Abstract
This study examines the impact of sports disputes on the development of international law and the resolution of sports disputes, and explains the ways in which these trends have had a direct and effective influence on international law.
We note that the legal regulation of national and international sports competitions has become extremely complex and has entered a new phase, providing fertile ground for the emergence and development of a broader legal jurisprudence with potentially broad impact and application. Our primary objective is to draw the attention of legal researchers and lawyers not necessarily familiar with sports law to these developments. Specifically, evolving sports law has a significant impact on the development of international and national laws, establishing a set of substantive legal principles that can be analyzed from a comparative law perspective, and having important implications for global dispute resolution. For example, the global processes used to develop international anti-doping law in sports and to resolve a wide range of Olympic and international sports disputes (which are rapidly forming a global body of private law) provide models for international cooperation and global legislation. Furthermore, the judicial resolution of sports-related cases may contribute to the development of legal jurisprudence with new applications. Our goal is to raise awareness of the importance of sports, not only as a global cultural phenomenon and an important part of the global economy in the 22nd century, but also as a rich source of international and national public and private law that provides models for the development, implementation, and enforcement of global legal norms.
The law governing sports is relatively new. In fact, there is no consensus among scholars who regularly study the rapidly evolving body of law governing the sports industry as to whether "sports law" is a distinct body of law or merely an application of general laws, or more accurately called "law and sports." However, regardless of the label used, "sports law" has a legitimate place in law school curricula due to its challenging legal issues, its interdisciplinary aspects, its practical importance to a wide cross-section of society, and the significant student interest it generates.
However, the primary goal of this research is not to encourage more law professors to teach sports law, to use sports examples to inform their teaching of other subjects, or to become sports law scholars (although this may have some or all of these implications). This discussion is not aimed at academics already interested in sports law. Rather, it is directed at a broader audience of legal researchers. We believe that evolving sports law has, and will continue to have, a significant impact on the development of broader international and national laws (such as intellectual property and human rights law) and constitutes a rich source of substantive legal principles for analysis from a comparative law perspective. Furthermore, the global processes employed in the pursuit of international sports law provide models for international cooperation between private parties and governments, as well as for legislation and the effective and respectful resolution of global sports disputes. We believe that awareness of and participation in sports law debates and developments has become essential components of the pursuit of scholarly research in a growing number of other fields. To illustrate our research, we have identified four significant developments and themes in sports law, which we will describe, analyze, and explain the relevance of each to academic study. First, international sports anti-doping rules, particularly the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) Code, provide a model for the rapid development and implementation of globally accepted legal standards and an example of an international legal system. Second, the process by which the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) is creating a "doping code," an evolving body of international sports law based largely on private agreements and dispute resolution processes, and enjoying global acceptance, has far-reaching implications for global dispute resolution and the establishment of international legal standards. Third, the emerging tendency for private agreements between governing international sports federations, a form of global legal pluralism, to displace national laws raises important issues of national sovereignty. Fourth, the judicial resolution of sports-related disputes and sports-specific legislation may foreshadow how more general national and international law will evolve, and/or how broader public policy issues will be resolved