Legal-administrative implications of international sport for public administration

Abstract

This paper explores the intersection of public administration and its administrative state, transnational and global policy, and international sports governance. We start by exploring autonomy and self-governance in international sport before sharing the structures, legal personalities, and nature of transnational private law interaction with international sport. The implications are illustrated through three examples. The first is the legal-policy interactions of the FIFA World Cup 2022 with Qatar. The second are new interactions of human rights with future World Cups and future Olympics. The third is the role of the Court of Arbitration for Sport and the World Anti-Doping Agency. This leads to three implications for administrative scholarship: lex sportiva implications for public administration, a stretching of the autonomy and self-governance concepts, and expanding the evaluation stage of a policy cycle to include the governance legacies of mega sports events.