IOC Responds to Human Rights Criticisms of 2024 Host City Contract

(ATR) The IOC has hit back at criticism by human rights groups over what they say is an "astonishing omission" of explicit requirements to respect human rights in the 2024 Olympic host city contract.

The Sport and Rights Alliance, which includes Amnesty International, Transparency International Germany and the International Trade Union Confederation, issued a statement Thursday attacking the IOC for failing to guard against human rights abuses and to fully address labor and anti-corruption standards.

"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," said Eduard Nazarski, director of Amnesty International Netherlands.

The IOC’s director of communications Mark Adams defended changes to the 2024 host city contract. It was released to the five candidate cities on Sept. 16 along with a raft of other guidelines about the two-year bidding process that culminates with the vote in September 2017.

"We were surprised by these comments since the changes to the host city contract were publicly welcomed by member groups of this Alliance at the time," he said in a statement to Around the Rings.

He said the host city contract "explicitly references" all three areas highlighted by the Sport and Rights Alliance: LGBT rights, workers’ rights and free reporting in the context of the Olympics.

"By signing the host city contract, Games organizers commit to upholding all aspects of the Olympic Charter for all Games-related matters and for all participants," Adams said.

"This includes respect of Principle 6 of the Olympic Charter that was changed to include explicit reference to non-discrimination for all participants of the Games on the grounds of sexual orientation and mirrors the United Nations declaration of human rights."

In its statement, the Sport and Rights Alliance referenced "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" as evidence of how the Olympics "can and do lead to human rights abuses".

The Alliance noted that the new 2024 host city contract prohibits discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation – a clause introduced after Sochi 2014 – and includes requirements to allow the media to report freely on the Games and for the building of infrastructure for the event to comply with international labor standards.

"However, none of these changes go far enough," it said in a statement. "To avoid a repeat of human rights abuses linked to a number of recent Olympic events, the host city contract for 2024 and all future Olympic events must require cities to make an explicit commitment to human rights.

"This includes compliance with international human rights obligations, access to remedy, human rights due diligence and risk assessment. Host cities must also have in-house capacity to implement and monitor compliance with international human rights standards.

Sylvia Schenk from Transparency International Germany complained that "good governance in sport as an overall concept" was missing from the contract, remarking on the inclusion of anti-doping but no mention of anti-match-fixing.

"That gives the impression that for the IOC, corruption destroying the competition is less damaging than doping," she said. T"he organising committee urgently needs a full compliance management system in place to meet international governance standards."

Budapest, Hamburg, Los Angeles, Paris and Rome were confirmed as the 2024 Olympic bid cities last week.

Reported by Mark Bisson

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