Kieran Laird
Partner
Article
12
With the Government's recent proposals on reforming human rights law and the upcoming Commonwealth Games in Birmingham during July and August, it seems a fitting opportunity to consider the theme of human rights in sport and, in particular, how human rights considerations factor into the staging of large sporting events.
As a company set up by the Government to perform a range of public functions, a lot of what the Organising Committee for the B2022 games does will be covered by the Human Rights Act 1998. However, beyond this, the Organising Committee has taken steps to understand and comply with the principles that apply to private companies under the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (the 'UNGPs') – a set of non-binding guidelines for states and companies to prevent, address and remedy human rights breaches and impacts.
This is unsurprising, as the importance of the link between human rights and sport has been recognised for many years. As far back as 1949, access to sport was recognised as a right in itself with the Geneva Conventions enshrining the right of prisoners of war and civilian internees to physical exercise, including sports and games. The concept of sport as a human right has been reiterated more recently in the International Olympic Charter and the report of the United Nations Inter-Agency Task Force for Development and Peace.
However, aside from being a right in itself, there has also been increasing focus on the potential for sport to affect other rights for better or worse. This is reflected in the adoption of human rights policies and statements by bodies such as FIFA, Formula 1 and the Commonwealth Games Federation. The International Olympics Committee too is on course to finalise its Human Rights Strategic Framework in September 2022 as a step towards the development of a full human rights strategy.
A useful way to think about the issues is by considering the impacts on certain relevant groups and then to link those impacts to salient rights.
Competitors in sporting events are the group that might first spring to mind. The relevant rights can differ depending on context – with FIFA recognising that particular issues will arise from the fact that professional footballers are salaried and can transfer between teams – or apply more generally.
For example, all competitors could potentially face impacts to the following rights:
In 2017, the World Players Association collected these and other rights into a Universal Declaration of Players Rights and there are, of course, particular issues around child competitors.
However, competitors are not the only group whose rights may be affected by sporting events:
Prestigious sporting events can sometimes be used as a public relations tool by countries trying to improve their reputation on the world stage. This process of 'sports-washing' can present difficult dilemmas for both sport governing bodies, athletes and their corporate sponsors.
At one end of the scale, given the reaction of most Western countries, it would have been a relatively easy decision for Formula 1 to cancel the 2022 Russian Grand Prix in view of the humanitarian situation in Ukraine, but other events are more problematic. For example, the Bahrain Grand Prix continues to draw controversy, the Winter Olympics in Beijing drew criticism and there will be increasing focus in the coming months on the hosting of the 2022 World Cup by Qatar.
The above gives just a little flavour of how complex the interplay is between sports and human rights. Equally, sport can have extremely positive impacts through showcasing principles of respect, fair play and judgement on merit – Alistair Brownlee giving up his chance to win the triathlon to help his brother over the line being a shining example in the 2016 Rio Olympics.
So how do event organisers navigate the issues? The answer is the same as for other areas of business and human rights – by using the toolkit provided by the UNGPs.
In line with the UNGPs, event organisers should:
Summarised in that way it sounds pretty easy. But, as with the performance of the performance of the athletes competing in such events, it involves a lot of hard work and dedicated support in the background!
To understand more about human rights issues in sport, please speak with Kieran Laird.
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