The final round of Caster Semenya’s long series of legal challenges concerning her ability to participate in women’s athletics is currently being heard before the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. The last five years of adjudication since her case before the Court of Arbitration for Sport, while agonising for Semenya, have had a marked impact on focusing the legal challenge to arguably discriminatory sports regulations through the powerful lens and language of human rights. In women’s sports, it’s a trend that we’ve seen grow through challenges by the likes of Dutee Chand and Semenya to differences in sexual development "DSD" regulations in athletics^[1]; to, more recently, Lia Thomas’ challenge to the transgender eligibility regulations in swimming^[2].    

Given the high-profile nature of these cases, and the increased recognition of the importance and relevance of human rights more broadly, this article examines how human rights law, and human rights-based arguments, are influencing the approach to regulating and resolving disputes in sports, with a particular focus on female participation and inclusion in athletics and swimming:

• Background
• Female Inclusion
• History of female categorisation
• Towards a “testosterone-based” approach to regulating gender eligibility
• Recent challenges to Hyperandrogenism/DSD regulations in athletics
  • Dutee Chand
  • Caster Semenya
• Lia Thomas’ challenge to World Aquatics’ transgender regulations
• The increasing influence of human rights in sports disputes and regulations