How International Law protects you (or doesn’t) at the 2026 World Cup
Got 3 minutes?
The 2026 Men’s World Cup starts today!
Millions of migrant workers, fans, and journalists from at least 48 countries will be flocking to the US, Canada and Mexico in the coming weeks.
If a migrant worker is exploited, a journalist is detained, or a fan aggressively arrested (likely in the US these days), immigration lawyers are scattered across the US ready to spring into action. But can international law also protect you?
Your best bet is consular law, not international human rights law
Imagine the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) aggressively detains you (as they often do) during a match in Houston because it suspects you’re undocumented.
ICE is a federal agency, so the US should be held responsible for ICE’s actions under international law.
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) protects everyone from arbitrary detention, no matter what their immigration status is.
But it won’t help you in the US, which hasn’t accepted the procedure allowing individuals to bring complaints under it. And although it will help you if you get detained by police in Mexico or Canada, and you can file a complaint against either of them to a UN committee, that decision will be a non-binding recommendation.
The Inter-American Human Rights Commission covers human rights violations by countries in the region (including the US, Canada and Mexico) but similarly, its decisions are non-binding recommendations, not enforceable judgments.
But outside human rights, there’s the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (VCCR). This gives anyone detained in a foreign country the right to contact their consulate.
It’s a binding treaty, and the US and many other countries (including yours, most likely) are parties to it. It’s your best bet.
You’ll struggle to hold FIFA accountable for anything
FIFA will not have directly done whatever happened to you… but it will have created the environment for those violations to happen in the first place. So you can go after them too, right?
Not quite.
First, there is no binding international law that directly applies to FIFA.
It’s registered as a Swiss association.
International (human rights) law doesn’t create direct binding obligations on associations. It doesn’t hold them responsible. Its focus is on states.
That means any architecture for accountability under international law, like treaty bodies, international courts, or state responsibility, can’t be used directly against FIFA.
Second, the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights do tell businesses like FIFA to stop contributing to human rights harm through their own activities. But they’re guidelines that aren’t binding law.
Third, FIFA has shielded itself from human rights accountability in the Host City Agreements it signed with the 16 individual cities where matches will be held.
Don’t get me wrong… those host agreements do say FIFA and the cities will respect human rights.
They’re also inspired by FIFA’s own Human Rights Framework that it developed following the Qatar 2022 World Cup human rights controversies. Progress!
But… take FIFA’s agreement with LA for example. Now imagine a fan gets detained by the LA police during a match.
The agreement basically says the fan would have to report their complaint through whatever grievance channel FIFA has chosen to create (if it does!), hope that FIFA investigates, and then hope that FIFA decides to act on the findings.
… Mmkay, thanks.
… And FIFA itself? Faces no consequence whatsoever. FIFA is never the subject of the complaint. It has cleverly structured the entire system so that accountability flows downward to host cities… never upward to itself.
On that cheerful note… Enjoy the games, let me know who you’re supporting in the comments! Oh, and check out some resources here:
The information provided in this SAIL post is for general informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. You should seek the advice of a qualified legal professional regarding your specific situation before taking any action.
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Nice one... it is very educative
Great article! Thank you very much for this insightful piece…