The Olympic Curse: Protecting Olympic Dream for Host Cities and Their Inhabitants

• Author: Ankur Shingal
• Position: The University of Chicago Law School
• Pages: 572-607

e Indonesian Journal of International & Comparative Law

ISSN: 2338-7602; E-ISSN: 2338-770X

http://www.ijil.org

© 2014 e Institute for Migrant Rights Press

rst published online 24 March 2014

572

Note. Author would like to thank Professor Tom Ginsburg for both his direction and

advice throughout the process of writing this article.

THE OLYMPIC CURSE

PROTECTING THE OLYMPIC DREAM FOR HOST CITIES AND THEIR

INHABITANTS

ANKUR SHINGAL

The University of Chicago Law School

E-mail: ashingal@uchicago.edu

e Olympic Games are a study in contrasts. Often thought to be a blessing for host

cities—an opportunity to recreate themselves and welcome the world in the name of

international cooperation and sport—it has also become something of a curse for both

the city, its inhabitants, and the Olympic Movement in general. Unfortunately for

human rights advocates, the Olympics have developed a dark side in which the powers

at be, most specically the International Olympic Committee, favor magnicent

Games over the human rights violations that occur in creating that magnicence.

Since the human rights situation has not improved from one Olympiad to the next,

this Article argues that the international community must pressure the IOC to better

take into account human rights issues when selecting host cities. Specically, this

article revisits and adds to previous scholarship by discussing ramications of the

Games on host city inhabitants. It also provides a roadmap for how the international

community can pressure the IOC to better take into account human rights issues for

future Olympiads.

Keywords: Olympic Games, Human Rights, Sports Law, International Law, the Law of

Responsibility.

Ankur Shingal

THE OLYMPIC CURSE: PROTECTING THE OLYMPIC DREAM FOR HOST CITIES AND THEIR INHABITANTS

573

A. INTRODUCTION

e Olympic Games, a biennial coming together of nations and their

athletes, are the largest, and arguably the most globally unifying, sporting

mega-event in the world.1 Indeed, in sheer scope alone, the games are

the largest sporting “celebration in terms of the number of sports on the

programme, the number of athletes present and the number of people

from dierent nations gathered together at the same time in the same

place.”2

Hand-in-hand with the popularity of the Games is the undeniable

eect of the Olympics on the host country, and more specically, the host

city.3 e host city, both during the build-up to the Olympic Games and

especially during the sixteen days4 during which the Games are held, is

under intense international scrutiny.5 e scrutiny can be both positive

and negative. It is advantageous in that the host city is presented the

opportunity to welcome the world, and show that it represents what has

become a modernized and developed society.6 At the same time, the notable

1. Maximos Malfas, Eleni eodoraki, & Barrie Houlihan, Impacts of Olympic Games

as meg-events, 157 M. E’ 209, 210 (2004), available at http://epress.lib.

uts.edu.au/research/bitstream/handle/10453/19761/muen.157.3.209.49461.

pdf?sequence=1 (stating that a “mega-event can be viewed in two main respects:

rst, with regard to its internal characteristics—that is, primarily its duration and

its scale (i.e. number of participants and spectators, number of individual sessions,

and levels of organizational complexity); and second, in respect of its external

characteristics, which mainly take account of its media and tourism attractiveness,

and its impact on the host city.”).

2. T O M, T M O G 2 (2nd ed., 2007),

available at http://www.olympic.org/Documents/Reports/EN/en_report_668.

pdf.

3. See generally Steven Rosenblum & John Dietrich, e Impact of the Summer Olympics

on its Host City: e Costs Outweigh the Tangible Benets, e Honors Program,

Senior Capstone Program (Apr. 2009), available at http://digitalcommons.bryant.

edu/cgi/ viewcontent.cgi?article=1004&context=honors_history.

4. Int’l Olympic Comm. [IOC], Olympic Charter, Chapter 5, Bye-law r. 32 (Sept. 9,

2013), available at http://www.olympic.org/Documents/olympic_charter_en.pdf.

5. See e.g., Jaimie Etkin, London Olympics 2012 Ratings: Most Watched Event

in TV History, HP TV (Aug. 13, 2012), available at http://www.

hungtonpost.com/2012/08/13/l ondon-olympics-2012-ratings-most-watched-

ever_n_1774032.html (stating that the London Olympic Games was the most

watched event in television history).

6. See Malfas, supra note 1, at 209 (stating: “e increasing number of cities bidding

The Indonesian Journal of International & Comparative Law Volume I Issue 2 (2014) at. 572–607

Ankur Shingal

574

media attention provides a window through which the international

community can become keenly aware of the country’s shortcomings and

the population’s unhappiness with the ruling government.7 Regardless of

the balance that any specic host nation is able to strike in regards to

positive versus negative international attention, there can be no question

that the impact of hosting the Games is a signicant, if not a watershed,

moment in a country’s history.8

However, thanks in large part to the human rights backlash regarding

the recent 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, segments of the international

community have, more so than in times past, begun to focus on the

human rights implications of the sporting spectacle on the host nation

and its citizens.9 In the build-up to the Beijing Olympics, human rights

advocates and agencies, along with segments of the international media,

decried the IOC’s decision to award the Games to China despite the

country’s dismal human rights record. For example, Human Rights

Watch (“HRW”) extensively documented human rights violations that

were perpetrated by the Chinese Government in relation to the country’s

hosting the Games, focusing on the issues of media censorship, forced

evictions of Chinese citizens, abuse of migrant construction workers,

and the silencing of civil society and rights activists.10 Due to the human

rights fallout of those Games, many entities are beginning to scrutinize

to host the Olympics and the increasing funds invested in Olympic bids indicate

that local leaders perceive the securing of such an event as an opportunity to

improve economic and social aspects of a city or region through the accumulated

investment triggered by staging the Games”).

7. See, e.g., Jenny Barcheld, Confederation Cup Protests Target Match in Rio,

HP W (June 30, 2013), available at http://www.hungtonpost.

com/2013/06/30/confederation-cup-protests_n_3526184.html (stating that over

one million people, taking advantage of the international attention during the

2013 Confederations Cups, protested against the Brazilian government’s spending

billions of dollars in the lead up to the 2014 FIFA World Cup, a sporting mega-

event, instead of improving public works within the country).

8. See, e.g., Owen Gibson, Japanese Bid’s Passion Earns Tokyo the 2020 Olympic

Games, T G (Sept. 7, 2013), available at http://www.theguardian.com/

sport/2013/sep/07/ tokyo-2020-olympic-games (“[w]hen Tokyo rst hosted the

Olympics in 1964, it was seen as a coming out party for a country recovering from

the ravages of war . . .”).

9. See, e.g., H. R. W, Integrating Human Rights in the Olympic Process, (Feb.

23, 2009), available at http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/les/related_material/

HRW-Submission-to-CopenhagenOlympicCongress-Feb2009.pdf.

10. Id. at 1-2.