London 2012 Olympics: What Legacy for Business and Human Rights?

As the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic experience draws to a close, and the dust starts to settle on Her Majesty the Queen’s James Bond cameo, British-Somali immigrant Mo Farah’s double gold-winning middle-distance running success, and London’s decibel shattering support for Paralympians Ellie Simmonds and Oscar Pistorius, attention turns to questions of legacy.

Already in London the debate has begun over how best to harness the success of London 2012 to boost mass sports participation and elite sport in the UK.

But as Lord Coe and his LOCOG (London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games) colleagues transfer Olympic Park to construction workers once more for the next phase of East London’s regeneration, and prepare their handover notes for the organisers of the Rio 2016 Olympics (doubtlessly showcasing LOCOG’s legacy efforts “to host the world’s first truly sustainable Olympic and Paralympic Games”), there is surely an unmissable opportunity to also leave a Business and Human Rights legacy for 2012.

In many ways the Olympic and human rights movements are natural bedfellows. The Olympic Charter’s Fundamental Principles of Olympism espouse sport as a human right and proclaims respect for universal fundamental ethical principles and human dignity. The Olympic Charter - which binds all members of the Olympic Movement - also promotes non-discrimination, sustainable development and the concept of leaving a positive legacy for the host city and nation. Indeed it is against this backdrop that London 2012 chose to bestow the honour of carrying the Olympic flag at the opening ceremony on notable peace and human rights figures like Leyma Gbowee, Doreen Lawrence and Shami Chakrabarti, and to profile the Universal Declaration of Human Rights at the Paralympic opening ceremony.

Yet regrettably in recent years the Summer/Winter Olympic cycle, like that of other Mega Sporting Events (MSEs) such as the FIFA and Rugby Worlds Cups and Commonwealth Games, has become a lightning rod for civil society campaigners and trade unionist seeking to combat the wide spectrum of human rights abuses, many of them business related, with apparent links to these events.

Studies suggest 1.5 million people were displaced for the construction of Olympic venues and related infrastructure prior to Beijing 2008. Gentrification, soaring house prices and a reduction in the availability of affordable/social housing stock are also habitual problems; house prices increased by over 100% in the run-up to Barcelona in 1992, while in Atlanta 1,200 public housing units were lost and 15,000 low-income residents were priced out of the city.

Marginalised groups frequently bear the brunt, with hundreds of Roma people displaced prior to Athens 2004. The criminalisation of homelessness is also a regular occurrence. Atlanta’s attempt to “clean the streets” in 1996, resulted in 9,000 arrest citations issued to homeless people, many of them African-Americans. Not only does this raise questions over the responsibility of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and host authorities, but also the companies carrying out the work.

Allegations of unacceptable working conditions in venue construction and in the supply chains for sporting goods, team kit and officials’ uniforms, merchandise and now Olympic medals, resurface at every Olympics and FIFA World Cup. Play Fair – a consortium of international trade union federations and NGOs – has campaigned since 2003 for the IOC and FIFA to act to ensure that the human rights of workers are respected. In 2010, Play Fair participant the ITGLWF investigated 83 factories (in Sri Lanka, the Philippines and Indonesia) that supply branded-kit for teams at London 2012 and found below the minimum wage pay; involuntary overtime; the widespread use of contract labour, with workers denied decent wages and written contracts; intimidation of union activists; and sexual harassment.

Play Fair 2012’s dossier Toying with Workers’ Rights of working conditions at factories in China’s Guangdong Province producing London 2012 badges and mascots, meanwhile unearthed examples of child labour, poor health and safety, and evidence of audit fraud. Play Fair and its affiliate the Building and Wood Workers’ International (BWI) have already turned their gaze on the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics and Brazil (host to the 2014 FIFA World Cup and 2016 Summer Olympic), where BWI has this month recorded an upsurge in industrial action and worker rights-related grievances.

The exploitation of migrant workers and human trafficking, both in the construction and hospitality sectors, is another major concern. The Staff Wanted Initiative, managed by the Institute for Human Rights and Business and Anti-Slavery International, has highlighted the risks of migrant worker exploitation it the hotel industry during London 2012, where the widespread outsourcing of housekeeping functions to agency staff, increases migrant workers’ vulnerability to abuses such as the paying of piece-work rates, the withholding of wages, excessive deductions for food, transport and accommodation, and even debt bondage or outright forced labour.

A campaign by a coalition of UK and US investors has also focussed urging companies to combat the risk of human trafficking and modern day slavery within the supply chains, hiring and recruitment practices of Olympic sponsors, major London hoteliers, travel and tourism companies. And BSR and Human Rights Watch have already begun research into the exploitation of migrant construction workers in the run up to the Qatar FIFA World Cup 2022.

The human rights performance of Olympic worldwide TOP tier sponsors and other commercial partners is similarly under the microscope. While some campaigns have focused on sponsors’ own alleged complicity in human rights abuses, like Dow Chemical’s role in the 1984 Bhopal tragedy or Atos’ controversial "fitness to work" tests on incapacity benefit claimants in the UK, others have targeted major sponsors like GE and Coca-Cola to use their influence, with for example the Chinese government ahead of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, to stop repression in Tibet or halt crimes against humanity in the Sudan.

It would be wholly unfair to point the finger exclusively at the Olympics. FIFA, UEFA and the Commonwealth Games Federation face much the same criticism over business and human rights issues.

Equally it would be wrong to deny the positive human rights impacts the Olympics can generate for host cities in terms of job creation and urban renewal, or the part the IOC has played over the years in combatting racial discrimination in Apartheid South Africa, or more recently in fighting gender discrimination in sport (requiring Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Brunei to field female athletes in 2012) and promoting disability rights via the Paralympics.

While the jury is still out on London 2012 from a human rights perspective, and questions do need to be asked over apparent curbs on freedom of speech in the name of policing sponsors’ brand rights, and the handling of the Leyton Marsh development and protests, LOCOG has in other respects set a high bar. Indeed the Olympic movement should lose no time in ensuring that LOCOG’s decision to open itself up to scrutiny by an independent body, the Commission for Sustainable London, is replicated.

LOCOG’s efforts to embed its Sustainable Sourcing Code (based on the ETI Base Code) into contractual agreements with licensees and suppliers, and setting up of a complaints mechanism to deal with breaches of that code, should also be commended. But isn’t it time for a more coherent approach to business and human rights within the Olympic movement?

The IOC has already shown a capacity for learning and leadership in the sphere of sustainable development. In 1994, inspired by the Rio Earth Summit and Agenda 21, the IOC entered into a co-operation agreement with UNEP that led to the Olympic Movement’s Agenda 21 and the addition of an environmental strand within the Olympic Charter, which has seen tangible on ground results at Vancouver 2010 and London 2012.

In part arising from the 1998 Salt Lake City bid corruption scandal, the IOC also has in place a normative framework, comprising among other things its Ethics Commission, IOC Code of Ethics, Candidature Procedure and Questionnaire and technical manuals for bidding host cities, as well as systems for institutional learning, e.g. the Olympic Games Knowledge Management Programme and Olympic Games Impact studies; procedures which the UN Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing, has said “serve as an accountability and enforcement mechanism”.

As yet however human rights are not fully integrated. The IOC is in an almost unique position to use its leverage with future host organisers, cities and governments; affiliated sports federations (of which FIFA is one); sponsors, broadcast and other commercial partners; to build on the leadership increasingly demonstrated in the sustainability context, to set an example on business and human rights and live up to the IOC’s self-proclaimed “mission to spark social change through sport”. But as the IOC have themselves said: “Legacies do not just ‘happen’, they must be woven into the fabric of the host city and region, with the Games serving as a catalyst and enabler” ¹

Just as the IOC was inspired in 1992 by UNCED’s Agenda 21 to lead on sustainable development, twenty years on could not the emergence of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human rights now trigger similar leadership on business and human rights. The Institute for Human Rights and Business is currently drafting recommendations for a London 2012 Business and Human Rights legacy and is reaching out to the IOC, LOCOG, the Commission for Sustainable London, UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Olympic sponsors and others to make this a reality.

Footnotes:

1. Final Report of the IOC Coordination Commission, Games of the XXIX Olympiad, Beijing 2008

Photo: Flickr/Mike_fleming