This is a hybrid event. For attendance via Zoom, please register online.
Top-level athletes and players undoubtedly enjoy privileges and a high social recognition, but it is less known that their special status imposes on them also far-reaching additional duties and restrictions. For example, the Olympic Charter limits political and other speech to a large extent. Moreover, instead of bringing their contract, or disciplinary disputes before ordinary courts, they are expected to agree on particular arbitration proceedings, which do not offer all the guarantees of fair trial. This raises the question whether these restrictions can be justified and whether human rights bodies should have a role to play in examining their lawfulness.
This talk aims at contextualizing the current and potential case law of the European Court of Human Rights in the field of athletes’ rights, in particular concerning the right to fair trial, freedom of expression and religion, as well as discrimination based on various grounds. Remarkably, the jurisdiction of the Court is not limited to European athletes and players.
Lunch will be served to in-person attendees.
Panelists
Dr. Daniel Rietiker holds a PhD from the University of Lausanne (Switzerland). He is a senior lawyer at the European Court of Human Rights, where he has been involved in high-profile cases in various fields, such as asylum and migration, international terrorism, international child abductions, freedom of religion and expression. He is also an adjunct Professor at the University of Lausanne and Suffolk University Law School (Boston, MA), and was a Visiting Fellow at the Human Rights Program at HLS in 2014. His recent research focuses on human rights in sport. In 2022, he published Defending athletes, players, clubs and fans – Manual for human rights litigation in sport, in particular before the European Court of Human Rights (Council of Europe Publishing, Strasbourg; with an updated version published in French in 2024).
Professor Gerald L. Neuman (moderator) is the Director of the School’s Human Rights Program, and the J. Sinclair Armstrong Professor of International, Foreign, and Comparative Law at HLS. Neuman teaches courses in international human rights law, immigration and nationality law, and U.S. constitutional law. From 2011 to 2014, he served as a Member of the UN Human Rights Committee. Neuman holds a JD from HLS and a PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
This event is organized by the Human Rights Program at Harvard Law School and cosponsored by HLS Advocates for Human Rights and the Harvard European Law Association.