Originially from: World Arbitration and Mediation Review (WAMR)

The Court of Arbitration for Sport
by José M. Marxuach
(LL.M., Tulane University School of Law)
I. The Court of Arbitration for Sport:
The Creation

In 1983, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) created the
Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). The IOC's purpose in creating this
Court was to offer arbitration as a tool by which parties could resolve their
sports-related disputes and to address the need for a uniform set of
procedures. It was not until 1993, and the case of Grundel v. The
International Equestrian Federation, that the Swiss Federal Tribunal
addressed the legal nature and enforceability of awards rendered by the
CAS under Swiss law relating to international arbitration. Although the
Tribunal expressed some concerns in its decision, it stated that: "In these
conditions, one may accept that the [CAS] is possessed of the degree of
independence which Swiss law requires as a condition of the waiver of
recourse to the ordinary courts." With this decision, the CAS gained
recognition as "a real arbitral tribunal offering sufficient guarantees of
independence and objectivity for its awards to be final and enforceable."
The Tribunal's main concern in Grundel centered upon the role and
influence of the IOC in not only creating the CAS, but also in participating
in its subsequent activities: "[T]he role of the [CAS] was acceptable `not
without hesitation,' given the `organic and economic' connections between
the [CAS] and the IOC (which finances the [CAS] and has, as seen, an
important role in the designation of its members), and therefore [was
acceptable] only in cases where the IOC itself was not a party." As a result
of Grundel, the CAS underwent a number of reforms in its organization
and economic funding, and the IOC helped to revise the Code of Sports-
Related Arbitration (the Code).

The Code, which includes a body of rules and procedures (more
than 69 articles), forms the primary source of statutes which govern not
only the arbitration of sports-related disputes, but also the structure of the
CAS. The reforms were directed at the decision-making process within the
CAS as well as the administration of its finances, and this led to the
creation of another institution, the International Council of Arbitration for
Sport (the ICAS). The ICAS, headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland,
was created for the purpose of safeguarding the arbitral procedures and
financial independence of the CAS. It is now the ICAS, rather than the