Human Rights Council Panel Discussion on Using Sport and the Olympic Ideal to Promote Human Rights
28 June 2016
Today, the United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Human Rights, President of the UN Human Rights Council and UN Member States discussed [word doc] methods for mega-sporting events to promote awareness, understanding and application of human rights standards.
IHRB’s Executive Director John Morrison was among five expert panelists invited to address the session. In his opening remarks, he noted:
"I am here to announce today that a number of governments, international agencies, sports bodies, local organizing committees, sponsors, broadcasters, trade unions, NGOs and national human rights institutions, have come together for the first time to combine collective efforts to make Mega-Sporting Events a celebration of human rights in every sense.
These are organizations that have often been on opposing sides of the debate on the role of human rights in sport. We are working together, under the chair of Mary Robinson (known to you all as a former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights) to develop a framework for learning, legacy and methods of accountability between sporting events and across sporting traditions. We are taking an evidence-based approach, using the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work as our starting points and bringing in lessons from many other business sectors and the experiences of other major events."
