Sports and human rights. Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights launches new project

The Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights is launching Sports and Human Rights, a project dedicated to the study and identification of human rights standards that could help in the development of new regulations in sports. The project is carried out in cooperation with the Centre for Sports Law, Faculty of Law, University of Warsaw, and the law firms LSW Leśnodorski Ślusarek i Wspólnicy and Ungier Gliniewicz i Wspólnicy.

Sport plays an increasingly important social role. Many people practice different sports, either professionally or for leisure. Big sporting events evoke great public excitement. Equally strong feelings are generated among supporters of sports teams, both top league contenders and tail-end clubs. For example, the 2018 World Cup finale had 517 million viewers, and the audience of 28.5 million watched at least one minute of the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro on the Polish national TV. Without a doubt, sport can unite people. Because of the associated positive emotions, sport has always been linked to business and the pursuit of professionalism. These factors tend to generate many problems for the sportspeople in the areas such as licensing, earnings, doping or racist incidents at sporting venues. These problems can sometimes obscure the true meaning of sporting events. The above issues require a legal framework for the sportspeople, organisers of sporting events and sports associations, set up at the national and international level. These issues are inherently related to fundamental rights and freedoms of individuals.

The matters covered by the project include:

• the remedies available to sportspeople in proceedings involving their membership in sports associations, arbitration proceedings and litigation;
• the special features of anti-doping proceedings;
• access to sports training and opportunities to use sports facilities and restrictions based on personal characteristics of potential users;
• discrimination against minorities in sports;
• discrimination against supporters, teams and players during sports events.

We also invite all fans, journalists, activists and sportspeople to work with us in the project. We are looking for ideas on what topics we should address and what problematic issues need to be regulated. Please send your ideas and suggestions to our e-mail, sport@hfhr.pl.

Project content supervisors:

• Professor Piotr Girdwoyń JD, Head of the Centre for Sports Law, Faculty of Law, University of Warsaw
• Bogusław Leśnodorski, Partner at LSW Leśnodorski Ślusarek i Wspólnicy
• Marcin Melzacki, Partner at LSW Leśnodorski Ślusarek i Wspólnicy
• Marcin Ungier JD, Partner at Ungier Gliniewicz i Wspólnicy
• Professor Łukasz Pisarczyk JD, a senior lecturer at the Faculty of Law, University of Warsaw, an associate at Raczkowski
• Professor Tadeusz Tomaszewski JD, a senior lecturer at the Faculty of Law, University of Warsaw