INTERNATIONAL OLYMPIC ACADEMY 7th JOINT - IOA

COURT ARBITRATION FOR SPORT:
THE AD HOC DIVISION FOR THE OLYMPIC GAMES
Mr Andreas ZAGKLIS (GRE)
Introduction: The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS)
Resolution of disputes arising in the context of organised sporting
events is often a complicated and complex process. Achieving a
balance between rapidly administering justice and adequately
protecting the rights of participants is an issue ‘on trial’ here in the
effort to protect the sporting event per se. Rapid resolution of sporting
disputes is related directly to the problem-free conduct of sporting
events while also ensuring that the sporting result is both reliable and
valid.
Such concerns have been touched upon in practice by the
organisers of the largest modern sporting event, the Olympic Games.
Two central characteristics of the Olympic Games are important for
the purposes of the analysis attempted herein; that they are not
conducted in any one place and that they are organised in the context
of the Olympic movement where the ‘supreme authority’ 1 is a supranationally
organised sporting association, the International Olympic
Committee (IOC) 2 .
The IOC systematically dealt with the issue before the 1996
Summer Olympic Games, assigning responsibility 3 to a body, which
had already begun to show signs of its effectiveness 4 , the Court of
Arbitration for Sport (CAS) 5 . The CAS was established in 1983 by the
International Olympic Committee in order to meet the need for an
internationally recognised court for sport which could operate in a
flexible manner. Although arbitration as an alternative form of sport
dispute resolution is increasingly winning fans in the world of sport 6 , a
fact of major historical importance for the development of the CAS
was the effort to break away from the IOC and achieve its
independence by modifying its Charter 7 . The CAS was thus able to
provide impartial rulings in cases involving the IOC as a litigant
itself 8 , opening the path for cases arising from or in relation to the
Olympic Games, where the IOC was directly involved. The
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