The importance of sports law has been rapidly increasing in the past decade. Popularity, influence and financial aspects of sports have forced the International Olympic Committee to establish Court of Arbitration for Sport, an authority with jurisdiction over all sports-related legal disputes. The International Olympic Committee's wish was to establish an authority independent of national courts’ jurisdiction and national legislation. In order to resolve all disputes equally the jurisdiction in sports-related disputes had to be moved from state courts to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. The main body of my thesis analyses procedural guarantees in proceedings before the CAS in connection with the right to a fair trial enshrined in Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Due to the fact that only European countries can be signatories of the ECHR, the question whether the CAS is bound by it will be addressed. I will further examine all components of the right to a fair trial in the CAS's arbitration procedures, subject to the monitoring jurisdiction of the Swiss Federal Tribunal, which examines whether the arbitration panel respected procedural public policy guarantees, including fair trial guarantees.
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