The British Olympic Association Attempts to Keep Its Lifetime Ban for Athletes with Doping Offenses, 32 Nw

The British Olympic Association Attempts to Keep Its Lifetime Ban for Athletes with Doping Offenses, 32 Nw

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business Volume 32 Issue 4 The Ambassador 2012 The aB ttle Before the Games: The rB itish Olympic Association Attempts to Keep its Lifetime Ban for Athletes with Doping Offenses Daniel Gandert Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/njilb Part of the Dispute Resolution and Arbitration Commons, Entertainment and Sports Law Commons, and the International Law Commons Recommended Citation Daniel Gandert, The Battle Before the Games: The British Olympic Association Attempts to Keep its Lifetime Ban for Athletes with Doping Offenses, 32 Nw. J. Int'l L. & Bus. 53A (2012). http://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/njilb/vol32/iss4/5 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Northwestern University School of Law Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business by an authorized administrator of Northwestern University School of Law Scholarly Commons. Copyright 2012 by Northwestern University School of Law Northwestern Journal of International Law and Business The Battle Before the Games: The British Olympic Association Attempts to Keep its Lifetime Ban for Athletes with Doping Offenses Daniel Gandert TABLE OF CONTENTS I. Introduction ................................................................................53A II. The Organization of the Olympic Movement...............................55A III. The BOA Bylaw .........................................................................56A IV. The World Anti-Doping Code .....................................................59A A. A Brief History of the World Anti-Doping Code....................59A B. Proportionality Before the WADC .........................................60A C. Penalties for Doping Under the WADC .................................62A D. Proportionality Under the WADC..........................................65A V. The Osaka Rule...........................................................................69A VI. Osaka Rule Cases........................................................................71A VII. USOC v. IOC’s Precedential Value and its Effect on the BOA Bylaw .........................................................................................75A VIII. Conclusion..................................................................................79A I. INTRODUCTION This year, London is preparing to be the first city to host the Olympic Games three times.1 While there has been news about the various preparations taking place for the games, one story that has made the British headlines is the question of whether Dwain Chambers and other British athletes with past doping offenses will be eligible to participate. A British Program on Negotiation and Mediation Faculty, Northwestern University School of Law. 1 Ron Vaccaro, What to Expect at the London Games, NBCOLYMPICS.COM, http://www.nbcolympics.com/2012-preview/index.html (last visited Feb. 27, 2012). 53A Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business Ambassador 32:53A (2012) Olympic Association (BOA) bylaw prohibits any athlete with a past doping offense from representing Britain in the Olympics for life.2 Dwain Chambers, a sprinter, established himself as the fastest European at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney.3 Shortly after, he became involved with the Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative (BALCO) scandal, which is perhaps the biggest doping scandal in the history of sports.4 In this scandal, the BALCO laboratory provided prohibited substances to many elite athletes in both track and field and U.S. professional baseball.5 As part of the scandal, Chambers consumed the steroid Tetrahydrogestrinone (THG) and upon getting caught, was suspended from competing in athletics for two years.6 This triggered the BOA’s Bylaw 25 (Bylaw), which prohibits athletes with doping offenses from competing for Britain in the Olympics for life.7 Chambers admitted to using prohibited substances, came back to the track world, and ended up running faster than he did while he was doping.8 Nonetheless, because of the Bylaw, Chambers is prohibited from representing Britain at the Olympics again even though athletes from other countries who have completed their doping suspension will have no legal obstacle preventing them from competing in this summer’s games. The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) held a hearing regarding the validity of this rule on March 12th, with a decision to be released in early April.9 2 British Olympic Ass’n, British Olympic Association Bye-Law of the National Olympic Committee Eligibility for Membership of Team GB of Persons Found Guilty of a Doping Offence (Nov. 3, 2004) [hereinafter Eligibility Bye-Law], available at http://www. webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20100611124335/http://www.olympics.org.uk/documen ts/Eligibility%20bye%20law%20%28Final%20Nov%202004%29.pdf. 3 Dwain Chambers, Dwain Chambers: The Cops Knew What They Were Looking For, I Was a Walking Junkie, MAIL ONLINE (Mar. 3, 2009), http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport /othersports/article-1158339/DWAIN-CHAMBERS-EXCLUSIVE-The-cops-knew-looking- I-walking-junkie.html. 4 Peter Charlish, Dwain Chambers Runs Out of Time, 10 TEX. REV. ENT. & SPORTS L. 57, 58 (2008); What is the Balco Scandal?, TELEGRAPH (Mar. 21, 2011, 7:36 PM), http://www. telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/drugsinsport/8396065/What-is-the-Balco-scandal.html. 5 James A.R. Nafziger, Circumstantial Evidence of Doping: BALCO and Beyond, 16 MARQ. SPORTS L. REV. 45, 51–52 (2005). 6 Charlish, supra note 4, at 57. 7 Id. 8 Dwain Chambers: ‘I Realise What I Almost Lost—That Kills Me’, INDEPENDENT (Mar. 11, 2010), http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/general/athletics/dwain-chambers-i-realise- what-i-almost-lost-ndash-that-kills-me-1919520.html. See generally DWAIN CHAMBERS, RACE AGAINST ME: MY STORY (2009), for Chambers’ autobiographical account of his story. 9 London 2012: BOA ‘Cautiously Optimistic’ After Drugs Ban Hearing, BBC (Mar. 12, 2012, 5:25 PM), http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/athletics/17328532; BOA Member Reedie Expects Chambers and Millar to Be Allowed to Compete in London, MAIL ONLINE (Jan. 16, 2012, 4:01 PM), http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/olympics/article-2087409/London-2012- Olympics-Drugs-ban-overturned-Sir-Craig-Reedie.html. 54A Battle Before the Games 32:53A (2012) Part II of this article introduces the organizational structure of the international Olympic movement. Part III describes the background related to the Bylaw. Part IV describes the World Anti-Doping Code (WADC) and the principle of proportionality, as well as how this principle interacts with the code. Part V describes the IOC’s Osaka Rule, which prior to being invalidated by a CAS panel, prohibited athletes with a doping suspension of greater than six months from participating in the next Olympic Games,10 and Part VI discusses the major cases relating to the Osaka Rule. Part VII examines the reasoning that CAS used to invalidate the rule, which is that it is incompatible with the WADC because it provides athletes with additional penalties to those prescribed by the code.11 Finally, the article concludes in Part VIII that the same reasoning should be used to invalidate the Bylaw since it also provides sanctions beyond those prescribed by the WADC. II. THE ORGANIZATION OF THE OLYMPIC MOVEMENT In order to understand the issues presented in this article, it is helpful to first understand the organization of the Olympic movement. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is at the top of the Olympic movement.12 Below the IOC are the International Federations for the various Olympic sports and the National Olympic Committees (NOCs) for the countries competing in the Olympics.13 International Federations “provide governance for their sport worldwide, doing everything from deciding the official rules of their sport to overseeing their international competitions. NOCs manage the Olympic teams of their country, as well as oversee other elements of the Olympic movement, such as their country’s bid to host the Olympic Games.”14 NOCs are required to abide by the rules of the IOC in order to be recognized.15 Individual sports are administered by National Governing Bodies, which must comply with the rules of both their International Federation and NOC.16 10 Stephen Wilson, IOC Ratifies New Anti-Doping Rule, USA TODAY (June 5, 2008, 1:46 PM), http://www.usatoday.com/sports/olympics/2008-06-05-2589742160_x.htm. 11 U.S. Olympic Comm. v. Int’l Olympic Comm. (USOC v. IOC), CAS 2011/0/2422 (Ct. Arb. Sport Oct. 4, 2011). 12 PAUL C. WEILER ET AL., SPORTS AND THE LAW: TEXT, CASES AND PROBLEMS 1051 (4th ed. 2011). 13 Daniel Gandert & Harry Epstein, The Court’s Yellow Card for the United States Soccer Federation: A Case for Implied Antitrust Immunity, 11 VA. SPORTS & ENT. L.J. (forthcoming 2012) (manuscript at 4–5) (on file with author). 14 Id. at 5. 15 Nancy K. Raber, Dispute Resolution in Olympic Sport: The Court of Arbitration for Sport, 8 SETON HALL J. SPORT L. 75, 81 (1998). 16 Edward E. Hollis III, The United States Olympic Committee and the Suspension of Athletes: Reforming Grievance Procedures Under the Amateur Sports Act of 1978, 71 IND. L.J. 183, 187 (1995). 55A Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business Ambassador 32:53A (2012) III. THE BOA BYLAW During the period following the 1988 Olympics, members of the BOA Athletes Commission believed that they needed to take action to prevent doping offenders from representing Britain in the Olympics.17 After some resistance

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