Abstract
How can international sporting federations be regulated by law? This question is analytically dependent on a narrower question, whether there is a definable concept called international sports law. This article distinguishes between ‘international sports law’ and ‘global sports law.’ International sports law can be applied by national courts. Global sports law by contrast implies a claim of immunity from national law. Conceptually, it is a cloak for continued self-regulation by international sports federations and a claim for non-intervention by national legal systems and by international sports law. It thus opposes a rule of law in regulating international sport.
Previously published in: Entertainment Law, Vol. 2, No. 1, Spring 2003, pp. 1–18.
Lecturer in Law, University of Warwick.
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- 1.
The vice-president of the IAAF (International Amateur Athletics Federation), explaining why they refused to recognise the US courts, in Reynolds v. IAAF [1992] 841 F.Supp 1444, 1452 (S.D. Ohio). Quoted in Jacobs and Samuels 1995, 557, 583.
- 2.
Nafziger 1999, 225, 237.
- 3.
Teubner 1997b.
- 4.
Houilhan 1991.
- 5.
Id.
- 6.
Hirst and Thompson 1999.
- 7.
Mendy v. IABA; OG. Atlanta 006.
- 8.
Id., para. 7.
- 9.
Id., para. 8.
- 10.
Id., para. 11.
- 11.
Id., para. 13.
- 12.
[2000] 173 ALR 665.
- 13.
AEK Athens & Slavia Prague v. UEFA (Court of Arbitration for Sport 98/200; award 20/08/99) para. 188.
- 14.
Agreements are binding.
- 15.
An agreement is abrogated when there is a fundamental change in circumstances.
- 16.
Beloff et al. 1999; see also Caiger and Gardiner 2000, 301–3, where they write of a ‘distinct lex sportiva.’ Maclearn says that this is ‘a term coined by the Acting General Secretary of Court of Arbitration for Sport, Matthieu Reeb, at the time of the publishing of the first digest of Court of Arbitration for Sport decisions stretching over the period from 1983–1998.’ Maclearn 2001, 379 at fn. 11. Teubner, however quotes a 1990 source, Simon 1990, in Teubner 1997a.
- 17.
Beloff et al. 1999.
- 18.
Id., 4.
- 19.
Id., 5.
- 20.
Id., 4.
- 21.
Id., 5.
- 22.
Id., 217–20.
- 23.
Id., 6.
- 24.
- 25.
Mertens 1997, 36.
- 26.
Teubner 1997a, 15.
- 27.
Defrantz v. USOC [1980] 492 F.Supp 1181.
- 28.
Amateur Sports Act 1978, s. 375(a).
- 29.
Ettinger 1992, p. 97, at fn. 83.
- 30.
Cooke v. FA, The Times, 23 March 1972.
- 31.
Reel v. Holder [1981] 3 All ER 321.
- 32.
Wise and Meyer 1998, 1478.
- 33.
Martin v. International Olympic Committee [1984] 740 F.2d 670 (9th Cir.).
- 34.
Although this assumption was questioned in Modahl v. British Athletic Foundation, No. 2, unreported, 12 Oct. 2001. The Court of Appeal, by a majority, was able to find evidence that a contractual relationship had been established between an athlete and her national association.
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Foster, K. (2012). Is There a Global Sports Law?. In: Siekmann, R., Soek, J. (eds) Lex Sportiva: What is Sports Law?. ASSER International Sports Law Series. T.M.C. Asser Press. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-6704-829-3_2
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