Medals But No Country? The Olympics and the Fuzzy Boundaries of Statehood
By Dr. Alexander Loengarov
This present piece is the work of a former official at the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC). It represents the analysis of its author only, and not of the EESC or the European Union, which cannot be held responsible for any use made of it.
Friday, February 4, 2022 marked the official start of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. According to Article 6 of the Olympic Charter, the Olympic Games are “competitions between athletes in individual or team events and not between countries.” Still, media coverage often features typical scoreboards, showcasing results by country. At awards ceremonies, countries hear their anthem played for every gold medal their athletes bring home. Amongst those “countries” are also entities with limited recognition or that are not internationally considered sovereign states at all. In the first week at the recent Tokyo Summer Olympics, for instance, two judokas from Kosovo won two gold medals. This is despite the fact that Kosovo is not a United Nations - member, and about half of the world’s countries do not recognize its independence. On the other hand, soccer fans who are accustomed to seeing the British nations competing in tournaments will not find English, Welsh, Scottish or Northern Irish teams at the Olympics, whereas such delegations are present from Puerto Rico, Aruba and Hong Kong.
How did this conundrum emerge?
First, while international law knows the so-called Montevideo criteria to define the standard characteristics of a state, the International Olympic Committee (IOC), who organizes the games, operates according to its own rules laid down in the Olympic Charter. Second, those rules were significantly modified in 1996 after the break-up of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, thereby leading to the creation of newly recognized (or unrecognized) entities on the world stage, such as Slovenia, “the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” (now North Macedonia) and the “Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic” (known as Transnistria, not recognized by any UN member state). And third, “statehood” under international law proves, in practice, to be a somehow relative concept anyway.
In Article 30.1 of the Olympic Charter, the IOC defines “country” as “an independent State recognised by the international community.” In every country, a National Olympic Committee may be set up and seek recognition from the IOC. Consequently, UN member states seem to possess a safe ticket towards having their athletes compete under the auspices of their ‘own’ National Olympic Committee. While not every UN member is recognized by all others, membership in the world’s premier political organization is considered sufficient proof of recognition by the international community.
This current rule dates back to 1996. At that time, some special-status territories already had a recognized National Olympic Committee. This was the case of three British Overseas Territories (e.g. Bermuda), four U.S. territories (e.g. Puerto Rico), one constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands (Aruba), one state in free association with New Zealand (Cook Islands), and one special administrative region of China (Hong Kong). Currently, they all continue to be visibly present at the Games. Yet, before 1996, two other entities with limited international recognition had also set up National Olympic Committees that sent athletes to the Olympics: “Chinese Taipei” and “Palestine.” The former refers to the island of Taiwan, which calls itself “Republic of China” but which – due to its conflict with mainland China (or “People’s Republic of China”) – participates in the Olympic Games under a rather equivocal arrangement. In practice, it continues to have its separate National Olympic Committee, and its athletes are not part of the People’s Republic of China’s delegation. However, it participates under the purposefully ambiguous name of “Chinese Taipei”, and its state symbols (flag and anthem) are not used. As for “Palestine,” its National Olympic Committee had been recognized by the IOC before 1996, even though recognition of its statehood continues to be contentiously debated. It is not a member of the UN, but it was granted “non-member observer state” status in 2012.
A particular case in this regard is Kosovo, which declared its independence in 2008. While recognized by only about half of the UN member states, it can boast full membership in organizations within the wider UN system like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Recognition of its National Olympic Committee, and subsequent participation in the Games, is the result of a 2014 decision by the IOC, which had noted that Kosovo was (at that time) recognized by 108 UN member states and therefore met the requirements of Article 30.1 of the Olympic Charter. The decision also came after Serbia and Kosovo had reached a limited political breakthrough in their dispute through the 2013 Brussels Agreement.
The four countries of the United Kingdom did not have National Olympic Committees in 1996 and, as a result, would be able to participate in the Olympics only if they achieve independence that is internationally recognized. Other entities and states with limited recognition are in the same boat, and several of them have tried to obtain IOC recognition of their National Olympic Committee. For example, Gibraltar, while not aspiring to statehood, even went to court to claim recognition of its National Olympic Committee. It needs to be recalled that, out of 14 overseas territories of the United Kingdom, only three have recognized National Olympic Committees and participate in the Olympics. In the case of the UK, concerns about equal treatment that inevitably arise when comparing the status of entities across the world, sound louder as the entities are territories of the same sovereign state.
The Olympic Games highlight the ambiguity of the definition of internationally recognized state and the existence of sliding scale of cases. National Olympic Committees are recognized for Israelis, Palestinians and Kosovars, whose “countries” receive limited international recognition, while the status of these entities on the world stage varies from full-fledged UN member to non-member observer state to non-UN member with membership in other major international organizations. Niue, a state in free association with New Zealand similar to the relationship between the Cook Islands and Australia, has no National Olympic Committee to facilitate participation at the Games. Despite this similar posture, the Cook Islands does in fact have a National Olympic Committee to promote its participation in the Games. These differences continue to be seen with respect to Niue’s and the Cook Islands’ relationship with the International Criminal Court, where the latter is a full member, the former not. Mention should also be made of the International Paralympic Committee, whose membership rules operate in a similar but separate way compared to the IOC. As a result, for instance, the Faroe Islands and Macao have recognized National Paralympic Committees and are, therefore, visibly present among the “countries” at the Paralympic Games.
The Olympic and Paralympic Games are major sports events during which political neutrality is of paramount importance, as stated in the Olympic Charter’s fifth Fundamental Principle of Olympism: “Recognising that sport occurs within the framework of society, sports organisations within the Olympic Movement shall apply political neutrality.” Nevertheless, as the International Olympic and Paralympic Committees recognize and work with committees at the “national” level, they do not clearly address recognition of certain states, and the status of several entities on the global scene, is not a clear-cut phenomenon. In international law, the Montevideo criteria provide some guidance, yet in practice political considerations appear to be as decisive as legal arguments. The rules of the International Olympic and Paralympic Committees constitute other attempts at categorizing phenomena of fluctuating sovereignty. When the next controversy arises, it would therefore be wise to consider the various ways in which an entity can be – de jure or de facto – sovereign or dependent, so as to better understand how rules can, or cannot, grasp a complex reality.
Dr. Alexander Loengarov is a visiting fellow at the International and European law program at Vrije Universiteit Brussels (Brussels, Belgium) and a former official of the European Economic and Social Committee of the European Union. He has published analysis for think tanks like the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and Israel Policy Forum, in addition to opinion pieces for the Brussels Times. His main interest lies with questions of self-definition and self-determination of nations, as well as territoriality and international recognition of statehood.
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