Webinar: Gender, Athletes' Rights, and the Court of Arbitration for Sport (June 2020)

A presentation by Helen Jefferson Lenskyj, Professor Emerita, University of Toronto.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), established by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 1983, poses a threat to athletes’ rights by depriving them of access to their own countries’ court systems. CAS loosely follows the model of international arbitration tribunals. As in forced arbitration outside of sport, employees – in this case, high performance athletes – sign contracts agreeing to arbitration rather than litigation as the sole means of dispute resolution.