The Arbitration of International Sports Disputes: Athlete Due Process and the Limits of Private Justice

International sports arbitration offers expertise, procedural coordination and decisions that can operate across national borders. Its legitimacy becomes more difficult to defend when an athlete must accept arbitration to pursue a sporting career and has limited resources to challenge the governing body. This article examines the conditions under which private sports adjudication adequately protects athlete due process, with particular reference to Uganda. It uses doctrinal and comparative analysis of legislation, institutional rules, selected judicial decisions and published arbitral awards. The analysis distinguishes contractual consent, institutional independence, practical participation, proportionality and effective judicial supervision. The cases reveal that recognition of the Court of Arbitration for Sport as an arbitral institution does not resolve every challenge to its procedures or awards. Public-hearing requirements, arbitrator impartiality and the intensity of judicial review remain independently significant. The Grand Chamber judgment in Semenya and the Court of Justice judgment in Seraing demonstrate, through different legal routes, the limits of treating compulsory sports arbitration as equivalent to freely negotiated commercial arbitration. For Uganda, the principal concern is the relationship between mandatory arbitration and finality under the National Sports Act, Cap 151, constitutional fair-hearing guarantees and the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, Cap 5. The article recommends clearer preservation of supervisory remedies, transparent appointments, accessible legal assistance, reasoned interim decisions and publication practices that protect sensitive information. It concludes that specialised arbitration can remain central to international sport when its authority is supported by meaningful procedural safeguards and appropriate public-law oversight.