Human rights concerns are brought to the forefront of the news cycle by international sports championships like the Olympics and the World Cup, either via increased media attention or examples of athlete activism. Human rights advocates and the general public have long demanded that the International Olympic Committee and the Fédération Internationale de Football Association address the human rights abuses that have been made worse by their respective sports events. Nations with extensive histories of abusive and discriminatory conduct have been given hosting rights for recent games including the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar and the Beijing Winter Olympics. Given that the International Olympic Committee and the Federation of International Football Association both chose countries with questionable human rights records as potential hosts, the selection of host states has come under investigation.
When it comes to protecting human rights, the International Olympic Committee and the Federation of International Football Associations have finally amended their hosting and bidding contracts. Both the International Olympic Committee and FIFA have recently mandated that its member organizations “respect internationally recognized human rights.”
Transnational sports federations should use such contractual agreements to compel host states to denounce human rights transgressions on the international stage. A transnational private organization like the IOC may seek genuine legal consequences against public and private actors in accordance with local and international laws by placing responsibilities on host nations to uphold human rights, monitoring host countries, and affording remedies for infringement. Even while the existing agreements aren’t perfect, they’re a start toward breaking the cycle of inertia and bringing about real, enduring change.
Errors Made in the Past
After World War I, Germany made a comeback at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, but the Nazis’ exclusion of Jewish athletes caused an international outcry and accusations that Germany was violating the Olympic code of equality and fair play. Regardless, the International Olympic Committee maintained its position and allowed Germany to host the games.
The International Olympic Committee was not the only bad guy, however. Avery Brundage, president of the United States Olympic Committee, rallied his countrymen to participate in Berlin, and the United States Amateur Athletic Union decided against a boycott. To appease the antisemitic Nazi leadership, the United States decided to replace two Jewish American sportsmen with African American ones, prompting accusations of prejudice. The world community and the IOC failed to prevent the Nazis from using the Games to promote the German “master race,” and the regime’s subsequent mass murder of Jews in the Holocaust is evidence of this.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) learnt their lesson and did not downplay the significance of apartheid, instead taking a stand against the racial segregation regime that barred non-white South Africans from participating in the Olympics. After Nelson Mandela, an anti-apartheid revolutionary, was imprisoned by the South African government in 1962, the United Nations openly denounced apartheid and the International Olympic Committee banned South Africa from participating in the Tokyo 1964 Games.
Nonetheless, it was not until over 30 years later, in 1989, that South African president FW de Klerk was finally pressured into releasing political prisoners and repealing Apartheid legislation due to internal opposition, the threat of a civil war, and international pressure. South Africa eventually changed its rules after significant internal turmoil and international pressure, which was bolstered by the IOC. This begs the question, are limitations and sanctions meted out during sporting events only for show? Can they really make a difference and change the course of history?
Recent Competitions
This is not only an issue of the past. Abuses have come to light in recent Olympic Games, including Beijing 2008, Sochi 2014, Rio de Janeiro 2016, and Beijing 2022, as well as at the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar. Censorship of political ideas and media coverage, as well as mass arrests of demonstrators and rights advocates, tarnished these occasions. Migrant workers were mistreated, the press was censored, people were forcibly relocated, and the LGBTQ community faced prejudice in Sochi. Police violence and the forced eviction of Rio’s homeless population were both exacerbated by the city’s wide income gap. During the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, FIFA came under fire for allegedly turning a blind eye to the mistreatment of stadium employees and the silencing of critical voices and media. Amnesty International has called FIFA’s choice of host nation irresponsible due to the country’s lackluster record on labor rights and government performance.
To prevent any unfavorable publicity from being published during the 2022 Beijing Olympics, the Chinese authorities tightened control. Both a Dutch reporter and a Finnish cross-country skier had to erase images they had taken of flooding in the Olympic Village after being yanked away from the camera during live reports. In bizarre public meetings with the IOC, tennis star Peng Shuai allegedly retracted her sexual assault charges against a former senior Chinese official, while a statement made by American freestyle skier Eileen Gu on Instagram was removed. By continuing to ban free media and imprison people resisting Chinese meddling in Hong Kong under the 2020 National Security Law, China has exacerbated its already dismal human rights record. Furthermore, the Uyghurs in Xinjiang have been subjected to forced labor, internment camps, and mass sterilization at China’s hands. The international community should demand more openness from host nations to disclose human rights breaches, as China has gone to considerable pains to conceal the detention of Uyghurs.
Interventions That Fail
In what ways may the momentary spotlight shone on hosting nations be used to bring attention to the often-undisclosed breaches taking place inside them? Pressuring host governments of major athletic events has historically been a tactic used by rights campaigners and media to effect change. Intense worldwide media coverage of host country maltreatment, however, has historically backfired.
The United States refused to send any athletes to the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow in protest over Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan. Russian efforts in Afghanistan were redoubled in response to the boycott, rather than reduced as a result of Western pressure. Russia did not want to seem to be kowtowing to Western foreign policy while the world’s attention was focused on Moscow.
In June 2013, Russia enacted a legislation targeting the LGBT community that makes it illegal to advocate “nontraditional sexual relationships” to children. International outrage ensued, reaching all the way to the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. Further international scrutiny and criticism only hardened the Russian government’s stance on this issue, despite the European Court of Human Rights ruling that the anti-gay law violated the Olympic Charter and the “right to family” of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. After the 2014 Olympics, Russian authorities imprisoned pro-LGBTQ activists, effectively silencing them.
It Begins at the Top
The heads of the sports organizations that have granted tournaments to nations committing human rights crimes are held responsible by many human rights campaigners and sportsmen. Rémi Drolet, a cross-country skier who participated in the 2022 Beijing Olympics, told the HPR that there needs to be “a better screening process” for choosing host countries because “we knew that China did not have the best human rights record.” Despite this knowledge, the IOC accepted China’s bid and never used its committee’s considerable leverage to push for transparency or change from the Chinese government. Yaqiu Wang of Human Rights Watch said that the IOC was silent on China’s human rights abuses, which he claimed made the organization complicit in such abuses. To which the IOC’s spokesperson Mark Adams said that the topic of Xinjiang wasn’t “particularly relevant” to the organization. Thomas Bach, president of the International Olympic Committee, has frequently defended the IOC’s selection of the host city, arguing that the IOC is not a political entity with the authority to impose its will on independent nations. Additionally, he warned against “the dark clouds of the growing politicization of sport on the horizon.”
However, by complaining about PC, the IOC is trying to get out of its moral responsibilities to the rest of the globe. Leadership and communications are crucial for the human rights movement worldwide. Human rights organization Equidem’s investigation into workplace discrimination and maltreatment of employees constructing 2022 World Cup stadiums in Qatar is a shining illustration of the significance of reaching a wide audience with a consistent message. FIFA President Gianni Infantino criticized Western countries for their “hypocrisy” on the eve of the tournament’s start by condemning the host country’s human rights record. He discussed his European heritage and referred to the fact that European imperialism has contributed to the violation of human rights over the last three thousand years. Infantino’s international leadership was significant, but he dissatisfied human rights advocates by defending Qatar with a misguided moral lesson.
Legal remedies and contractual safeguards
Accountability for nations, corporations, or people within the framework of competitions like the Olympics is complicated. Participating in these Games are entities from the public and business sectors, as well as national and international organizations. Scholars refer to a “transnational private legal order” governed by governing organizations like the IOC as an alternative to looking at possible conflicts and claims through the prism of either domestic or international law. The Swiss Civil Code classifies groups like the International Olympic Committee and the Federation of International Football Association as “associations,” a designation that allows these groups to “generate their own rules” and avoid governmental oversight, as Daniela Heerdt of the Centre for Sport and Human Rights said in an interview with the HPR. Having their own jurisdiction means they may improve human rights policy independently via agreements with other entities.
Human rights elements were included to the IOC’s Host City Contract and bidding criteria in 2017. It heeded the advice of a group including human rights advocates, athletes, and workers by citing the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. Cities chosen as hosts must now adhere to human rights legislation and norms from the Host Country. These agreements will include “concrete and measurable human rights impact indicators,” with the goal of securing fundamental freedoms such as speech and assembly, as well as the right to adequate housing. All things considered, hosts will be obligated to protect their guests’ human rights, forbid discrimination, and set up a system for reporting violations. While the new HCC will be used for the first time for the 2024 Paris Olympics, the 2026 Winter Olympics were awarded to Milano Cortina under the original bidding standards.
Contracts with stronger standards will need accountability and enforcement systems to be successful, however. Even if growing concerns about labor violations in Qatar drove FIFA to adopt its own human rights policy the same year, the document lacked any provisions for actually enforcing such rights. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) wants to provide more transparency by outlining violation levels, reporting procedures, and how host cities may “remedy” any problems that arise. Victims of human rights violations do not gain anything from the IOC’s pursuit of legal action against offenders. The IOC and those who break the rules would negotiate any fines or other consequences. No restitution would be made to victims of human rights violations. In addition, the SCC prefers arbitration through the Court of Arbitration for Sport over litigation because it allows the parties to “decide on the applicable procedure and applicable law.” This means that current IOC rights policies may fail to successfully hold host cities legally responsible, leading to continued hardship for rights holders.
Private Sector Restraint
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has not taken sufficient measures in previous events, notably the 2022 Beijing Olympics, to guarantee that private corporations sponsoring the events respect human rights in the supply and manufacture of their goods. Human Rights Watch claims that IOC authorities did not conduct adequate screenings of uniforms and other merchandise for connections to rights abuses in Xinjiang. There were holes in the IOC’s supply chain analyses when they made announcements about their findings just before the commencement of the Games. Not only that, but the 13 largest Olympic Partners said nothing.
The International Olympic Committee’s human rights standards may be strengthened by allowing commercial companies to sign contracts based on such rights. Clothes contracts with official sponsors might be strengthened by the IOC if financial incentives and penalties are linked to respect for human rights. It will take work to get legal repercussions for breached contracts, but this strategy may inspire other organizations to do the same. For their alleged roles in aiding human rights breaches, International Rights Advocates have already filed lawsuits against Tesla, Apple, and Google, among other prominent American companies.
The battle of human rights advocates against host nations with unethical practices may be aided by legislation mandating firms to obtain goods responsibly. Citing the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which prohibits the import of Chinese goods made by enslaved Uyghurs, an unnamed Harvard Uyghur student told the Harvard Political Review that the law has made “a lot of companies more conscious of how they source their materials.” Therefore, these legal means may serve as both a symbolic and pecuniary punishment for violating host nations.
More Than Just Contracts
In 2021, for the first time, the International Olympic Committee explicitly sanctioned restricted athlete protests as part of its mission to uphold human rights through sports. There is cause for optimism in the area of civil liberties around international sports facilities with the introduction of contracts for Olympic hosts and standards for their bids that prioritize the protection of such rights. If the IOC is serious about protecting human rights, it should use the same contract technique in the private sector. In order to accomplish their joint aims, IOC leaders, rights advocates, and legal advisors must all be on the same page if these accords are to have any lasting impact on the social compact between human rights and states. If the trajectory of human rights improves thanks to consistent coordination and teamwork, only time can tell.