The WADA Code is the rulebook behind every anti-doping case. This article explains where it comes from and what it does.
The ‘doping problem’ seems to be bursting at the seams lately. This is mainly due to the revelation of organised doping practices in Russia. However, the phenomenon has dominated the sports world for quite some time. Although the use of plants and medicines was not prohibited in ancient times, the Greeks are said to have used plants and mushrooms to improve their performance during the Ancient Games. It was during one of the first Modern Games, more precisely in 1904 in St. Louis, that doping use was recorded for the first time. A combination of strychnine with cognac was used.
The WADA Code, the first version of which came into force on January 1, 2004, is considered the most important weapon in the fight against these doping practices. The WADA Code was developed and is monitored by the World Anti-Doping Agency (“WADA”). WADA, which was established through the ‘Lausanne Declaration’, seeks to organise global cooperation between the various international sports federations, the IOC and public authorities in the fight against doping.
By concluding the “International Convention against Doping in Sport” within the framework of UNESCO, WADA succeeded in making the WADA Code – as a form of soft international law – enforceable across all member countries
In view of the rapid developments within the doping landscape and the associated need for intensified cooperation, the third and most recent WADA Code was approved in Johannesburg on November 15, 2013. The new Code came into effect on January 1, 2015 and decisions based on this new Code have been regularly taken for a number of months.
WADA has grouped the changes in the new 2015 Code into seven themes, namely (1) longer periods of exclusion, but with more flexibility; (2) greater respect for human rights and the principle of proportionality; (3) greater focus on research and intelligence gathering; (4) an increased focus on the athlete’s support team; (5) strengthening drug testing and analysis processes; (6) a clearer balance and more cooperation between sports federations and anti-doping organisations and a (7) clearer and shorter Code.
According to Minister of Sport Muyters, the WADA code would be “stricter, smarter and more customer-friendly” should be. However, practice shows that this needs to be somewhat nuanced.
A subsequent blog post will discuss some of the most striking changes and their effects on the judiciary in more detail.
How the WADA Code works in practice
The Code does not bind an athlete directly. It binds the organisations that sign it, and those organisations then write it into their own rules. An athlete is bound through the licence, the affiliation or the entry form signed with a federation, not through a treaty. That chain matters once a case starts, because the text that applies to you is the rulebook of your federation in the version in force on the day of the facts.
Two principles run through the whole system. The first is strict liability: where a prohibited substance is found in your sample, the violation is established, whatever your intention was. Intention is not irrelevant, but it is argued at the stage of the sanction rather than at the stage of the finding. The second is that the athlete answers for what enters the body. Supplements, medication prescribed by a doctor and products bought abroad all fall under that responsibility.
That is why the practical advice is plain. Check every product against the prohibited list in force for the current year, keep the packaging and the batch numbers, and ask for a therapeutic use exemption before you take a prescribed medicine that appears on the list, rather than afterwards.
Where a Belgian case is heard
Testing and results management in Flanders run through NADO Vlaanderen, and a disciplinary file is heard by the doping chamber of the Flemish Sports Tribunal. An appeal against a decision taken at international level can end before the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne. Each of those steps carries its own short deadline, counted from notification.
Act on the day the notification reaches you. The window in which you can request the analysis of the B sample, ask for the laboratory documentation or lodge an appeal is measured in days. A defence that is technically strong but filed late is not examined at all.