March 31, 2020

Conventions and sports

Studying international law during my undergraduate and graduate studies, I had no idea how much this knowledge would interest me later. To date, the literature that has accumulated next to my bed is exactly those forgotten textbooks on international labor law, international treaties, international human rights law, etc. I can say that international law for many people is associated with conventions, and I wondered which of them have the greatest impact on the international legal regulation of sports?

  • The International Convention Against Doping in Sport (Paris, October 19, 2005) ensures the effectiveness of the World Anti-Doping Code. The Convention provides a legal framework through which governments can address the problem of doping in certain areas outside the scope of the sports movement;
  • The UN Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (New York, May 20, 1958) - the main Convention that guarantees the enforcement of CAS (Court of Arbitration for Sport);
  • The International Convention for the Protection of Human Rights (Rome, November 4, 1950). The number of sports-related legal disputes at the national and international levels, both in courts of general jurisdiction and in specialized judicial institutions, has grown significantly. Disputes arise in both the civil and criminal spheres, and sometimes relate to organized crime. More and more questions in the sports sphere arise in connection with the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and go to the European Court of Human Rights;
  • The European Convention on the Manipulation of Sporting Events (Manglingen, September 18, 2014) is a multilateral treaty aimed at preventing, detecting and punishing the conduct of matches in sport. It is open for ratification by the States of the Council of Europe and other States that participated in the negotiations. The treaty will enter into force after its ratification by five States, three of which must be States of the Council of Europe;
  • The Convention on the Law Applicable to Agency Contracts (Hague, October 14, 1978) should have had a significant impact on the implementation of agency activities in the field of sports, but it proved ineffective;
  • The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (December 13, 2006) was adopted by the United Nations and is the first legally binding instrument for the protection of persons with disabilities in sports;
  • The Council of Europe Convention on a Common Approach to Safety, Protection and Service During Sporting Events and, in particular, football matches (Saint-Denis, 3 July 2016). According to the Convention, the contracting parties undertake to cooperate among themselves and encourage cooperation between public authorities and independent sports organizations in preventing violence and in controlling the problem of violence and hooliganism of spectators during sporting events;
  • The European Convention for the Prevention of Violence and Misbehaviour at Sports Events and in particular at football matches (Strasbourg, August 19, 1985). Taking into account the fact that violence is a major social phenomenon of our day, the reasons for which are mainly outside sport, and that sport is often the scene of violence, the Convention created with the purpose of cooperation in implementing joint actions to prevent and control violence and misbehaviour by spectators at sports events;
  • The International Convention Against Apartheid in Sport (New York, December 10, 1985), while condemning the practice of apartheid in sport, reaffirmed its unqualified support for the Olympic principle of non-discrimination based on race, religion or political affiliation. The principle of non-discrimination is also covered by special international treaties that regulate in detail the various issues that arise in this area. Examples of such treaties are the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (1965), the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid (1973), the Declaration on Race and Racial Prejudice (1978), the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979), Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National, Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities (1992).

To be continued…

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Sources: https://mgimo.ru ; https://cyberleninka.ru ; https://www.asser.nl https://www.coe.int ; http://www.unesco.org

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