A/HRC/44/26 V. Gaps in the protection of human rights in professional sport: accountability and access to justice 39. States are obliged to ensure not only the prevention of violations and the protection and promotion of human rights, but also access to appropriate and effective remedies when rights have been breached. There is currently no global consensus on a consistent and comprehensive approach to the remediation of human rights abuses in sport, neither in general nor in terms of the equal rights of women and girl athletes specifically. Many athletes face obstacles in accessing effective remedies and obtaining full redress for violations of their human rights in sport, since most disputes related to professional sport are adjudicated by private dispute resolution mechanisms that are not designed to fully address human rights complaints. 40. The globalization of sport has shifted regulatory control increasingly towards private, non-profit and transnational sport governing bodies. 81 Through a series of contractual relationships, the rules and regulations developed by these bodies are implemented worldwide. For instance, pursuant to the Olympic Charter, IOC exercises “supreme authority” over international federations, national Olympic committees and organizing committees of the Olympic Games. Likewise, the statute of each international federation makes the rules and regulations binding on national federations. Failure by a national federation or a national Olympic committee to comply with and enforce domestically the rules of the relevant international federation or IOC jeopardizes its participation in international competitions. 41. Given their interest in having their athletes compete on the international stage, States largely acquiesce to the regulatory “autonomy of sport”,82 which has been acquired after decades of uninterrupted and consistent operation as the leaders of world sport.83 In some States, such acquiescence is evidenced by the absence of legislation governing national federations, while in others it is evidenced by the adoption of legislation that explicitly recognizes the authority of international sport governing bodies to govern national federations and national Olympic committees, which in some case trumps existing legal provisions.84 42. While athletes may sometimes be able to make human rights-related claims against sport governing bodies before domestic courts, these courts generally only have jurisdiction over their respective national federations and national Olympic committees, not over international federations and IOC, where many decisions that may negatively impact or violate human rights originate.85 Domestic courts may provide domestic remedies, such as prohibiting the application of discriminatory international rules at national competitions, but this can put national sport in “an untenable position between two seemingly intractable forces”, in other words the order of a domestic court and the directive of an international federation,86 and jeopardize the ability of athletes to compete internationally. 43. International sport governing bodies seek to avoid this dilemma by excluding the jurisdiction of national courts over sporting disputes. The Olympic Charter and the statutes 81 82 83 84 85 86 Hilary A. Findlay, “Accountability in the global regulation of sport: what does the future hold?”, in Ethics and Governance in Sport: the Future of Sport Imagined, Yves Vanden Auweele et al., eds. (Routledge, 2016), pp. 69–74; Ken Foster, “Is there a global sports law?”, Entertainment and Sports Law Journal, vol. 2, No. 1 (2003). Jean-Loup Chappelet, Autonomy of Sport in Europe (Strasbourg, Council of Europe Publishing, 2010). Efthalia Chatzigianni, “Global sport governance: globalizing the globalized”, Sport in Society, vol. 21, No. 9 (2018), pp. 1454–1482. Marcus Mazzucco and Hilary A. Findlay, “The supervisory role of the Court of Arbitration for Sport in regulating the international sport system”, International Journal of Sport and Society, vol. 131 (2010). See, for example, Canada, Supreme Court, Anette Sagen et al. v. Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, Case No. 33439, 2009. Moreover, even when national federations or national Olympic committees are able to sanction abuse (e.g., racism), the sanctions are not enforced. Mazzucco and Findlay, “The supervisory role of the Court of Arbitration for Sport in regulating the international sport system”. See, for example, Canada, Ontario Superior Court, Nagra v. Canadian Amateur Boxing Association, Case No. 850, 2000. 11