Sport arbitration and the question of human rights compliance: assessing the aftermath of the ECtHR’s Mutu and Pechstein judgment

This article will discuss the question of non-compliance with the Mutu and Pechstein judgment of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) by Switzerland and, more critically, by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). It will examine how CAS’s interpretation of the judgment is at odds with the ECtHR’s holding and how this divergence has led to issues of non-compliance. This process has undermined the application of Article 6(1) protections in CAS arbitral proceedings and reduced the ECtHR’s Mutu and Pechstein judgment to a largely symbolic gesture without any real impact. This research argues that the unique characteristics of CAS proceedings require tailored measures to ensure true public hearings. It concludes that the institutional structure and operation of CAS appear to have become a matter of political salience for Switzerland, which leads the state to adopt a resistant stance towards complying with judgments that place pressure on CAS.