Monday 17th July, 2023 – An invitation to present to Bachelor and Master’s students at Business School Lausanne gave me the opportunity to delve deeper into the world of sport with regards to human rights, an area I am very interested in considering its importance to so many people. Sport, like culture, music and art, allows people to dream; to imagine a world that is closer to perfection; allows us to rise above earthly preoccupations for a short while and cheer for common goals (no pun intended!)
In preparation for the presentation, a look at the work of the Centre for Sport and Human Rights located in Geneva was, obviously, my first stop. This Centre was set up five years ago and its president is Mary Robinson, the first Irish woman president, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and one of the best-known human rights defenders in the world. The location of this Centre in Switzerland makes complete sense as a great number of the leading sporting organisations are to be found in this country, many of them in the Canton of Vaud. The International Olympic Committee is located in the picturesque town of Ouchy and other organisations, such as FIFA and UEFA, are in the area; not forgetting the International Hockey Federation, the World Rowing Association, the Court of Arbitration for Sport and many others.
The students present at this event come from many different countries and some of them are interested in a career in sport when they complete their studies, so it was important to give them an overview of the challenges and opportunities that will face them in our globalized world. Following an introduction to the world of human rights, the work of Amnesty International particularly with regards to Amnesty’s work on Business and Human Rights, we looked at the challenges faced by the world of sport. International sporting events are often the source of controversy depending on where the events take place – the Beijing Olympics caused quite a stir on more than one occasion you will remember; the FIFA world cup in Qatar had its own problems -“Rights issues stain FIFA world cup” ran the headlines.
It’s not only countries and governments that need to worry about this type of controversy. Sponsors need to look carefully at the risks they are running when investing in countries with poor human rights records, and stakeholders need to be protected when such events take place. With this in mind, the Centre for Sport and Human Rights has a very interesting tool to help the organisers of Mega Sporting events mitigate their risks – The Mega Sporting Events Life Cycle – Embedding Human Rights from Vision to Legacy. This tool will help event organisers to do their human rights diligence, avert their risks and ensure a better result in terms of human rights standards. I particularly like part 8 of this tool which looks to the future and captures the positive results of the sports event. The legacy of the event is to ensure that:
– the Event infrastructure has a long-term future
– that Events are used as a platform for advancing human rights in host communities.
– that lessons are captured and transferred.
Now that legacy, if successful ,would mean that Mega Sporting events could ensure not only positive wins for countries and their athletes but also a win for human beings and human rights!
My presentation gave the students information regarding the work of Professor John Ruggie and the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, the new legislation on Business and Human Rights (BHR) present in many countries, National Action Plans on Business and Human Rights, the new European Union legislation on Human Rights Due Diligence, governances, sustainable development, and some examples of cases which are or have been heard in different countries. The Responsible Business Initiative in Switzerland, its results and importance and the future of BHR in Switzerland were all discussed.
Business School Lausanne will continue with this discussion for the entire week. Congratulations to the students and the student council for their organization of this important discussion and event.
Reconnecting With Commonsense 