MINISTERS’ DEPUTIES

CM Documents

CM(2020)163

2 November 2020[1]

1391st meeting, 8 December 2020 8. Youth and Sport   8.2 Enlarged Partial Agreement on Sport (EPAS) a. Report to the Committee of Ministers assessing the progress of the measures implemented following the adoption of Resolution No. 1 “Protecting human rights in sport: obligations and shared responsibilities” at the 15th Council of Europe Conference of Ministers responsible for Sport (Tbilisi, Georgia) on 16 October 2018 Item to be considered by the GR-C at its meeting on 26 November 2020

Introduction

At the 15^th Council of Europe Conference of Ministers responsible for Sport, held on 16 October 2018 in Tbilisi, Georgia, the ministers adopted Resolution no. 1 entitled “Protecting human rights in sport: obligations and shared responsibilities”, the text of which appears in Appendix 3 to the Report by the Secretary General.

According to paragraph 31 of this Resolution, the ministers:

“INVITE EPAS to present a report to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe during the course of 2020, assessing progress on the implementation of the measures enshrined in this resolution”.

The present document contains a description of the measures taken by EPAS in order to fulfil the key actions it was invited to carry out according to the resolution. 

Implementation of the measures

On 20 November 2019, EPAS organised a seminar on Human rights in sport to discuss in a more pinpointed way the human rights issues relevant to sports activities and sports events. The event was hosted in Strasbourg with the support of various entities such as the European Court of Human Rights, the Secretariat of the Anti-doping Convention and the European Programme for Human Rights Education for Legal Professionals (HELP), bringing together a group of academics, specialists from sports ministries and sports organisations, and human rights experts from across Europe.

The seminar included discussions and exchanges over four differently-themed workshops on the most pertinent issues facing human rights in sport and gave participants an opportunity to interact with one another. The workshop themes were as follows:

·                How to tackle discrimination against LGBTI people in sports competitions?

·                Are athletes denied economic and social rights?

·                Is the freedom of the sports press in danger?

·                Should the right to physical activity and sport be promoted as a legally-enforceable right?

The full report of the seminar including the conclusions can be found here.

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On 5 June 2019, EPAS held an informal round table event on Sport and Media freedom. It was organised as a side-event during the annual joint meeting of the EPAS Governing Board and EPAS Consultative Committee in Strasbourg. The round table gathered the following experts in a panel moderated by the EPAS secretariat:

•                 Jens Weinreich, Investigative Journalist, Germany

•                 Jean-Paul Savart, Representative of the Union of Sports Journalists in France (UJSF) to the International Association of Sports Press

•                 Michal Buchel, Vice-Chair of the EPAS Consultative Committee

•                 Tom Gibson, EU Representative, Committee to Protect Journalists

The event attracted around 30 participants from the Governing Board and Consultative Committee.

The summary report of the event can be found here.

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The EPAS secretariat set up an inter-secretariat task force containing staff from the different Council of Europe monitoring bodies and other relevant sectors, to meet in order to discuss the human rights theme foreseen on the programme of the Conference of Ministers (5 November 2020, Athens) and to discuss how the outcomes of the conference could best complement or support initiatives taken in each sector. The task force also discussed the information currently produced by monitoring systems and which elements would be relevant for steering sports policies in member States. 

EPAS conducted an assessment of the Charter and the subsequent analysis report of this assessment gave recommendations, presented to the Governing Board in June 2019, indicating topics to include and exploring the legal nature of a potential revised text.

This groundwork allowed EPAS to pursue the idea of revising the Charter, by arranging interactive workshops in September 2019 with member states and the sports movement, consulting Council of Europe sectors with expertise in topics such as anti-discrimination, good governance and social rights, and collecting further input via an online survey in May 2020. 

A draft of the new Charter will be presented to the 16^th Council of Europe Conference of Ministers responsible for Sport (Athens, 5 November 2020) where Ministers are expected to welcome the progress made and give their political support for EPAS to continue its work in this vein, with a view to producing a revised version of the Charter for adoption by the Committee of Ministers in the course of 2021.

Some of the human rights related issues identified in the mapping of relevant issues (see 25.a), were included in the IPACS benchmark on good governance and the human rights dimension was mainstreamed into the Kazan Action Plan integrity guidelines.

EPAS has not yet had an opportunity to work on the measures needed to promote human rights within the legacy of sports events.

The Council of Europe’s HELP programme contains a free online course in English on “Sport and Human Rights”. In 2019, EPAS financed the translation of this course into French and is currently working with the Sports Conventions Unit to promote the course through universities and academic institutions in Europe that specialise in or teach the subject as part of their curricula. The course was also promoted and presented to experts at the joint meeting of the EPAS Governing Board and Consultative Committee (5-6 June 2019), the Seminar on Human Rights and Sport (20 November 2019) and at the T-DO Monitoring Group meeting of 7‑8 May 2019.

At its 51^st meeting in October 2019, the T-DO Monitoring Group endorsed the initiative to launch a survey to examine issues related to fair hearings among States Parties as well as those sport organisations that are Observers to the Monitoring Group.

By the end of 2020 the terms of reference, scope and methodology of the T-DO survey on anti-doping hearing process will be completed and the survey will be launched for the T-DO States Parties and Observers. The results of the survey are expected to demonstrate the need (if any) to update T‑DO/Rec(2017)01 and will be available by the end of 2021.

The T-DO Monitoring Group established an Ad Hoc Group of experts on ensuring effective access of athletes to justice and fair trial (T-DO HR) in May 2019 at its 50^th meeting in Budapest, Romania.

Following three in-person meetings and numerous virtual meetings, the T-DO HR completed drafting the General principles of fair procedure applicable to anti-doping proceedings in sport (“the Principles”) in June 2020.

In January 2021, following adoption by the T-DO Monitoring Group, the Principles will be presented to the Committee of Ministers for endorsement.

The Committee of Ministers renewed the terms of reference of the Ad Hoc European Committee for the World Anti-Doping Agency (CAHAMA) for 2020-2021 and nominated new members representing the Council of Europe on the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) Foundation Board and Executive Committee.

Witold Bańka, Polish Minister for Sport, the candidate nominated by the Committee of Ministers, was elected as WADA President.

 

The CAHAMA Secretariat continued to support the One Voice Platform and organised in-person and virtual meetings of the public authorities’ representatives on the WADA statutory bodies before every meeting of the WADA Foundation Board and Executive Committee (November 2018, May 2019, September 2019, May 2020 and September 2020), as well as during the World Conference on Doping in Sport in November 2019.

Following the Seminar on Human Rights in Sport (see 25.a) it was clear that Council of Europe monitoring mechanisms and the activities provided by them to provoke remedies, for example, country visits, collective complaints, country reports, collection of data, hearings, etc. could serve as inspiration to the sporting world. Bodies such as the European Committee of Social Rights, the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) and the Lanzarote Committee (Committee of the Parties to the Convention on the Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse) are just a few instances that have the specialist know-how in areas that could be of benefit to sport. It is on this basis that the 16^th Conference of Ministers responsible for Sport (5 November 2020) will discuss turning to those monitoring mechanisms which have an abundance of information which could be used to guide, inspire and shed light on sports practices.

Contacts with ECRI, the Lanzarote Committee, the European Social Charter and the European Court of Human Rights have already been made by the EPAS secretariat and they were all invited to give their input into the draft resolutions that the Conference of Ministers will adopt in November 2020.

The Council of Europe was represented in a panel discussion during a session of the 2019 Sporting Chance Forum organised by the Centre for Sport and Human Rights on 21-22 November 2019 in Geneva. The session focused on the impact of regional bodies on policy affecting sport, human rights and sustainable development. A bilateral meeting also took place between Mary Harvey (Chief Executive of the Centre for Sport and Human Rights) and Elda Moreno (Head of the Children’s Rights and Sports Values Department, Council of Europe) to discuss future co-operation possibilities for the two organisations.

In 2017, EPAS published a handbook on “Human rights protection in Europe in the context of sports organisations' disciplinary and arbitration procedures” aimed at helping the sports movement understand the human rights provisions that may be threatened by their practices or decisions. At the same time, a second handbook on “Disciplinary and arbitration procedures of the sport movement” aimed at helping judicial authorities better understand how the arbitration procedures work within sport.

In light of the ECHR’s final decision in February 2019 regarding the Mutu/Pechstein cases and bearing in mind the reform of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), both of these handbooks are currently being updated to include relevant information and additional thoughts on more recent case-law and are scheduled to be completed by the end of 2020. 

Bilateral co-operation with sports organisations continues to progress though co-operation plans linked to Memoranda of Understanding (with FIFA and UEFA) and through their involvement in initiatives such as Start to Talk and the Child Safeguarding in Sport joint project.

The Tbilisi declaration was included in the Report by the Secretary General and published online in March 2019 on a dedicated webpage allowing other stakeholders to add their signature. EPAS will continue to promote further endorsement of it by other governmental and non-governmental stakeholders at events such as the IPACS general conference (December 2019) and the Unesco MINEPS VII in 2021.