A newer edition of this regulation is available: July 2025

General·International Regulations·Court of Arbitration for Sports

Code of Sports-related Arbitration - January 2019 edition

SupersededJanuary 2019
In force from
2019/01/01
Download file

The 2019 major revision: the Anti-Doping Division was established, three standing commissions were created, and the right to a public hearing was recognised for natural persons in disciplinary cases.

In force from1 January 2019 — under Article R67
Adopting bodyInternational Council of Arbitration for Sport (ICAS) — under Article S6
Structure26 statutory articles (S1 to S26) + 44 procedural articles (R27 to R70)
StatusSuperseded — replaced by the July 2020 edition

What is the Code of Sports-related Arbitration?

The Code of Sports-related Arbitration of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) brings two instruments together in a single text: the Statutes of the Bodies Working for the Settlement of Sports-related Disputes (Articles S1 to S26), which establish and organise the International Council of Arbitration for Sport and the Court itself, and the Procedural Rules (Articles R27 to R70), which govern ordinary arbitration, appeals arbitration and mediation. The Court is seated in Lausanne, Switzerland, and its awards may be challenged, subject to the conditions laid down in Swiss law, only before the Swiss Federal Tribunal within thirty days.

About the January 2019 editionChanges from January 2017

Key changes from the previous edition

  1. Establishment of the Anti-Doping DivisionThe Court moved from two divisions to three divisions: Ordinary Arbitration, Anti-Doping and Appeals Arbitration. Panels of the new division hear doping cases as a first-instance or sole-instance authority, and their procedure is governed by a separate instrument, the Arbitration Rules of the CAS Anti-Doping Division. Previously, doping cases reached the Court only at the appeal stage.
  2. Three standing commissionsInstead of concentrating powers in the ICAS Board, three standing commissions were created: the Membership Commission (proposing the appointment and removal of arbitrators and mediators), the Legal Aid Commission (deciding on legal aid applications) and the Challenge Commission.
  3. Transfer of challenge and removal of arbitratorsJurisdiction over the challenge and removal of arbitrators was transferred from the ICAS Board to the Challenge Commission (Articles R34 and R35). That commission may refer a matter to ICAS, must give brief reasons for its decision, and may publish it.
  4. Right to a public hearing in disciplinary casesFor the first time it was provided that at the request of a natural person who is a party, a public hearing must be held in cases of a disciplinary nature. The right is not absolute and may be refused on enumerated grounds — including the protection of public order, national security, the interests of minors and the privacy of the parties. This amendment was the Court's response to the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights in Mutu and Pechstein v. Switzerland.
  5. Legal aid fund made mandatoryThe previous permissive wording ("ICAS may create a legal aid fund") became an obligation: ICAS creates a legal aid fund to facilitate access to CAS arbitration for individuals without sufficient financial means.
  6. Several lists of arbitrators instead of oneThe text changed from "the list of arbitrators" to "one or more lists of arbitrators", opening the way to specialised lists, including a list specific to the Anti-Doping Division.

Who this document matters to

Every case that reaches international arbitration from international federations, national Olympic committees or anti-doping organisations ultimately arrives at this text: clubs and federations in transfer disputes and financial claims, athletes facing a disciplinary decision or a doping ban, and clients and sports lawyers drafting statements of appeal and observing time limits. The point that proves decisive in practice: under Article R67, each proceeding is governed by the edition in force on the date the proceeding was commenced, not the edition published today. Pending cases likewise remain subject to the previous rules, unless both parties request application of the new ones. For that reason, access to the text of earlier editions is of practical importance.