Court of Arbitration for Sport | |
---|---|
(in French)Tribunal arbitral du sport | |
Established | 1984 [1] |
Location | Lausanne, Switzerland |
Authorized by | International Olympic Committee (Olympic Charter) |
Appeals to | Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland |
Website | www.tas-cas.org |
President | |
Currently | John Coates |
Since | 2011 |
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS; French : Tribunal arbitral du sport, TAS) is an international body established in 1984 to settle disputes related to sport through arbitration. Its headquarters are in Lausanne, Switzerland and its courts are located in New York City, Sydney, and Lausanne. Temporary courts are established in current Olympic host cities.
The International Council of Arbitration for Sport (ICAS) was established simultaneously, and a single president presides over both bodies. The ICAS, which has a membership of 20 individuals, is responsible for the financing of and financial reporting by the CAS, and it appoints the Director-General of the CAS. [2]
Generally speaking, a dispute may be submitted to the CAS only if an arbitration agreement between the parties specifies recourse to the CAS. However, according to rule 61 of the Olympic Charter, all disputes in connection with the Olympic Games can only be submitted to CAS, [3] and all Olympic international federations (IF) have recognised the jurisdiction of CAS for at least some disputes. [4]
Through compliance with the 2009 World Anti-Doping Code, all signatories, including all Olympic international federations and National Olympic Committees, have recognised the jurisdiction of CAS for anti-doping rule violations. [3] [5] [6] Starting in 2016, an anti-doping division of CAS judges, who specialize in doping cases at the Olympic Games, replaced the IOC disciplinary commission. [7] These decisions can be appealed to CAS's ad hoc court in the Olympic host city or, if the ad hoc court is no longer available, to the permanent CAS. [8] The inaugural anti-doping division handled eight cases, of which seven were doping cases within its jurisdiction. [9]
As a Swiss arbitration organization, decisions of the CAS can be appealed to the Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland. [10] Appeals of arbitration decisions are generally not successful, [11] and no evaluation of the merits takes place, with the evaluation mainly based on whether procedural requirements have been met, and whether the award is incompatible with public policy. As of March 2012, [update] there have been seven successful appeals. Six of the upheld appeals were procedural in nature. Only once has the Federal Supreme Court overruled a CAS decision on the case's merits, in the case of Matuzalém, a Brazilian football player. [12] CAS decisions can be the subject of further appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. [13]
The Federal Court of Justice of Germany ruled against the German speed-skater Claudia Pechstein, recognising a lack of jurisdiction to revisit her case. The Federal Court ruled that CAS met the requirements of a court of arbitration according to German law and that CAS's independence from the parties was secured by the method of selecting arbitrators and the possibility to appeal to the Swiss Federal Tribunal. [14] [15]
With the intermixing of sports and politics, the body was originally conceived by International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Juan Antonio Samaranch to deal with disputes arising during the Olympics. It was established as part of the IOC in 1984. [1]
In 1992, the case of Gundel v. La Fédération Equestre Internationale was decided by the CAS, and then appealed to the Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland, challenging CAS impartiality. The Swiss court ruled that the CAS was a true court of arbitration but drew attention to the numerous links between the CAS and the IOC. [16]
In response, the CAS underwent reforms to make itself more independent of the IOC, both organizationally and financially. The most significant change resulting from this reform was the creation of an "International Council of Arbitration for Sport" (ICAS) to look after the running and financing of the CAS, thereby taking the place of the IOC. As of 2004 [update] , most recent cases that were considered by the CAS dealt with transfer disputes within professional association football or with doping.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport is planning to move its headquarters from the Château de Béthusy to the south part of the Palais de Beaulieu (both in Lausanne). [17]
Designation | Name | Country |
---|---|---|
ICAS/CAS President | John D. Coates AC | Australia |
ICAS Vice-Presidents | Michael B. Lenard OLY | United States |
Tjasa Andrée-Prosenc | Slovenia | |
President of CAS Ordinary Division | Carole Malinvaud | France |
President of Appeals Arbitration Division | Corinne Schmidhauser OLY | Switzerland |
CAS Director General | Matthieu Reeb | Switzerland |
It is noteworthy that CAS had already issued an award suspending an athlete based on the longitudinal profiling of the biological markers before the adoption of the ABP by the IFs [international federations]: in CAS 2009/A/1912 & 1913 [Pechstein], the Panel suspended an Olympic athlete after the biological data showed irregular blood values. According to CAS, those abnormal values were not caused by an error in a laboratory, as the athlete asserted, but due to the banned manipulation of the athlete’s blood. The essential difference between ABP judgments and the CAS 2009/A/1912 & 1913 consists in that in the latter case, the athlete's blood data was drawn from a sample the athlete gave at the federations championships and therefore not from data gathered by an official systematic program run by the athlete's union. [19]
"The Panel is aware of the impact its decision will have on a fine, young, elite athlete. It finds, in balancing the interests of Miss Raducan with the commitment of the Olympic Movement to drug-free sport, the Anti-Doping Code must be enforced without compromise." [20]
The ad hoc court for the 2016 Olympics had registered 18 cases by 3 August, surpassing the record two days before the Opening Ceremony. 11 of the cases were related to the various bans on Russian athletes related to the allegations of state-sponsored doping documented in the McLaren report. [38] By the end of the Games the total number of cases was 28, 16 of which were related to the eligibility of Russian athletes. [9]
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: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)The World Anti-Doping Agency is a foundation initiated by the International Olympic Committee based in Canada to promote, coordinate, and monitor the fight against drugs in sports. The agency's key activities include scientific research, education, development of anti-doping capacities, and monitoring of the World Anti-Doping Code, whose provisions are enforced by the UNESCO International Convention Against Doping in Sport. The aims of the Council of Europe Anti-Doping Convention and the United States Anti-Doping Agency are also closely aligned with those of WADA.
Competitors at the Olympic Games have used banned athletic performance-enhancing drugs.
Alexandr Yuryevich Zubkov is a Russian retired bobsledder who has competed since 1999. Competing in four Winter Olympics, he won two medals with a silver in 2006 (four-man) and a bronze in 2010 (two-man). On 24 November 2017, he was found guilty of doping offences and stripped of his medals from the 2014 Winter Olympics.
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