A/HRC/30/50 I. Mandate on promoting human rights through sport and the Olympic ideal 1. Pursuant to Human Rights Council resolution 24/1, the Advisory Committee prepared a progress report1 on the possibilities of using sport and the Olympic ideal to promote human rights for all and to strengthen universal respect for them, bearing in mind both the value of relevant principles enshrined in the Olympic Charter and the value of good sporting example, which it submitted to the Human Rights Council at its twentyseventh session. At the same session, in its resolution 27/8, the Human Rights Council requested the Committee to finalize its study and to present it to the Council before its thirtieth session. 2. The drafting group, established by the Advisory Committee for the preparation of the study, is currently composed of Saeed Mohamed Al Faihani (Chair), Mohamed Bennani, Karla Hananía de Varela, Mikhail Lebedev (Rapporteur), Katharina Pabel and Yishan Zhang. 3. Observations of States and independent experts underpinned the work on the present study to a large extent. In accordance with Council resolution 24/1, the drafting group prepared a questionnaire, which was sent in March 2014 to all Member States, international and regional organizations, national human rights institutions, civil society organizations and other relevant stakeholders. As at August 2015, responses had been received from 25 States,2 6 national human rights institutions, 8 non-governmental organizations and civil society representatives, 3 international organizations and 1 special procedure mandateholder. 4. It is furthermore essential to stress the tremendous contribution, including in terms of awareness-raising, of the scientific community, which continues to provide vibrant critical evaluations, sometimes controversial and disputable, on all features of sport’s proliferation in society, including on sport and policy, to identify advantages and shortcomings of sport management and to suggest ways and means of improvement in the interest of promoting human rights and, ultimately, the well-being of all. For many years, Governments have had the tendency to keep academics at arm’s length, and academic knowledge in sport was often geared to the sporting community, the identification of talent and the production of medals or industrial complex.3 The increasing number of impressive academic multidisciplinary sport research appears to be changing this situation. This deserves special attention, but is beyond the scope of the present study. II. General outline of the study A. Introduction and objectives 5. The purpose of the present study is to assist stakeholders in assessing modern human rights policy related to sport and to facilitate its further development and improvement in a 1 2 3 A/HRC/27/58. Argentina, Australia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Brazil, Chile, China, Colombia, Côte d’Ivoire, Cuba, Cyprus, Denmark, Ecuador, France, Greece, Guatemala, Mauritania, Myanmar, Peru, Qatar, the Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Spain and Tunisia. See J. Maguire, Reflections on Process Sociology and Sport: Walking the Line (Abingdon, Routledge, 2013), p. 2. 3