Athlete Activists, Sports Diplomats and Human Rights: Action versus Agency

A glance at the international sporting landscape suggests that more athletes are representing human rights causes and engaging in off-the-field activism. The 21st century athlete, apparently, does much more than “shutting up and just playing”. This article examines how, where, and why athletes represent, communicate and negotiate complex human rights issues. It finds, and argues, that both the theory and practice of athlete activism—as a means to achieving measurable, sustainable diplomatic and human rights outcomes—needs to be reviewed, re-imagined and re-branded, particularly in international relations. Currently, the practice is only open to the privileged few, occurs almost exclusively within Western societies, and its track record of affecting lasting policy change amongst those it targets is dubious. This paper prefers, and introduces, a new label for sportspeople wishing to affect change in human rights, politics, and diplomacy: the sports diplomat. This paper reviews the concept of the athlete activist and suggests how they differ from the sports diplomat. In terms of sportspeople using diplomacy to solve human rights issues, it asks is there a best practice model that can be identified? Furthermore, assuming the practice of sports diplomats representing human rights issues is good, how might scholars and practitioners better understand and promote the practice?