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materials on International and European Sports Law based on the daily coverage
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The Headlines
2024 and 2028 Olympic Games to be held in Paris and
Los Angeles respectively
On 13 September 2017,
the Session of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) held in Lima, Peru, elected Paris and Los Angeles as host cities of the 2024 and
2028 Olympic Games respectively. On this occasion, the IOC President Thomas
Bach said that ''this historic double
allocation is a 'win-win-win' situation for the city of Paris, the city of Los
Angeles and the IOC''. The idea of a tripartite agreement whereby two
editions of the Olympic Games would be awarded at the same time was presented
by a working group of the IOC Vice-Presidents established in March 2017. Both
Paris and Los Angeles have pledged to make the Olympic Games cost-efficient, in
particular through the use of a record-breaking number of existing and
temporary facilities. In addition to economic aspects, it will be worthwhile to
keep an eye on how both cities will address human rights and other similar concerns
that may arise in the run-up to the Olympic Games. More...
This is a follow-up
contribution to my previous blog on human rights
implications of the Olympic Games published last week. Together with
highlighting some of the most serious Olympic Games-related human rights
abuses, the first part has outlined the key elements of the Host City Contract
('HCC') as one of the main legal instruments regulating the execution of the
Olympic Games. It has also indicated that, in February 2017, the International
Olympic Committee ('IOC') revised the 2024 HCC to include, inter alia, explicit human rights
obligations. Without questioning the potential significance of inserting human
rights obligations to the 2024 HCC, this second part will refer to a number of
outstanding issues requiring clarification in order to ensure that these
newly-added human rights obligations are translated from paper to actual practice. More...
Editor’s note:
Tomáš Grell is currently an LL.M. student
in Public International Law at Leiden University. He contributes to
the work of the ASSER International Sports Law Centre as a part-time
intern.
In its press release of 28 February 2017,
the International Olympic Committee ('IOC') communicated that, as part of the
implementation of Olympic Agenda 2020 ('Agenda 2020'), it is
making specific changes to the 2024
Host City Contract with regard to human
rights, anti-corruption and sustainable development. On this occasion, IOC
President Thomas Bach stated that ''this
latest step is another reflection of the IOC's commitment to embedding the
fundamental values of Olympism in all aspects of the Olympic Games''.
Although the Host City of the 2024 Summer Olympic Games is scheduled to be
announced only in September this year, it is now clear that, be it either Los
Angeles or Paris (as Budapest has recently withdrawn its bid), it will have to abide by an additional set of human
rights obligations.
This two-part blog will
take a closer look at the execution of the Olympic Games from a human rights
perspective. The first part will address the most serious human rights abuses
that reportedly took place in connection with some of the previous editions of
the Olympic Games. It will also outline the key characteristics of the Host
City Contract ('HCC') as one of the main legal instruments relating to the
execution of the Olympic Games. The second part will shed light on the human
rights provisions that have been recently added to the 2024 HCC and it will seek
to examine how, if at all, these newly-added human rights obligations could be
reflected in practice. For the sake of clarity, it should be noted that the
present blog will not focus on the provisions concerning anti-corruption that
have been introduced to the 2024 HCC together with the abovementioned human
rights provisions. More...