A LEGAL APPRAISAL OF THE REGULATORY REGIME OF STATELESS PERSONS PARTICPATION AND ELIGIBILITY AT THE OLYMPIC GAMES

Abstract

The legal basis for Olympics participation as prescribed by the Olympic charter is that of recognised nationality. Nevertheless, the Olympic committee varied its regulation to include refugees to accommodate their participation at the Olympics despite their lack of active nationality. The distinction between stateless and refugee persons in international law vis-a-vis participation at the Olympic Games was examined. The Olympic charter was also perused and analysed to discover if special provisions were made for stateless persons in Olympic participation. There was an extensive deliberation of the disability state of stateless persons and how that categorizes them into privileges and rights of disabled persons to sports participation and by extension the Olympics participation. A regime for temporal citizenship was also examined as a platform for stateless persons to temporarily participate and represent the host state. Doctrinal and content analysis was the methodology adopted in this paper. The suggestion of the Olympic citizenship was also posited as an extension of the temporal variant of citizenship where stateless athletes are temporarily ascribed as citizens solely for the purpose of representing the host state at the Olympics. The internationally recognised human right to work was also analysed in consonance with its application to the right of stateless athletes to participate at the Olympics.

Keywords: Olympics, Stateless persons, participation, temporal citizenship, disability