Business and Human Rights in sport: Can arbitration provide an effective remedy?

With the practice of sport being regarded as a human right under the Olympic Charter, sport is no longer a rights-free zone. Federations, clubs, leagues and event organisers are increasingly expected to respect human rights, from non-discrimination and safeguarding to labour protections, privacy and freedom of expression. 

Yet a commitment to human rights means little unless those affected can obtain an effective remedy. Where the violation arises within a sporting relationship governed by federation regulations and arbitration agreements, where should an athlete or other affected person seek redress? 

The usual answer is the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). This article asks whether CAS is an adequate remedy, or only one component of a wider remedial system.

Business and Human Rights in Sport

Broadcasting and corporate sponsorship have contributed to the transformation of sport into a powerful commercial enterprise. 

This commercialisation brings sports organisations and associated businesses within the framework contemplated by the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs). The UNGPs rest on three pillars, the State duty to protect, corporate responsibility to respect, and access to remedy. They apply to all enterprises regardless of their size, sector, location, ownership and structure. 

In sport, all actors operate in a commercial ecosystem in which responsibility cannot be confined to the State. But a responsibility to respect raises a second question: what happens when it is allegedly breached? 

The Real Issue: Access to Remedy

Effective remedy is more than the existence of a forum. The UNGPs contemplate remedies including apologies, restitution, rehabilitation, compensation, injunctions and guarantees of non-repetition, delivered through procedures that are impartial and free from attempts to influence the outcome. Principle 31 sets effectiveness criteria for non-judicial grievance mechanisms: legitimacy, accessibility, predictability, equitability, transparency, rights compatibility and a source of continuous learning. Under Principle 29, business enterprises should establish ‘operational-level mechanisms for individuals and communities who may be adversely impacted’. Principle 26 identifies barriers including cost, difficulty securing representation and imbalance between parties. 

The right is also anchored in general international law. The question, then, is whether sports arbitration delivers an independent, accessible, and timely forum, and relief matched to the actual harm, in every human-rights dispute. 

Can Human Rights Disputes Be Arbitrated?

Three questions are often run together: Subject matter arbitrability: can this type of dispute be lawfully arbitrated? Jurisdiction: is there a valid consent covering the dispute? Public policy: is private adjudication constrained? 

A human rights dimension does not by itself make a dispute non-arbitrable. Under Swiss law, the law of CAS’s seat, any dispute involving an economic interest may be arbitrated, and an award may be set aside only on limited statutory grounds, including incompatibility with public policy. 

Rights-based claims in sport usually arrive as challenges to regulations or disciplinary decisions, which CAS routinely hears. 

The harder questions lie elsewhere; whether consent is genuine where an athlete cannot compete without accepting arbitration, and how far mandatory statutory protections limit what a private tribunal may decide.

In Mutu and Pechstein vs Switzerland, the ECtHR considered the compulsory nature of arbitration of Ms. Pechstein and held that Article 6 ECHR applied. It found that CAS offered sufficient guarantees of independence and impartiality, but that the refusal to hold a public hearing in her case violated Article 6. The Hague Rules call ‘proper and informed consent’ the cornerstone of business and human rights arbitration.

What can CAS actually do?

Jurisdiction of the CAS is invoked either through a reference or through an appeal against a decision of a sports-related body. The panel rules on its own jurisdiction. Ordinary panels apply the rules of law chosen by the parties or, in the absence of such a choice, the law of the country in which CAS is domiciled. 

Appeals panels apply the applicable regulations and, subsidiarily, the rules of law chosen by the parties or the law of the country in which the body that issued the challenged decision is domiciled. Human-rights arguments therefore enter as interpretation, proportionality or public policy rather than free-standing claims. 

In Dutee Chand vs Athletics Federation of India and IAAF, the CAS panel suspended the IAAF’s Hyperandrogenism Regulations for up to two (2) years, pending further evidence concerning the actual degree of athletic performance advantage associated with high testosterone levels. 

In Semenya, CAS upheld the challenged DSD regulations in 2019, finding that the resulting discrimination was necessary, reasonable and proportionate within the framework it applied.

The ECHR Chamber subsequently found a violation of Article 14 taken together with Article 8, and a violation of Article 13 in relation to Article 14 taken together with Article 8. In 2025, the Grand Chamber did not determine the substantive complaints on their merits, finding that Switzerland lacked jurisdiction to examine the complaints under Article 8, 13 and 14. 

The judgments illustrate the distinction between procedural fairness and substantive human-rights protection.

The Remedy Gap

The point is not that CAS is deficient, but that ‘arbitrable’ and ‘effectively remediable’ are different propositions. Consider an athlete alleging discrimination or abuse by an official. CAS may hear a challenge to the federation’s response if its rules confer jurisdiction.

Under Article R37 of the CAS Code, applications for provisional or conservatory measures are generally subject to the exhaustion of internal remedies, and submission to CAS under the ordinary or appeal procedure entails an express waiver of recourse to state authorities or tribunals for such measures.

Documents may be ordered from a party, and a third party may join only if bound by the arbitration agreement or by written consent. CAS cannot reach individuals who are strangers to the agreement, and its remedial reach is essentially the decision  under review. Cost and inequality of arms remain live concerns.

What should the Remedy Architecture look like?

Depending on the harm, a layered framework is more realistic, with different mechanisms playing different potential roles: 

• Internal sport mechanism: potential role of first-line reporting and resolution; 

• Independent safeguarding mechanism: abuse and safeguarding complaints; 

• National Sports Tribunal: regulatory and disciplinary disputes; 

• CAS: appeal, covered disputes; 

• Labour Tribunal or Court: employment and statutory rights; 

• National Courts: rights outside arbitration;

• Human Rights institutions: relevant rights violations;

• Criminal Justice system: criminal conduct.

The test is not whether a dispute can be arbitrated, but whether the system as a whole offers an accessible, independent, and effective remedy for the particular harm.

Conclusion

Human rights and sports arbitration are not mutually exclusive. Human rights considerations regularly arise in disputes that are properly arbitrable, including before CAS. 

The harder question is whether arbitration can remedy every kind of human-rights harm in sport. 

Answering it requires keeping arbitrability, jurisdiction and effective remedy apart, and attending to the right, the parties and the relief needed. Sports arbitration should therefore sit within a broader remedial architecture, rather than replace it.