Canada has achieved a : for only the , the country has officially qualified for the men’s FIFA World Cup, hosted this year by Qatar. After beating Jamaica 4-0 on March 27th, the Canadian men’s team secured their berth to Qatar. However, for many Canadians this achievement is bittersweet. Some Canadian fans are even the momentous event, along with . Since Qatar won the bid to host the 2022 World Cup, countless reports have revealed the disgraceful human rights abuses suffered by migrant workers who are building the World Cup in Qatar. These human rights abuses have continued with impunity, as legal cases raised against FIFA have failed due to legal minutiae and procedural failings.
More recently, the arrival of thousands of new hotel staff – most coming from India, Bangladesh, Kenya and the Philippines – has in the plight of Qatar’s migrant workforce as they join the thousands of migrant workers already in the country, along with growing media reports of the country’s . As FIFA prepares to earn over $6.4 billion during this year’s World Cup, this new wave of migrant workers will travel to Qatar to staff hundreds of luxury hotels for the epic event. For many, a boycott seems to be the only way to call attention to disgraceful treatment of the World Cup workforce, since the three major parties involved - Qatar, FIFA, and Switzerland - seem to shirk all legal responsibility.
First, Qatar has an under international law to protect against human rights abuses. Despite this, the country’s domestic regulatory landscape is exceptionally detrimental for migrant workers (). Migrant workers make up 95% of Qatar’s workforce and have long faced deplorable human rights violations under . Despite the enactment of certain , the system still enables employers to control most aspects of a migrant worker’s life. The process begins even before workers arrive in Qatar, where workers in their home countries go into debt to pay - which can total - to find work in Qatar. Once they arrive, workers’ legal status in Qatar is largely . An employer will often pay less than what was promised, delay payment, confiscate workers’ passports, require the payment of additional fees, prohibit strikes, and demand work shifts reaching or longer. ąó±őąó´ˇâ€™s World Cup requires the work of thousands of construction workers and service staff, who are “.”
Next, FIFA fails to meet even its own to respect internationally recognized human rights, avoiding enforcement due to its status as a private actor operating outside of Switzerland. FIFA was created under as an association with a “political, religious, scientific, cultural, charitable, social or other non-commercial purpose.” Because FIFA is defined as a not-for-profit association – despite an enormous revenue target of over – existing mechanisms designed to hold corporations responsible for human rights abuses are unlikely to apply. Neither the Swiss Code of Best Practices for Corporate Governance, nor international soft law instruments applicable to multinational corporations, could clearly hold FIFA accountable for the treatment of its workers in Qatar.
ąó±őąó´ˇâ€™s declares that FIFA commits to following the UNGPs and “all internationally recognised human rights and shall strive to promote the protection of these rights.” But does this make FIFA internationally responsible to address human rights abuses of migrant workers in Qatar? Not necessarily, since non-state actors “.” Despite ąó±őąó´ˇâ€™s self-proclaimed adherence to international human rights standards, no existing mechanisms seem to exist that would actually hold FIFA accountable to this standard.
Finally, Switzerland has concerning any activities carried out by its private entities overseas, though redress will be extremely difficult for workers due to issues of jurisdiction, grimly illustrated by , a case that is regrettably emblematic of the plight of migrant workers in Qatar. In this case, Mr. Alam, a Bangladeshi migrant worker in Qatar, as well as three international trade unions based in the Netherlands and Bangladesh, submitted several claims to the Commercial Court of Zurich, seeking redress of human rights violations suffered by FIFA 2022 World Cup migrant workers. When the claim was submitted, Mr. Alam was a migrant worker whose passport was confiscated, and was living in deplorable conditions in a camp with 2250 other migrants.
According to the court decision, the plaintiffs’ first petition – that FIFA be required to press Qatar to redress the alleged ills suffered by workers – was deemed “contradictory” and vague by the court, “because anyone who merely exerts pressure on something does not redress any susceptible ills.” The plaintiffs’ second petition – that the court declare ąó±őąó´ˇâ€™s conduct illegal – also failed for vagueness. Further, the court found that there was no commercial dispute, because the commercial activity of neither party was concerned, so Mr. Alam was ineligible for damages under the Commercial Court. Finally, to add insult to injury, Mr. Alam was found to be inadmissible for legal aid as he did not adequately establish his own “income and assets.” And frustratingly, until there are constitutional changes in Switzerland, World Cup migrant workers in Qatar have no means of redress under a Swiss Labour Tribunal either, because .
Are there any other avenues through which a worker in Qatar may seek redress for deplorable working conditions? may reveal the potential for a regime beyond the scope of state actors, pointing to potentially creative, proactive solutions that may not come from traditional regulatory bodies, including media campaigns, petitions, and, of course, boycotts.
Indeed, solutions brought by non-state actors are the ones that are keeping this issue on our radar: is urging FIFA to “use the full extent of its influence” to press Qatar to address these harms on a national level, and has launched a urging soccer fans to denounce working conditions in Qatar; soccer fan groups in several countries have called for of the World Cup; and are playing more of a leading role in pressing for change within the country, which have already resulted in (including the ) to Qatar’s migrant employment system. Additionally, worker-driven social responsibility initiatives elsewhere, such as the , create binding, enforceable agreements between workers and more powerful actors – offering a currently unexploited possibility to further improve conditions for migrant workers in Qatar.
Could these diverse creative solutions, all grounded in action, be harnessed together under a “shared responsibility” model, leveraging collective responsibility to drive positive change? If FIFA, Switzerland, and Qatar continually fail to assume responsibility for the part they play in enabling such disgraceful human rights violations, normative solutions may be the only path forward.