The Olympic Movement and peacekeeping: is sport neutrality serving sport values?
- Author(s):
- Parliamentary Assembly
- Origin
- Assembly
debate on 25 June 2025 (23rd sitting) (see Doc. 16185, report of the Committee on Culture, Science, Education
and Media, rapporteur: Mr Mogens Jensen). Text
adopted by the Assembly on 25 June 2025 (23rd sitting).
1. Sport and the Olympic Movement
can play an essential role in preserving peace and promoting internationally
recognised human rights standards and democracy. The Parliamentary
Assembly commends the central role of the International Olympic
Committee (IOC) in bringing together key stakeholders in the global sports
arena to achieve these goals, while seeking to overcome differences.
2. The neutrality and autonomy of sport should enable sports
institutions to fulfil their mission and safeguard sporting values
effectively, without fear of undue pressure or interference. While
the complex and ever-evolving relationships between the State and
sports bodies, at both national and international levels, blur the
clear separation between politics and sport, the Assembly believes
that these two fundamental principles must be recognised and duly
respected by public authorities and that the sports movement should
assume the responsibilities deriving from them. However, these principles
must be properly understood and implemented in accordance with the
above-mentioned goals and values of the Olympic Movement.
3. The Assembly acknowledges that the Olympic Charter refers
to the respect for internationally recognised human rights, but
their significance is not always sufficiently emphasised by the
sports governing bodies and, despite the many statements and declarations,
their protection in practice and their enforcement still lack consistency
and effectiveness.
4. The principles of neutrality and autonomy of sport should
serve peace and champion democratic principles and human rights;
they cannot justify inertia or wavering reactions when peace, democracy
and human rights are threatened, vilified or de
facto denied.
5. The Assembly points out that, while the Olympic Charter has
constitutional significance and value for the sports movement, it
is not superior to international conventions and treaties: the obligation
to fully respect international human rights standards must take
precedence over the need to ensure the political neutrality of sport,
and the concept of autonomy of sport does not shield sports organisations
from accountability when they fail to protect human dignity and
human rights.
6. The Assembly wishes to encourage the Olympic Movement and
the IOC to strengthen the link between sport and humanitarian law
and, in particular, to reinforce the collective commitment to fostering
a peaceful and co-operative global environment during the Olympic
Games. Any country engaged in active warfare or armed conflict must
commit to at least a temporary cessation of hostilities for the
duration of the Olympic Games and must be held immediately accountable
for any violation of the Olympic Truce.
7. Participation in the Olympic Games and other major sports
competitions, the hosting of these events and the celebration of
the victories of national teams and athletes are used by some governments
as a means of asserting their power and gaining influence and prestige
to consolidate this power. This approach negates the very idea of
the neutrality of sport. The Assembly firmly condemns any martial
attitude towards sport which seeks to publicly demonstrate economic
and political supremacy alongside sporting primacy, and even to present
autocratic forms of government as an alternative to democratic governance,
which is incompatible with the values enshrined in the Olympic Charter.
8. To avoid this approach, sports governing bodies cannot solely
rely on the national Olympic committees, especially when they do
not appear to be autonomous but under government control. Increased
scrutiny and the establishment of an independent monitoring system
are essential to strengthen the IOC’s ability to gather information
on the actual respect for the values it proclaims.
9. Athletes are key players and powerful allies in the implementation
of the Olympic Charter and its values; they must abide by political
neutrality, but this principle and the sport regulations enacted
to ensure that it is observed must not prevent them from supporting
peace or condemning human rights violations and cannot justify punishing
athletes for doing so.
10. Neither democratic governments or international organisations,
nor athletes or sports governing bodies can remain silent and passive,
in the name of the neutrality and autonomy of sport, when faced
with serious human rights violations.
11. The Assembly agrees that athletes should not be held responsible
for their governments’ behaviour and that the right of athletes
to participate in sports competitions must be preserved as far as
possible. However, if a government seriously violates the Olympic
principles and values of sport, the athletes of that country should only
be allowed to participate in the Olympic Games or major sporting
events organised by international sports federations as neutral
athletes under the Olympic banner.
12. In addition, exceptional circumstances may require stronger
measures, including a total ban on athletes from a given country.
This should be the case when, on the one hand, such a ban is necessary
to protect other human rights which may override the right of individual
athletes to participate in sporting events and when, on the other
hand, it is practically impossible for the athletes concerned to
dissociate themselves from the actions of their governments, including
because their right to freely express criticism is denied by their
countries’ authoritarian and repressive regimes.
13. This is the case in the Russian Federation and Belarus, where
not only are virtually all high-level athletes State employees and/or
financially supported by the State, but also where there is no freedom
of expression and where taking a stand against the government would
put an athlete at risk of losing their profession, livelihood and
social status, and even being imprisoned. Moreover, in these countries,
sport is clearly a soft power tool for the government and is being
misused to generate acceptance of, if not support for, the war of aggression
against Ukraine, notwithstanding the appalling massive human rights
violations and clear threat to the international legal order that
this war has unleashed.
14. In light of the above, the Assembly calls on the International
Olympic Committee to:
14.1 reinforce
the provisions of the Olympic Charter which commit the IOC and its
members to respecting and protecting human dignity and internationally
recognised human rights;
14.2 establish the Olympic Truce as a necessary condition for
a country’s participation in the Olympic Games and include, in the
Olympic Charter and other relevant IOC regulations, the necessary
provisions to effectively enforce the obligation to respect this
truce;
14.3 introduce, in the Olympic Charter, a provision stating
that a martial attitude to sport is incompatible with Olympism and
sporting values, and reinforce the obligation of national sports institutions,
particularly the national Olympic committees, to operate under conditions
of strict independence and autonomy;
14.4 set up, in co-operation with human rights organisations,
a robust monitoring system, such as an independent commission supported
by independent experts, with investigative powers to evaluate and condemn
human rights violations and infringements of sporting values within
the Olympic Movement, including the manipulative use of sport by
a government;
14.5 amend Rule 50 of the Olympic Charter to specify that political
neutrality does not prevent athletes from supporting peace or condemning
human rights violations.
15. With a view to strengthening the rule of law within the Olympic
Movement and the IOC, the Assembly recommends the establishment
of an independent and impartial sports judicial body to ensure the
consistent interpretation and implementation of the Olympic Charter
and its fundamental principles by all sports governing bodies.
16. Finally, the Assembly trusts that the IOC and its newly elected
president are firmly committed to promoting human rights and fundamental
freedoms and to placing sport at the service of the harmonious development
of humankind with a view to promoting a peaceful society. In this
context, the Assembly welcomes the IOC as an institutional partner
of the newly established Parliamentary Alliance for Good Governance
and Integrity in Sport, and invites the IOC to consider entering
into a memorandum of understanding with the Council of Europe.
