Page 43 - THE INTERNATIONAL OLYMPIC COMMITTEE’S ACCOUNTABILITY FOR HARMFUL CONSEQUENCES OF THE OLYMPIC GAMES- A MULTI-METHOD INTERNATIONAL LEGAL ANALYSIS Ryan Gautier

Chapter Two – Global Governance and Legitimacy
alternative to the institution is available, or can be created, an institution may possess a significant degree of legitimacy by default.
How much legitimacy might the IOC and the Olympic Games require in order to effectively compel compliance amongst those who it regulates? The mandate of the IOC is to “promote Olympism throughout the world and to lead the Olympic Movement,” which includes the promotion of the ethics and good governance of the Movement.41 Along with bodies such as the WADA and the CAS, the Olympic Movement exercises a significant degree of coordinating control over much of world sport independent from the state. As such, the IOC, and the Olympic Movement, can be said to exercise a high degree of authority. Similarly, the Olympic Games and the actors involved in organising the Games as an institution place many demands upon a host city (and host country), requiring various changes in legislation, financial support, logistical support, and so forth.42
The subject matter that the IOC and the Olympic Games are primarily concerned with is sport. Sport has been traditionally viewed as ‘low politics’ by academics and politicians alike,43 which can perhaps be best summarised in a quote from a 1960 British government report on sport, which stated: “To talk, as some do, as if sport could properly be used as a major instrument of international diplomacy, or as if a nation’s authority and influence in world affairs at large are to be measured by its successes or failures in the Olympic Games, seems to us to reveal a serious lack of sense of proportion.”44 This view has been challenged over the years. Sport itself has been used as a proxy for Cold War competition,45 and winning medals has been seen by some as evidence of soft power.46
41 Olympic Charter (n 20) Rule 2.
42 See, e.g., Gauthier (n 32); Stephan A. Stuart and Teresa Scassa, ‘Legal Guarantees for Olympic Legacy’ (2011)
9 Entertainment and Sports Law Journal 22.
43 Patrick M. Cottrell and Travis Nelson, ‘Not Just the Games? Power, Protest and Politics at the Olympic’ (2011) 17 European Journal of International Relations 729; Lincoln Allison and Terry Monnington, ‘Sport, Prestige and International Relations’ (2002) 37 Government and Opposition 106; Trevor Taylor, ‘Sport and World Politics: Functionalism and the State System’ (1988) 43 International Journal 531, 532.
44 The Central Council of Physical Recreation, ‘The Report of the Wolfenden Committee: Sport and the Community’ (1960) 73.
45 Cottrell and Nelson (n 43) 731; Allison and Monnington (n 43) 124.
46 See, e.g., Joseph S. Nye, ‘The Olympics and Chinese Soft Power’ (Huffington Post, 24 September 2008)
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joseph-nye/the-olympics-and-chinese_b_120909.html?> accessed 30 June 2015; Piotr Maciej Kaczyński, ‘EU at the Olympics: An Invisible Powerhouse’ (Auractiv, 26 July 2012) <http://www.euractiv.com/sports/eu-olympics-invisible-powerhouse-analysis-514166> accessed 30 June 2015; Ernst & Young, ‘Rapid-Growth Markets Soft Power Index: Spring 2012’ (2012) 7. See also Allison and Monnington 43) 133.
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