Bringing Human Rights In: The Campaign Against the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games and the Origins of the Nexus Between Human Rights and the Olympic Games

2016/11/01 by Umberto Tulli · 9 citations
Social Sciences · #Communism, Protests, Social Movements #Historical Geopolitical and Social Dynamics #Boycott #Human rights #Nexus (standard) #Political science #Politics #Law #Government (linguistics) #Perspective (graphical) #Political economy #Sociology

paper · doi:10.1080/09523367.2017.1315104

published in The International Journal of the History of Sport 33(16), 2026-2045 (Routledge)

openalex publication_date 2016/11/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/03/20

Abstract

This essay investigates the American-led boycott against the 1980 Olympic Games from a human rights perspective. While it does not deny that the boycott was a response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, it argues that discussions over a possible Olympic boycott were popular since the mid-seventies. To human rights activists and Non-Government Organizations, this was a natural consequence of Soviet violations of human rights. In analyzing the differences between the political debates which developed in Western Europe and in the United States, it argues that the 1980 Olympic boycott represented the first time in which a proposal for an Olympic boycott was framed in the human rights language.

Cited by

• 1980 Winter Olympics [wikipedia]

Related

• The Cold War and British debates over the boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics
• Sport and Human Rights Issues: Can Major Sporting Events Improve Civil Liberties? An Examination of the Olympic and FIFA World Cup Host Nations Following the World War II
• Breaking the Totalitarian Ice: The Initiative Group for the Defense of Human Rights in the USSR
• The Carter Administration and the Promotion of Human Rights in the Soviet Union, 1977-1981
• The Olympics: A Sociological Perspective