International Olympic Committee Ethical Issues
Background
One of the most recent scandals occupying the headlines of the international print and social media is the doping scandal, surrounding the Russian Olympic and Paralympic Team and the participation of the athletes in the Olympic Games in Rio this August. The Games have started and it is evident that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) along with Independent Committee and Brazilian Authorities took the decision not to ban the team from participation, causing dual and controversial response from the international community. The organization in a focus of the scandal is the IOC, heavily criticized for the way it handled the decision with regards to the participation of the Russian Team in the Games. This document will focus on the analysis of two articles, looking at the same ethical issue in sports: drug use and doping tests with the example of the International Olympic Committee Challenge in the current Olympic Games in Rio and the World Anti-Doping Organization (WADA) view on the situation and the latest debates.
Recreated back in 1892, along with the new wave of the Olympic Games, the IOC constitutes the supreme authority in the Olympic Games. Since the first Modern Olympic Games, organized in Athens in 1986, the Committee is responsible for the organization and planning of the Summer and Winter Games every 4 years. IOC is an international non-profit organization, headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland. The membership of the organization today consists of 100 members, among which 32 honorary and 1 honored members (The Olympic Movement, 2015).
World Anti-Doping Organization was founded in 1999 to become a leading international body to lead a collaborative worldwide movement for doing-free sports. WADA is an independent agency, funded by the sports movement and the governments. In contrary to IOC, the function of the organization includes education, scientific research, development of anti-doping capacities and monitoring the international regulation or anti-doping - World Anti-Doping Code (WADA, 2015).
A number of ethical theories and challenges surround the decisions and activities of these two organizations over the past years as the major responsible bodies for the Winter and Summer Olympic Games. We will look at two cases in view of the chosen ethical issue of a drug. The first concerns the Russian Athletes is a bright and multifaceted example of the ethical side of the organizations in the model business arena. When eight of the Russian Olympic stars from London Games have been plunged for using drugs during the competitions, the world started to seek the solution in banning the entire team from the competition. The ethical dilemma in this situation is the following: “Should the entire team respond for the mistakes of their teammates and the Russian Government learn their lesson or the decision of the IOC is will make the "the entire new generation of clean athletes pay for the sins of the past?" (The Guardian, 2016). This dilemma is majorly centered on the actions of the IOC. Another example is the approach that WADA took with regards to the knowledge innovation and education of the sports society from developing countries with regards to doping. The news reveals the reality, where Kenya and Jamaica did not take the drug testing seriously, allowing their athletes to be excluded from international competitions. Bond (2013) notes that for several years, the inability to address the issues and bring the attention of these nations to the issues demonstrated the lack of influence of WADA in reaching their major mission and bringing forward the ethical behaviors in sports.
The two articles, chosen for this analysis reflect the debate on the doping in sports as one of the paramount ethical issues in this business. Bond (2013) claims that WADA failed to strive for integrity in the international sports and lead the situation, once the obvious ignorance and the lack of attention to the issue were revealed in the performance of the athletes from countries like Kenya and Jamaica during the London Olympic Games in 2012. The article not only makes the strong claim about the potential of the organization but also raises a doubt about the ability of WADA to "force nations to up their game on drugs testing if they cannot or do not want to". The author looks at the roots of the problems, outlining that the core issue is the way the organization was set up. The point that is made here is the lack of coherency and opportunity of driving the ethical standards and behavior by the organization which ultimately depends and relies on the cooperation and goodwill of the stakeholders, which it represents. Such governance structure contradicts with the ethical theories and puts the question of personal interest and the conflict of interest in the center of discussion.
The major stakeholder, whose actions and response should be analyzed in the situation is, surely, WADA itself. At the same time, it is critical to take a stand on the behavior and ethical standards of the governments, represented by their leaders and the sportsmen themselves. It is possible to argue that WADA, should continue exercising its duty of care to spread the knowledge and promote the ethically correct actions and mentality among its stakeholders. Furthermore, it should look for the way to incorporate changes in the core governance structure itself to avoid the conflict of interest and build on more efficient decision-making and reflection process. The athletes are the victims as well as responsible parties. One can argue that the lack of understanding and the knowledge about the standards of drug use could be the cause of the ignorant behavior. The opposers, however, will claim that such lack of interest in gaining the knowledge does not take out the responsibility from these individuals.
The Guardian (2016) claims that IOC failed to strive for integrity in the international sports and lead the situation. The article not only makes the strong claim but calls for action by demanding the IOC to suspend the Russian Olympic Committee and the athletes from participation, review the application of the uniform set of criteria for drug testing to understand if the Russian athletes should be allowed to participate under the neutral flag. Instead of doing so, according to the article, the Committee issues a number of confusing statements and regulations, leading to uneven treatment and incomplete response to the situation. The authors suggest that with the decision to follow the WADA recommendation and exclude the entire team of Russian Paralympic athletes from competition the organization demonstrated "cowardice" and breach of several ethical and legal principles (The Guardian, 2016).
Taking into consideration the significant number of stakeholders, there are several major parties, which should be analyzed in the situation: Russian Athletes, IOC as the primary organization, taking the focus of attention in terms of ethical decision-making, Worldwide Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the international community. It is the responsibility of the IOC to ensure fair competition practices and take the decision, which will follow not only legal but all the ethical standards. In terms of the legal environment, the decision in this situation is straightforward, as there are a number of worldwide accepted regulations on drug use and abuse in sports. The ethical side of the business, however, is significantly more intangible, as it was discussed previously in this document. WADA has a responsibility to exercise due diligence testing the athletes and provide sufficient evidence based on the international law regulations. The athletes are responsible for their actions and decisions which they make as individuals, members of the team and athletes involved in business relationships with their organizations and sponsors (Collier and Wanderay, 2005). That said, these responsibilities include both, legal aspects of compliance with IOC rules and ethical practices. Finally, the international community is responsible for the judgment and empathetic decision-making once it comes to the ethical standards and the concept of fairness.
Conclusion and Recommendations
As discussed in the previous section of this work, there are several legal and ethical theories, which have been broken as a result of the IOC actions and decisions and several major improvements tat are yet to be done to benefit from the function and mission of WADA. While it is proven that many of the Russian Athletes used doping and cannot be admitted to the participation in the games, the sports community of the country cannot be collectively responsible for the actions of its members. The same rule and conclusion can be applied to the situation, described with regardsc to the Kenyan athletes in London Olympic Games. The views expressed by Bond (2013) and The Guardian (2016) demonstrate the polarization of opinions on the situation and the influence of the social media and a political scene on the decisions of the Executive Committee of the organizations. In case of IOC, it is the impact of international political community, while the WADA case is the example of poor governance, leading to organizational failures.
With the above in mind, there are several recommendations and considerations that should be done in this situation. First of all, to be able to compy with the major legal and ethical standards, which are expected from IOC and WADA, the organizations should go back to the proper step-by-step analysis of claims and evidence with regards to the governmental and independent body involvement in forging the results of the doping tests in the past. It is the collective responsibility of the two bodies to ensure all-round and multifaceted control mechanism over maintanance and compliance with the World Anti-Doping Code. Secondly, under no circumstances, the entire team should be punished for mistakes of individuals as the ethical theory suggests justice and personal values above the collective view. Finally, in the situation with IOC, while the political climate and relationships, built between Russia and European states surely have effect on public opinion and the decisions of the countries with regards to the Games. The role of IOC is to isolate the business and social environment from these influences and the organization should aim at considering individuals and teams from the political regime, demonstrating the strengths of the business body and the international committee in the face of strong political manipulation on the background of Olympic Games arena. The example of Rio 2016 can have very negative consequences on the future reputation of the IOC as well as confusion in terms of the views that individuals and the international community, in general, take on the games.
References
WADA (2015). WADA-About Us. World Anti-Doping Official Website. Retrieved 11 August 2016, from https://www.wada-ama.org/en/who-we-are
The Guardian (30 July 2016). Russian Doping Scandal: When It Mattered Most the IOC Failed to Lead. The Guardian News [Online]. Retrieved 11 August 2016, from https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/jul/31/russian-doping-scandal-ioc-failed-to-lead-national-anti-doping-organisations
Bond, D. (2013). Drugs in sport: Wada weakened by funding and constitution. BBC News [Online]. Retrieved 15 August 2016, from http://www.bbc.com/sport/24944641
The Olympic Movement (2015). The Organization. The Olympic Committee [Online]. Retrieved 11 August 2016, from https://www.olympic.org/about-ioc-institution
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