schimmelpennincklaan 20-222517 JN The Hague 
Fee: Early bird fee (until 15 September) 175€ | Full fee 350€ | Student fee 75€ | Online fee 75€ | Dinner fee 50€

Co-organisers

Research Chair on Responsible Sport of the University of Sherbrooke

International Sports Law journal

Keynote speaker

Travis T. Tyggart (USADA)

Speakers

• Antoine Duval (Asser Institute)
• Mark James (Manchester Metropolitan University)
• David Pavot (Université de Sherbrooke)

Paper presenters

• Johan Lindholm (Umea University)
• Jan Exner (Charles University Prague)
• Josef Fahlén (Umea University)
• Laurence Marquis (Université de Sherbrooke)
• Julie Demeslay (Université Paris Nanterre)
• Josepha T. Nehring (Levy Kaufmann Kohler)
• Animesh Anand Bordoloi (Jindal Global University)
• Hubert Radke (Poznan University and Radke Sports Law)
• Marcus Mazzucco (University of Toronto)
• Shubham Jain (University of Cambridge)
• Björn Hessert (former CAS Counsel)
• Lou Levadoux (Université de Sherbrooke)
• Emile Merkt (Bratschi)
• Eben Koen (BDP Attorneys)
• Lyrique Dominic Du Plessis (BDP Attorneys)
• Mario Vigna (CAS arbitrator, Coccia De Angelis & Associati)
• Anshul Ramesh (Coccia De Angelis y Associati)
• Olga Kostyshyna (LCF Law Group)
• Yuliya Chernykh (University of Inland Norway)
• Clémence Chevalier (Université de Sherbrook)
• Aude Brejon (Université Bourgogne Europe)
• Maxime Lassalle (Université Bourgogne Europe)
• Cécile Chaussard (Université Bourgogne Europe)