FIFA and Human Rights
While the FIFA Women’s World Cup is slowly coming to an end, we are delighted to kick off the Online Symposium ‘FIFA and Human Rights’ with the Asser Institute. This debate demonstrates the relevance, and to some extend urgency, of thinking through FIFA’s human rights impacts, policies and responsibilities.
In this blog, I argue that the global operations of FIFA affecting the labour rights of individuals fall under the scope of the ICESCR and that FIFA’s responsibility for potential violations of these rights can be engaged. It could also form the basis for Switzerland’s international legal responsibility for a possible violation of a state’s obligation to protect.
Continue reading >>
How does FIFA purport to address and overcome its historical and ongoing record of institutional disregard for, and discrimination against, women? Its primary weapon appears to be the recently adopted Women’s Football Strategy, designed to “empower the organisation to take further concrete steps to address the historic shortfalls in resources and representation, while advocating for a global stand against gender discrimination through playing football”. This may seem an ambitious compound goal, seeking to advance gender equality within FIFA, football and beyond. But what promise does the Women’s Football Strategy actually hold in this regard?
Continue reading >>
The aim of this post is to address the relevance of the European Court of Human Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights for FIFA.
Continue reading >>
In its Bauer ruling the CJEU confirmed that the fundamental rights enshrined in the Charter might under certain circumstances become horizontally applicable. This post argues that this development of judgments has implications also for sport federations such as FIFA.
Continue reading >>
Since Qatar won the hosting rights for the 2022 FIFA World Cup in 2010, recurrent human rights violations of migrants working on building or refurbishing new infrastructure for the tournament have been denounced. As football’s governing body, FIFA should have been aware of the risk that the organisation of the 2022 World Cup could entail human rights violations in the country. In this blog, I investigate how a migrant worker could engage the legal responsibility of the different actors involved in the organisation of the FIFA World Cup 2022.
Continue reading >>
We argued that the explicit inclusion of human rights in FIFA ́s Statutes since April 2016 exemplifies how transnational sports law (lex sportiva) can undergo processes of eigen-constitutionalization that contribute to the protection of human rights. Yet, this protection can be effective only when coupled to regimes of reflexivity and enforceability.
Continue reading >>
This blog explores children’s rights violations connected to FIFA’s activities and discusses the slightly disjointed approach taken to this area in the past which tended to be piecemeal, reactive and uncoordinated.
Continue reading >>
In this blog we provide a brief introduction to the symposium by going through FIFA’s human rights impacts, policies, and responsibilities.
Continue reading >>
