IOC gets it wrong on North Korea

By Troy Stangarone

Sometimes there are situations where we have the ability to do something, but it isn't wise to do so. The recent decision by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to suspend North Korea from Olympic competition until the end of 2022 is a good example.

In late April, North Korea announced that it would not attend the Tokyo Summer Olympics due to concerns over the coronavirus pandemic.

It's hard to blame North Korea, when even the Japanese public did not want the Tokyo Games to go forward. In April, a Kyodo News poll found that 72 percent of the Japanese public didn't want the Games to go forward.

Those numbers would improve some as the Games approached, but 55 percent of the Japanese public still opposed the Games in an Asahi Shimbun poll taken just before the opening ceremony. That same poll found that 68 percent of the Japanese public thought the Games would be unsafe.

The Japanese public was not alone in its skepticism about the Games taking place during the pandemic. Ipsos polled individuals in 28 countries in late May and early June and found that 57 percent of the public in those countries disagreed with the Games going forward; 86 percent of the South Koreans in Ipsos' polling were also skeptical.

However, in deciding to not send athletes to the Tokyo Games, North Korea's National Olympic Committee (NOC) failed to fulfill its obligation under the Olympic Charter to send athletes to Olympic competitions.

In suspending North Korea's NOC until the end of 2022, North Korean athletes will not be able to participate under the North Korean flag, though they may still be able to compete on an individual basis should they qualify. North Korea's NOC was also forfeited financial aid that had previously been withheld due to sanctions.

The obligation to send athletes to the Olympics developed out of the successive political boycotts of the 1980 Moscow Games and the 1984 Los Angeles Games.

While not to the extent of previous Olympics, the 1988 Seoul Games also saw a handful of former Communist bloc countries boycott the Games, including North Korea.

By 1999, language stating that "each NOC is obliged to participate in the Games of the Olympiad by sending athletes" had been added to the Olympic Charter. It is understandable that the IOC would want to create a greater commitment to its mission, but the lack of flexibility is perplexing.

The IOC justified its decision by noting that it worked with North Korea to address its concerns and even offered vaccines to try to facilitate its participation, but the IOC also has a history of being selective in what measures of its charter it enforces.

Despite earlier versions of the Olympic Charter stating that "any form of discrimination with regard to a country or a person on grounds of race, religion, politics, sex or otherwise is incompatible with belonging to the Olympic Movement," countries such as Saudi Arabia were not suspended from the Olympics for their failure to let female athletes participate. Though, Saudi Arabia has since changed course.

Human rights violations resulting from the discrimination of certain athletes at other times, however, has been enforced. For two decades South Africa was banned from Olympic competition due to apartheid.

Yet, despite the U.N. Commission of Inquiry's report on human rights violations and discrimination in North Korea, the IOC never chose to take action. While the report did not focus on sports, these violations undoubtedly extend to athletes.

The IOC at time has also frowned on political interference in NOCs. Kuwait has twice been suspended by the IOC for political interference with its NOC. It's hard to imagine that North Korea's National Olympic Committee doesn't face political interference, but that has not previously been a reason to suspend it.

Which raises the question of why the IOC would suspend North Korea over concerns related to the pandemic. North Korea may have been able to participate safely in the Olympics and the IOC genuinely may have been able to make that happen. Should the decision not to take part be a punishable offence when other countries have engaged in arguably more concerning behavior, including North Korea?

In the end, nearly 400 athletes and others individuals involved in running the Tokyo Games tested positive for COVID-19. While the IOC should receive credit for its ability to prevent a significant outbreak during the Games, it understandably was unable to eliminate all risk. For a country with a strained medical system, no tests for COVID-19 and a population still waiting to gain access to vaccines, declining to take part is not an unreasonable choice, even if North Korea was the only one to do so.

Rather than suspend the country, the IOC would have been wiser to resume discussions with North Korea and review the health safety measures and results of the Tokyo Games. North Korea still may not have taken part, but nothing is truly gained by suspending anyone over health concerns during a pandemic.

Troy Stangarone (ts@keia.org) is the senior director of congressional affairs and trade at the Korea Economic Institute.