Sports organisations and the promotion of human rights/Interview with Sylvia Schenk

Pim Verschuuren – Over the last years, with issues like the construction workers in Qatar, the creation of the Centre for Sports and Human Rights or the Hakeem Al-Araibi case, the subject of human rights seems to become a crucial issue for sports organisations. Although human rights issues have always been connected with international sports (like apartheid, dictatorships in Latin America, working conditions in the sports goods industries, various boycotts, etc.), what does the recent development on human rights in sports mean?Sylvia Schenk – On the international agenda the responsibility of businesses to respect human rights only appeared in the first decade of this century. The United Nations (UN) realised that the duty of states to protect human rights is not sufficient and that big companies have a role to play to ensure improving the situation. This led to the approval of the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGP) in 2011. The UNGP translate the