Les liaisons fructueuses - RUIG-GIAN

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During the period 2004-2007, with the support of
the GIAN, the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions
(COHRE) embarked with partners on its largest
and probably most important project since its
founding in the early 1990s. Working in partnership
with a number of United Nations agencies, academic
institutions and other partners, the project examined
forced evictions and expropriations arising from so-called
“Mega-events” - large scale actions such as the Olympic
Games, World Expo, and other intensive development
projects mobilising around a single event. Active participants
in the project included UN-HABITAT, the
Office of the Special Adviser to the Secretary-General
on Sport for Development and Peace, the Graduate
Institute of International Studies (IUHEI), the
Graduate Institute of Development Studies (GIDS),
the Geneva School of Architecture, the Centre for
Urban and Community Studies of the University of
Toronto, the New York University Law School, the
University of Wisconsin-Madison and a number of
corporate social responsibility experts. Other institutions,
such as the United Nations Environment Programme
(UNEP) also contributed to the academic
research.
Olympic Games and human rights
For a number of reasons, the project took the
Olympic Games as its primary focus of study. Concentrated
on one city, the Olympics are particularly
intense development events. The frequent reference
to possibilities for human improvement means that
the Olympics also aim at contributions beyond the
strict confines of sport. Olympism has been defined
by the Olympic Movement 2 as “a philosophy of life
which seeks to create a way of life based on (…) respect
for universal fundamental ethical principles.”
According to the Olympic Charter, the goal of Olympism
is to “place sport at the service of the harmonious
development of man, with a view to promoting
a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of
human dignity” 3 .
These aspirations notwithstanding, the Olympics in
the contemporary world are of course also big business.
The decade-long actions involved in the implementation
of the Olympic Games may not always
be as high-minded as the aspirations of the Olympic
movement, to put it mildly. The empirical record of
recent Olympic Games indicates that in practice, the
ideals of the Olympic movement have frequently fallen
by the wayside during the planning and implementation
of the Games. While the Games set out justifications
based on the public good, in practice, the poor,
marginalized groups such as ethnic minorities, and
extremely vulnerable persons such as the homeless
often wound up worse off after a city hosted the Olympic
Games than before it. The GIAN-supported
project sought to analyse the social outcomes in the
implementation of the Games, by examining in detail
a number of Olympic Games, past as well as planned.
In addition, the project sought to go beyond merely
documenting the issues, by also formulating a legal
basis to assist the Olympic Games’ implementing
agencies, including the International Olympic
Committee (IOC), the various host city Olympic
Committees, as well as the many and various state,
municipal, corporate and private entities involved in
holding the Games.
The corpus of law clustered around the internationally
established right to adequate housing was seen
as a particularly fruitful starting point from which
to view the fundamental rights at issue. By adopting
an approach oriented around fulfilling the right to adequate
housing, stakeholders involved in the planning
and hosting of the Olympic Games might considerably
mitigate negative housing impacts.
Partnership and interdisciplinarity
The project was coordinated by COHRE and carried
out in close collaboration with the aforementioned
academic partners and international organisations.
The persons involved in the project represented a
broad range of disciplines, including human rights,
urban planning, corporate social responsibility,
mega-event planning and oversight, and other,
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2. The Olympic Movement groups together all those who agree to be guided by the Olympic Charter and who recognise the authority of its supreme authority, the International Olympic
Committee (IOC). It embraces the National Olympic Committees (NOCs), the Organising Committees of the Olympic Games (OCOGs), the IOC Advisory Commissions and Working Groups,
the International Federations of Sports on the Programme of the Olympic Games (IFs), athletes, judges and referees, associations and clubs, as well as all the organisations and institutions
recognised by the IOC.
3. See the IOC Olympic Charter (Lausanne, Switzerland : IOC, Aug. 2004), Fundamental Principles.