The Sporting Law Book for Girls

This piece appears courtesy of top lawyer and friend Felicity Gerry.

In the front of  'The Daring Book for Girls' by Andrea Buchanan and Miriam Peskowitz there is a list entitled “The Daring Girl’s Guide to Danger”. It reads “Facing your fears can be a rewarding experience and pushing yourself to new heights will inspire you to face challenges throughout life”. What follows is a checklist of “danger and daring” which includes riding a roller coaster, going white water rafting, dyeing your hair purple and standing up for yourself – or someone else”. There are some things girls can do right away, some they will have to work up to.

 This year, 'daring girls and women' made the world stop and take notice as they achieved triumph after triumph in sport at London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic  Games. The challenge is to maintain the momentum and to make sure that  there is fairness in global sport and global sports law

Equality and the power of sport was truly reflected in the smiles of 13 year old paralympian Maddison Elliott when she won a bronze medal in the 400 metre freestyle. Her smiles lit up the poolside. The Sydney Morning Herald reported Maddison saying: "This morning I did a massive PB which was a 19-second PB and I just wanted to get into the final just to do another PB, and it's just amazing to get a bronze medal at the age of 13 at my first Paralympics”.

London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games really have been wonderful but it has been a particularly fantastic leap for sporting women and girls. The development of global sports law provides an opportunity for a process that is not fettered by the potentially discriminatory rules of any one national state, but creates a transnational legal order with sufficient principles of substantive and procedural justice that allows for fairness in adjudication on all sorts of sporting issues. As Ken Foster, Research Associate at the University of Westminster argued in a recent paper “The growth of global sports governance, and in particular the expansion of lex sportive through the jurisprudence of CAS is of special interest to legal theorists who see it as a regulatory regime juridifying into a form of transnational law outside the review of national courts”.

 If such a global legal system is possible then the hope for equality on so many stages exists.

It is 40 years since the US Federal Government’s Title IX Education Amendments were made into law. Title IX states: “no person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance”. It allowed for female sporting championships and, like many other countries, has led to the rise of remarkable women. Names such as Nadia Comăneci, Olga Korbut and Florence Griffith Joyner have inspired the generation of young women proving their abilities this summer. 

For team GB there were so many firsts: In boxing, Nicola Adams, won the first ever boxing gold for women in the Olympics. In Track cycling, Laura Trott won 2 golds in her first games. In the cycling road race, Lizzie Armisted won the first medal for GB in Olympic women’s cycling. No one will ever forget Gemma Gibbons’ silver medal in the women's judo which takes second place only to the clash between Victoria Arlen and Ellie Simmonds in the Paralympic swimming.

Inspiration

 The protection for these women in the world of sport flows from the global regime of sporting governance, the characteristics of which are summarised by Ken Foster as follows:

· It is rule based and considered binding, by contractual acceptance by the participants with characteristics that can be equated with law

· It has a mechanism for alternative dispute resolution through arbitration that is binding

· It has a non- state regulatory system of governance, described by some writers as transnational private regulation, through its pyramid structure consisting of the IOC, international federations and national federations

· With its anti doping rules administered by WADA, it is an interesting example of governance by a hybrid institution in which public elements, such as governments, and private interests are mixed

· It claims to be immune from challenge by national courts and thus it is therefore a system of private transnational law beyond state control

What we have therefore is the development of a global system of governance which is known as sports law but has much more to do with principles of rule making. Bodies such as the IOC are, in effect, exercising a form of Governmental power without using existing laws from any particular nation state but founding the rules on fairness.

This sporting year there were also a couple of triumphant lasts: Sarah Attar, the first Saudi Arabian woman in Olympic track and field finished last in 800m heat, but attracted a standing ovation as she crossed the finish line as did her fellow Saudi Arabian Judoka Wojdan Shaherkani who made history as the first Saudi Arabian female to compete at the Olympics. For many, this demonstrated the power of the IOC to compel international cooperation. Others have called for a system of accountability. 

As Uncle Ben in Spiderman said “with great power comes great responsibility”. 

Sarah Attar Breaking Through

Whatever the future for global sports law and however it will be challenged and regulated, it is a fascinating debate which is not just academic. It is the start of something which can be even greater than Jessica Ennis’ win in the heptathlon. Here’s hoping that the world’s acceptance of women’s’ sporting greatness can lead to a global legal order based on equality and fairness so that Maddison Elliot can make us smile for generations to come and future girls can aim for more than a PB.

Felicity Gerry is a barrister at 36 Bedford Row, London. She has successfully represented professionals in criminal and disciplinary proceedings. This has included sportsmen, lawyers, doctors, teachers, a pharmacist and a taxidermist. In 2012 she was also part of a team providing on call legal advice & assistance to LOCOG in relation to sports law including defamation/ privacy issues

Felicity Gerry

UKChambers website: www.36bedfordrow.co.uk