CAS Must Reflect the World It Serves — Balancing Expertise, Opportunity and Global Representation in Sports Arbitration
Balancing Expertise, Opportunity and Global Representation in Sports Arbitration
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) recently released an analysis of its arbitrator appointments from 2022, and the results are striking. Around 20% of arbitrators handle roughly 60% of all cases, and the vast majority of these individuals are European. For an institution that serves the global sporting community, this concentration raises serious questions about fairness, legitimacy, and long-term sustainability.
First and foremost, it is important to acknowledge why repeat appointments occur. Parties naturally gravitate towards arbitrators with a proven track record, those familiar with CAS procedure and capable of delivering consistent, high-quality outcomes. Repeat nominations are not inherently problematic; consistency and reliability are essential in arbitration.
The challenge, however, is that the expertise requirement can be a double-edged sword and can serve as both a requirement and a barrier. To be appointed, arbitrators need experience. This goes without saying, but experience comes from appointments. This creates a repeat cycle in which talented arbitrators from Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East rarely get the chance to build the experience necessary to be considered for future appointments. The result is a global institution that does not promote inclusiveness.
At the same time, the principle of party autonomy must be respected. Parties must continue to have the freedom to choose arbitrators they trust. In a bid to respect party autonomy, systemic imbalance should not be entrenched. CAS has an opportunity to ensure that appointments are distributed more equitably while preserving the integrity and expertise parties expect.
One practical avenue to address this imbalance is the responsible use of technology to reduce bias and over-concentration. Decision-support tools can provide transparency, track appointment patterns, and highlight highly qualified but underutilised arbitrators. These tools can help maintain consistency while making room for emerging talents from underrepresented regions. Importantly, they do not replace human judgment or party choice; they support it, providing a clearer picture of available expertise and helping to ensure that merit, not geography, drives appointments.
Achieving this balance also requires structured mentorship and observation programmes, broader participation pathways, and careful monitoring of workload concentration. Parties should have access to more complete information about arbitrators, increasing confidence in selecting less familiar, yet highly qualified candidates.
There is an irony worthy of note in this discourse. One of CAS’s co-founding figures, H.E. Judge Keba Mbaye, is a Senegalese national. Despite being African, representation from the continent remains disproportionately low. If CAS is to maintain its credibility and authority as the global court of sports, it must address these imbalances.
It is evident that consistency and experience matter, but so do sustainability, opportunity, diversity, and fairness. CAS has the chance to lead by example, ensuring that the pool of arbitrators reflects the breadth and diversity of the sporting world itself. Expertise must be allowed to grow across all regions, not just one.
The future of CAS depends on striking this balance: respecting party autonomy while fostering a system that is inclusive, representative, and capable of sustaining expertise for generations to come. A truly global institution must reflect the world it serves — in practice, not just in principle.
Policy Recommendations
- Establish an AI‑Assisted Appointment Framework
- Create a pilot decision-support system that maps arbitrator competencies, tracks appointment patterns, and suggests under-rotated arbitrators.
- Ensure the logic is transparent, auditable, and periodically reviewed by a diverse committee, including arbitrators, parties, and experts.
- Enhance Transparency of the Closed Arbitrator List
- Publicly disclose selection criteria for the CAS arbitrator roster, including how ICAS considers diversity (continental representation, legal culture, language skills).
- Periodically report on appointment distribution by geography, gender, race/ethnicity, and concentration metrics.
- Create a Structured Mentorship and Experience‑Building Programme
- Develop a “CAS Emerging Arbitrators Programme” where new arbitrators can shadow, assist, or co-chair less complex tribunals.
- Pair experienced arbitrators with emerging ones to facilitate skill transfer and accelerate experience-building.
- Safeguard Party Autonomy While Promoting Diversity
- Provide parties with enhanced, transparent arbitrator profiles to encourage confidence in selecting qualified but less familiar candidates.
- For CAS-appointed roles (e.g. sole arbitrator, tribunal president), mandate a balance of merit, diversity, and equitable distribution.
- Institutionalise Participatory Review and Continuous Improvement
- Form a Diversity & Innovation Advisory Committee within ICAS to oversee reforms.
- Regularly audit appointments, monitor diversity and concentration, and adjust policies based on outcomes.
References
Broyde, M. & Mei, Y., 2024. Don’t Kill the Baby: The Case for AI in Arbitration. Available at: https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.11608 [Accessed 17 November 2025].
Clyde & Co., 2024. Sports Arbitration: The Court of Arbitration for Sport. Available at: https://www.clydeco.com/en/insights/2024/05/sports-arbitration-the-court-of-arbitration-for-sp [Accessed 17 November 2025].
De’Shazer, M., 2024. Advancing Legal Reasoning: The Integration of AI … with Semi-Automated Arbitration Processes (SAAPs). Available at: https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.04140 [Accessed 17 November 2025].
Kleinberg, J., Mullainathan, S. & Sunstein, C., 2019. Discrimination in the Age of Algorithms. Available at: https://arxiv.org/abs/1902.03731 [Accessed 17 November 2025].
Morgan Sports Law, 2024. Arbitrator Diversity at the Court of Arbitration for Sport. Available at: https://morgansl.com/en/latest/arbitrator-diversity-court-arbitration-sport-part-two [Accessed 17 November 2025].
Zhang, A., et al., 2023. Deliberating with AI: Improving Decision‑Making … through Participatory AI Design. Available at: https://arxiv.org/abs/2302.11623 [Accessed 17 November 2025].
ICAS, 2024. Internal Rules on Arbitrator Appointment and Diversity. Oxford: Academic. Available at: https://academic.oup.com/arbitration/advance-article/doi/10.1093/arbint/aiae054/8105852 [Accessed 17 November 2025].
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