Court of Arbitration Visit 5.23.14

Today was one of our more relaxing days of the trip. We started around 9 this morning and took the local 2 Bus up to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (the CAS). It was no more than a fifteen minute ride and I kept picturing a decently large sized headquarters as our destination. What I had been taught by Professor Ryan and the rest of the group was that the CAS consisted of just about 300 arbitrators. So in my mind they needed office space that would be able to fit all of the members. Upon arrival though, I discovered that my initial vision of what the building would look like was very off. We pulled up to what I would call a large chateau, but certainly not large enough to hold 300 members. The parking lot consisted of only 20 parking spaces so it became clear to me how off I was. I was also wrong to think that the CAS would be a loud and bustling place. As we stepped into the building it was so quiet that you could hear a pin drop. We were directed into the main courtroom where we would receive our presentation from Brett Norwicki, one of the CAS lawyers on retainer.

He gave us a fifteen minute overview of what his organization is, what it does, where it gets its funding, and how it was established. Since I am the only student on the trip who hadn’t taken Professor Ryan’s Olympic History course, this was all new material for me. I learned that the CAS was ratified in 1983 due to corruption and unfairness in Olympic Sport. Before its creation, there was nowhere for athletes to go to appeal Olympic injustice or fraud. It was set up as a panel of judges who would receive funding from the IOC and hear athletes’ cases and help settle sport disputes. As I stated before, it consists of 300 arbitrators with six fulltime legal staff and then a panel of 15 overseers (the ICAS) who are tasked with making sure that the CAS remains an independent and impartial body. Brett went on to tell us how much the CAS has grown over the years and how last year they had a record 405 cases brought before them.

Once the presentation had finished and my notebook had been sufficiently filled, we were given a tour of the chateau. I asked why it was so small in comparison to the amount of members the CAS has and Brett said that not all 300 members live in the local area. For many of them, being an arbitrator is a second job and they fly in on the cases that interest them. We walked up and down the three floors, seeing the offices and library, and we concluded our visit with a group photo outside of the building. From there we took another bus to a local church, which is perched on a hill overlooking the city. Needless to say the group took full advantage of the view and took as many photos as they could. We walked through the church and I was struck with a sense of déjà vu from the cathedral that we had visited in Paris. It’s amazing to think that we’ve been in Europe for just under two weeks now and we’ve done so much in that time. After we were done at the church, P Ry lead us into the city where we sat down for a bit of coffee and watched the water fountain chime its bells as the clock struck noon.
And that concluded the scheduled portion of our day. Some of us stayed in the central part of Lausanne to look at a few shops and some of us, myself included, headed back to the hotel for some much needed rest. Then at 5, all of the guys met up to play basketball at the local courts. We were surprised to find out that NBA star Tabo Sepholosha played on those very courts when he was younger since he only lived one town over. We even played some of Lausanne’s local talent and I’m happy to report that we held our own. By the time we were finished, it was time for dinner and we all decided to just grab a quick bite on our walk back to the hotel before turning in for the night. Tomorrow was our free day and we would need our energy in order to hike the Alps.