Michele Krech

📢 Speakers confirmed!
🏅 Our online course on gender regulation in sport brings together leading experts and athletes to tackle the big questions of inclusion, fairness and human rights in international sport.

📅 15–17 Oct 2025
💻 Online via Zoom
🔗 Register now: bit.ly/45RGJsO

The Grand Chamber's decision not only says that World Athletics' female eligibility rules must be subjected to rigorous human rights review, but also suggests that their shaky evidentiary foundations and seriously harmful consequences make the rules unlikely to withstand future legal challenges.

The Semenya Judgment and Women’s Eligibility in Sport: Nothing Changes, Everything Does! - Strasbourg Observers Dr. Michele Krech1 *** Between the first and the eight of October, the Strasbourg Observers blog is hosting a symposium examining various aspects of the ECtHR’s ruling in Semenya v. Switzerland. The s...

The third blog by @michelekrech.bsky.social focuses on the impact of the #Semenya judgment on eligibility rules for female competitions arguing that it changes everything.

it is available at strasbourgobservers.com/2025/10/03/t...

#Sportslaw #DSDRegulations #WorldAthletics #CAS #ECtHR

Is It Time To Rethink The Binary In Sports?

NEW: Is It Time to Rethink the Binary in Sports?

In this episode, hosts @cfloed.bsky.social and @tomginsburg.bsky.social are joined by Michele Krech to unpack the human rights questions at stake in debates around gender and athletic competition.

Listen now:
open.spotify.com/episode/4ait...

Sex Testing on Trial

Genetic sex testing in sport violates MANY laws - bioethics, genetic non-discrimination, data privacy, etc. - in MANY jurisdictions. These tests have no medical purpose, functioning instead as a discriminatory contractual condition, thus vitiating consent and misusing protected data. Read more:

Sex Testing on Trial

World Athletics’ SRY DNA test mandate—tests due 1 Sep—breaches genetic-testing safeguards in many jurisdictions by forcing non-medical testing, tying eligibility to genes, coercing consent, and handing DNA to private bodies—inviting national challenges. Analysis: verfassungsblog.de/genetic-sex-...

Quote from the piece by SONE ERIKAINEN, KATRINA KARKAZIS & MICHELE KRECH: "The nature of sex testing in the context of sport eligibility makes free and informed consent virtually impossible."

World Athletics and World Boxing have instituted genetic sex testing as a precondition for competing in the women’s category.

SONE ERIKAINEN, KATRINA KARKAZIS (@karkazis.bsky.social‬) & MICHELE KRECH (@michelekrech.bsky.social‬) on the many legal pitfalls.

verfassungsblog.de/genetic-sex-...

World Athletics introduces SRY gene test for athletes wishing to compete in the female category | PRESS-RELEASES | World Athletics The World Athletics Council has approved new regulations concerning eligibility conditions to compete in the female category for world ranking competitions

@worldathletics.org's new female eligibility rules seem to violate Canada's Genetic Non-Discrimination Act, which prohibits requiring someone to undergo or disclose results of a genetic test as a condition of providing goods/services or entering into/continuing a contract/agreement. bit.ly/4m3WW3y

"States must ... protect the climate system and ... environment [by] taking mitigation and adaptation
measures, with due account given to the protection of human rights, the adoption of standards and
legislation, and the regulation of the activities of private actors."
shorturl.at/IYFJx

Per the dissent: There IS a jurisdictional link bc "the entire reputation of international sports regulation is specifically based on the fact that sport governing bodies have their seat in Switzerland, or other CoE member States, and their regulations are subject to review by the SFSC and the CAS."

However, the Grand Chamber deemed Semenya's substantive rights claims (non-discrimination, respect for private life, and effective remedy) inadmissible, finding no jurisdictional link between these claims and Switzerland.

In sum: The Swiss court (and likewise the CAS) failed to address serious doubts about the reasonableness and proportionality of World Athletics' female eligibility regulations. Its review of Semenya's complaint was therefore not sufficiently rigorous, given the seriousness of the rights at stake.

Grand Chamber judgment Semenya v. Switzerland - the Court held that there had been a violation of the right to a fair hearing tinyurl.com/ymbwp8kw
#ECHR #CEDH #ECHRpress

So proud of this team!

Lincoln Alexander Law welcomes new faculty

I'm so thrilled to be joining the faculty of Lincoln Alexander School of Law!

www.torontomu.ca/law/news-eve...

There's still plenty of time to register for Wednesday's webinar. Click the link below to sign up and join this timely and important discussion. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
@cambup-law.bsky.social @asilorg.bsky.social @monicahakimi.bsky.social @michelekrech.bsky.social

AJIL Webinar: The International Regulation of Women in Sports February 19, 2025

Join @michelekrech.bsky.social, Bigelow Fellow, for an American Journal of International Law webinar exploring the challenges that women in sports confront, and how international institutions do and should respond.

Thrilled to see my article -- showing how a private organization has shaped, and diluted, an international human rights norm -- in AJIL! It shows how a global sport governing body has responded to legal challenges by retrofitting 'gender equality' to align with exclusionary regulatory practices.

A timely conversation hosted by @ajil.bsky.social. Please join us. @monicahakimi.bsky.social @lenaholzer.bsky.social