Monday, 15 May 2017

Tokyo 2020 unveil the Host City agreement




The Host City Contract for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games has been made public today.
The Contract was first signed between the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the Tokyo Metropolitan Government and the Japanese Olympic Committee (JOC), following Tokyo’s selection as the host city of the Games on September 7, 2013.
Tokyo 2020 signed a joinder agreement to become a full party to the Host City Contract 2020 in 2014.
“In line with the Olympic Agenda 2020 framework, which reflects the positive evolution of providing Organising Committees of the Olympic Games and host cities more flexibility, all of the Host City Contract 2020 signatories worked to incorporate, to their benefit, the updated operational requirements that were published by the IOC in 2015,” a Tokyo 2020 statement reads.
“With this agreement now finalised to the benefit of all stakeholders, the organisations are publishing the Host City Contract, reinforcing their commitment to transparency.”
According insidethegames.com , The Host City Contract is made up of 12 sections such as basic principles, principles of planning, organising and staging, and organisation of accommodation.
Other sections include organisation of sports programme, organisation of cultural programme and city activities, and Ceremonies, Olympic flame and Torch Relay, medals and diplomas.
Intellectual property-related matters, financial and commercial obligations and media coverage of the Games are also areas of focus.
In terms of Games planning, organising and staging, Tokyo 2020 vows to provide to the IOC, at its own expense, updates, details and deliverables regarding Tokyo 2020’s general planning, organising, financing and staging processes.
As for financial and commercial obligations, it is stated that any surplus resulting from the celebration of the Games will be divided three ways between the JOC, the Organising Committee and the IOC.
Twenty per cent will go to both the JOC and the IOC, while the other 60 per cent will go to the Organising Committee “to be used for the general benefit of sport” in Japan.
The surplus resulting from the celebration of the Games is due to be calculated based upon the planning, organising and staging of the Olympic and Paralympic Games combined.
Jacques Rogge signed the Tokyo 2020 Host City Contract in one of his final acts as IOC President.
The Organising Committee has since had to overcome hurdles in its preparations, including controversy surrounding their logo in 2015.
The initial design by Kenjiro Sano had to be scrapped due to allegations of plagiarism, after Belgian Olivier Debie claimed that it resembled his Théâtre de Liège logo too closely.
The process of choosing a replacement was also criticised.
Nearly 15,000 entries were received in an open contest to pick the new emblem, with the Commission chaired by Japan’s Commissioner for Cultural Affairs Ryohei Miyata.
This was in contrast to the first time round when only those who had won a specific design award were allowed to take part.
Allowing the public to get involved was seen as a way of spreading the Olympics across Japan, but others argued that this impacted negatively on the quality of the eventually selected designs.
In December 2015, the American Institute of Graphic Arts urged Tokyo 2020 to scrap the open contest and said that a “remarkable” design could only be the result of a professional designer working directly with their client.
In February, the IOC announced that the incorporation of human rights principles is among the changes it is making to its Host City Contract.
The revised Host City Contract, developed with recommendations from a coalition of leading rights, transparency and athletes’ organisations, will first apply to the 2024 Olympic Games.
Paris and Los Angeles are the only two candidates left in the race, with the IOC due to elect the winner during its Session in Peru’s capital Lima in September.
For the first time, the IOC has made specific reference to the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGP), a set of guidelines for states and companies to prevent, address and remedy human rights abuses committed in business operations.
The Guiding Principles detail how commercial enterprises ought to assess human rights risks, take effective measures to prevent human rights issues, and guarantee a remedy for abuses that take place despite those efforts.
As part of the implementation of Olympic Agenda 2020, IOC President Thomas Bach met representatives of the Sport and Rights Alliance (SRA), which includes Transparency International Germany, UNI World Athletes, Terre des Hommes, the International Trade Union Confederation, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
In September 2015, not specifically mentioning human rights in its Host City Contract for the 2024 Games was described as an “astonishing omission” on the IOC’s part and one that did not live up to the expectations created by the Agenda 2020 reform process. The Tokyo 2020 Host City Contract can be seen here : hostcitycontract-EN.pdf

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