«Declared non-compliant» sounds like a verdict. It is the end of a graded administrative procedure, and most Signatories that enter the procedure never reach that end. The procedure itself lives in the International Standard for Code Compliance by Signatories, adopted in 2017, effective from April 2018, and revised with effect from 1 January 2021.
The order of events
- Prioritisation. Not every requirement in the Code carries the same weight. The Prioritisation Policy sorts requirements into critical, high-priority and other, and the consequence of a gap depends on which category it falls into.
- The watchlist. A Signatory with a non-conformity is placed on a watchlist and given a period to correct it. This stage is confidential in its early phase and is the stage at which most problems are resolved.
- The correction period. For non-conformities in rules and in national legislation, the watchlist period was extended from four months to nine. That extension is an admission of how long it takes to amend a statute, and it is the single most useful number in the standard.
- The proposal. If the gap is not corrected, the Compliance Review Committee recommends a formal assertion of non-compliance, with consequences attached.
- The appeal. The Signatory may contest the assertion before the Court of Arbitration for Sport. It is a dispute between organisations, decided in Lausanne, reviewable afterwards only on the grounds in article 190.
What the consequences hit
The consequences are institutional: flag and anthem at major events, the right to host, places on international boards, and funding. They attach to the Signatory, not to the athletes, and the Code includes provisions designed to keep clean athletes competing while their organisation is non-compliant. This is the same structural separation that runs through A suspended NOC is not a banned team.
Who can be non-compliant at all
Only a Signatory. A contractor collecting samples cannot be declared non-compliant, because it is not a party to the Code — it acts for one. Which body answers in which situation is set out in Signatory or Delegated Third Party.
The practical reading
A news line saying a national agency «faces non-compliance» usually means it is on a watchlist with months to fix a clause. A line saying it «has been declared non-compliant» means the proposal stage is over and consequences are running. The two are separated by the correction period, and the correction period is where the work happens.
Where this is written: the International Standard for Code Compliance by Signatories and the Prioritisation Policy, wada-ama.org/en/resources.