2024 Olympics: `Astonishing' omission of human rights in host city c..
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has failed to include an explicit requirement to comprehensively respect and protect human rights in the Host City Contract for the 2024 Summer Olympics and Paralympics published on September 16, a move the Sport and Rights Alliance (SRA) has described
as an `astonishing' omission.
"It is essential that the IOC wakes up to the human rights impact of its events - and lives up to the expectations created around Agenda 2020" - Eduard Nazarski
Eduard Nazarski, director of Amnesty International Netherlands - a partner of the SRA along with Human Rights Watch, Transparency International Germany, the International Trades Union Confederation, Football Supporters Europe and Terre des Hommes - said:
"From the crackdown on protests and press freedom in Beijing 2008 and restrictions on gay rights and free speech around Sochi 2014, to heightened repression in Azerbaijan ahead of the European Games in Baku this summer and the thousands forcibly evicted in Rio to make way for infrastructure
for next year's Olympics, there is no denying that Olympic Games can and do lead to human rights abuses.
"The IOC knows this, which makes the omission of explicit references to human rights from the new Host City Contract even more astonishing. It is essential that the IOC wakes up to the human rights impact of its events, and lives up to the expectations created around Agenda 2020. The Olympic
charter states that sport is a human right, but when the staging of Olympic events falls short on protecting human rights, that claim rings increasingly hollow."
The Host City Contract and several accompanying documents for the 2024 Olympics were published alongside the names of the bidding cities: Budapest, Hamburg, Los Angeles, Paris and Rome. There are a handful of new clauses, including on non-discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation -
introduced after Sochi 2014 - a requirement to allow the media to report freely on the Games and for the building of infrastructure for the event to comply with international labour standards.
However, none of these go far enough, and to avoid a repeat of the human rights abuses around a number of recent Olympic Games, the Host City Contract must require cities to make an explicit commitment to human rights, including human rights obligations, access to remedy, human rights due
diligence, risk assessment, and to have in-house capacity to implement and monitor compliance with international human rights standards.
Requirements on labour and anti-corruption standards are also severely lacking in detail, said the SRA. While host cities are required to comply with labour and anti-corruption laws in `all venue construction and infrastructure development projects', no guarantees are required on merchandising
or the supply chain.
Sylvia Schenk from Transparency International Germany added:
"Good Governance in sport as an overall concept is missing from the contract - anti-doping, for instance, is mentioned in the preamble but no anti-match-fixing. That gives the impression that for the IOC, corruption destroying the competition is less damaging than doping. The IOC urgently
needs a full compliance management system in place to meet international governance standards."