Towards a children’s rights-based approach to EU sports policy: further room for development?

Lee Ludvigsen, Jan Andre and Byrne, Seamus (2025) Towards a children’s rights-based approach to EU sports policy: further room for development? Sport in Society. ISSN 1743-0437

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Abstract

This conceptual article adopts a normative approach and argues the case for a children’s rights-based approach to European Union (EU) sports policy. Such a proposition, it is contended, remains especially important in the contemporary context of academic and policy debates surrounding both (1) human rights breaches in sport, and (2) the evolution of EU sports policy. Despite these debates, however, the role of the EU within the sport and children’s rights continuum has been given little attention so far. This is remarkable, because the Lisbon Treaty encompassed an EU competence on sporting issues, fairness, openness and co-operation in sport. By synthesizing literatures from the sociology of sport, human rights and EU law, it is contended here that the Lisbon Treaty provides a clear, legal and textual basis for the development of a robust EU policy that pays specific attention to children’s rights in the future development of EU sports policy. Overall, this paper advances a pathway within the EU whereby children’s rights are foregrounded within sports policy whilst extending the literature on EU law, sports policy and the sociology of human rights.