European Anti-Doping Convention

Article 1 – Aim of the Convention

The Parties, with a view to the reduction and eventual elimination of doping in sport, undertake, within the limits of their respective constitutional provisions, to take the steps necessary to apply the provisions of this Convention.

Article 3 – Domestic co-ordination

1. The Parties shall co-ordinate the policies and actions of their government departments and other public agencies concerned with combating doping in sport.

2. They shall ensure that there is practical application of this Convention, and in particular that the requirements under Article 7 are met, by entrusting, where appropriate, the implementation of some of the provisions of this Convention to a designated governmental or non-governmental sports authority or to a sports organisation.

Article 4 – Measures to restrict the availability and use of banned doping agents and methods

1. The Parties shall adopt where appropriate legislation, regulations or administrative measures to restrict the availability (including provisions to control movement, possession, importation, distribution and sale) as well as the use in sport of banned doping agents and doping methods and in particular anabolic steroids.

2. To this end, the Parties or, where appropriate, the relevant non-governmental organisations shall make it a criterion for the grant of public subsidies to sports organisations that they effectively apply anti-doping regulations.

3. Furthermore, the Parties shall:

a. assist their sports organisations to finance doping controls and analyses, either by direct subsidies or grants, or by recognising the costs of such controls and analyses when determining the overall subsidies or grants to be awarded to those organisations;

b. take appropriate steps to withhold the grant of subsidies from public funds, for training purposes, to individual sportsmen and sportswomen who have been suspended following a doping offence in sport, during the period of their suspension;

c. encourage and, where appropriate, facilitate the carrying out by their sports organisations of the doping controls required by the competent international sports organisations whether during or outside competitions; and

d. encourage and facilitate the negotiation by sports organisations of agreements permitting their members to be tested by duly authorised doping control teams in other countries.

4. Parties reserve the right to adopt anti-doping regulations and to organise doping controls on their own initiative and on their own responsibility, provided that they are compatible with the relevant principles of this Convention.

Article 5 – Laboratories

1. Each Party undertakes:

a. either to establish or facilitate the establishment on its territory of one or more doping control laboratories suitable for consideration for accreditation under the criteria adopted by the relevant international sports organisations and approved by the monitoring group under the terms of Article 11.1.b; or

b. to assist its sports organisations to gain access to such a laboratory on the territory of another Party.

2. These laboratories shall be encouraged to:

a. take appropriate action to employ and retain, train and retrain qualified staff;

b. undertake appropriate programmes of research and development into doping agents and methods used, or thought to be used, for the purposes of doping in sport and into analytical biochemistry and pharmacology with a view to obtaining a better understanding of the effects of various substances upon the human body and their consequences for athletic performance;

c. publish and circulate promptly new data from their research.

Article 6 – Education

1. The Parties undertake to devise and implement, where appropriate in co-operation with the sports organisations concerned and the mass media, educational programmes and information campaigns emphasising the dangers to health inherent in doping and its harm to the ethical values of sport. Such programmes and campaigns shall be directed at both young people in schools and sports clubs and their parents and at adult sportsmen and sportswomen, sports officials, coaches and trainers. For those involved in medicine, such educational programmes will emphasise respect for medical ethics.

2. The Parties undertake to encourage and promote research, in co-operation with the regional, national and international sports organisations concerned, into ways and means of devising scientifically-based physiological and psychological training programmes that respect the integrity of the human person.

Article 7 – Co-operation with sports organisations on measures to be taken by them

1. The Parties undertake to encourage their sports organisations and through them the international sports organisations to formulate and apply all appropriate measures, falling within their competence, against doping in sport.

2. To this end, they shall encourage their sports organisations to clarify and harmonise their respective rights, obligations and duties, in particular by harmonising their:

a. anti-doping regulations on the basis of the regulations agreed by the relevant international sports organisations;

b. lists of banned pharmacological classes of doping agents and banned doping methods on the basis of the lists agreed by the relevant international sports organisations;

c. doping control procedures;

d. disciplinary procedures, applying agreed international principles of natural justice and ensuring respect for the fundamental rights of suspected sportsmen and sportswomen; these principles will include:

i. the reporting and disciplinary bodies to be distinct from one another;

ii. the right of such persons to a fair hearing and to be assisted or represented;

iii. clear and enforceable provisions for appealing against any judgment made;

e. procedures for the imposition of effective penalties for officials, doctors, veterinary doctors, coaches, physiotherapists and other officials or accessories associated with infringements of the anti-doping regulations by sportsmen and sportswomen;

f. procedures for the mutual recognition of suspensions and other penalties imposed by other sports organisations in the same or other countries.

3. Moreover, the Parties shall encourage their sports organisations:

a. to introduce, on an effective scale, doping controls not only at, but also without advance warning at any appropriate time outside, competitions, such controls to be conducted in a way which is equitable for all sportsmen and sportswomen and which include testing and retesting of persons selected, where appropriate, on a random basis;

b. to negotiate agreements with sports organisations of other countries permitting a sportsman or sportswoman training in another country to be tested by a duly authorised doping control team of that country;

c. to clarify and harmonise regulations on eligibility to take part in sports events which will include anti-doping criteria;

d. to promote active participation by sportsmen and sportswomen themselves in the anti-doping work of international sports organisations;

e. to make full and efficient use of the facilities available for doping analysis at the laboratories provided for by Article 5, both during and outside sports competitions;

f. to study scientific training methods and to devise guidelines to protect sportsmen and sportswomen of all ages appropriate for each sport.

Article 8 – International co-operation

1. The Parties shall co-operate closely on the matters covered by this Convention and shall encourage similar co-operation amongst their sports organisations.

2. The Parties undertake:

a. to encourage their sports organisations to operate in a manner that promotes application of the provisions of this Convention within all the appropriate international sports organisations to which they are affiliated, including the refusal to ratify claims for world or regional records unless accompanied by an authenticated negative doping control report;

b. to promote co-operation between the staffs of their doping control laboratories established or operating in pursuance of Article 5; and

c. to initiate bilateral and multilateral co-operation between their appropriate agencies, authorities and organisations in order to achieve, at the international level as well, the purposes set out in Article 4.1.

3. The Parties with laboratories established or operating in pursuance of Article 5 undertake to assist other Parties to enable them to acquire the experience, skills and techniques necessary to establish their own laboratories.