Mario Rodríguez. Legal Adviser

On February 17th, an agreement was signed between the IPC and IBSA in the headquarters of the IOC in Lausanne, with the mediation of the President of the International Olympic Committee, Juan Antonio Samaranch.

His formal intervention, as party to the agreement, is nothing less than an act of formal recognition and favourable ratification of the material contents of the contract and, as such, of the commitments assumed by both parties. It plays an essential role in said contractual relationship, given that we are talking about the representative of the maximum authority within the Olympic movement and, therefore, of international sport.

With respect to its contents, a quick run-through, both of the declarations and the provisions contained therein, would warrant a rapid value judgment from any jurist: the contract, in general terms, merely comprises simple declarations of intentions and, in short, undertakings that prove difficult to define in practice. Indeed, the wording is rather general, but the third stipulation clearly states that "IBSA be given the opportunity to have representatives as an integral part of the IPC Sports Assembly Executive Committees (SAEC's) so that the rules governing each sport can be developed appropriately". As can be clearly deduced, this stipulation constitutes a specific obligation for the IPC (International Paralympic Committee) and, correlatively, a right corresponding to IBSA which, due to its concrete phrasing, could be demanded were it not to be fulfilled.

Nevertheless, it does not seem appropriate to analyse the contract in a partial fashion, studying each of its individual points. As is normally the case - and is indeed recommended by the universally accepted hermeneutics criteria - an analysis must be undertaken of the contract as a whole, taking into account the background contextual information and, in addition, the objective which led to both parties sealing their approval of this document. It is from this standpoint that the contract takes on its true meaning and relevance.

PRIVATE NATURE

Institutional sport operates, universally, through private initiatives, directed by way of associative channels or formulas. Proof of this is to be found in the IOC itself, the IPC, the International Federations and, moreover, all the national branches of these organisations - the national Olympic or Paralympic Committees, national federations, clubs, etc. All the above are, or started out as, private associations.

As associations, their rules or decisions are only binding on their members and failure to abide by them is usually penalised with expulsion.

The power which, at any given moment, these associations may hold is not the result of the authority vested in them by any of the public authorities, but rather has roots which, most of the time, are eminently intrinsic to them. Such powers - and this is undeniable - do not arise spontaneously, but rather are the fruit of systematic work, contrasted and successful, and evolve progressively as time goes by, as a result of these factors.

The international sporting associations are born and develop within a context such as that described above. They coexist with other associations that play different roles, of greater or lesser relevance, yet all of them are important in their respective fields. It is impossible, apart from being inadvisable, to totally do away with these functions. Within this field, the IOC is the maximum international authority on sporting matters, and its function - far from being challenged - has been fully assumed and accepted, not just by the different national and international institutions, but also by the States themselves.

"IBSA be given the opportunity to have representatives as an integral part of the IPC Sports Assembly Executive Committees (SAEC's) so that the rules governing each sport can be developed appropriately".

As everyone knows, the IPC was born with the same vocation, its activity aimed at sports for handicapped persons in general, but clearly dependent - nor could it be otherwise - on the IOC, for the reasons outlined above. Nonetheless, this does not detract from the protagonism it holds in relation to sporting events such as the Paralympic Games.

As regards IBSA, it was created as a multidisciplinary International Federation to cater for sports for blind and visually impaired persons. With its internationally modelled structure, and as far as institutional sport is concerned, it has corresponded to IBSA, in theory, to form an integral part of the IPC, just as the different International Federations form part of the IOC.

SPECIFIC POINTS

However, transferring the same organisational guidelines as are applied to sport in general to the field of sport for the disabled, leads to a certain degree of distortion. This, for obvious reasons, is due to the need to reconcile and standardise the regulations for each sporting speciality and the evaluation of the results obtained by the athletes, according to the type and degree of disability they suffer.

It is thus comprehensible that each International Federation not only struggles to achieve its own particular objectives, but also those that affect the whole of the group of persons under their wing.

The tensions that may arise from time to time in the performance of this integrating work can be understood as being something perfectly logical and normal. Nevertheless, this same rationality is what must guide the attitudes of the parties with a view to reaching satisfactory solutions, which should be the least traumatic possible whilst, at the same time, proving functional.

This is the context surrounding the aforementioned contract, and the objectives pursued by the parties to this document. It is now possible to make an assessment of the commitments adopted by the parties; they reveal a clear willingness to cooperate, to recognise the distinct functions carried out by each of the parties and to work for the integration of these functions. And so, it is now that the real significance of the obligations assumed can be truly appreciated, constituting as they do a new starting point for a relationship which, like all those of a contractual nature, may indeed evolve along those lines.