The agreement between the International Olympic Committee, the host and the national committee used to be called the Host City Contract. It is now the Olympic Host Contract. The rename is not cosmetic, and neither is the clause that arrived with it.
Why «city» dropped out of the name
Because the host is no longer necessarily a city. Regions, and in some editions more than one country, carry the Games, and a contract addressed to a city could not bind the parties that actually hold the obligations. The renamed instrument contracts with whatever combination of authorities is hosting.
The human rights clauses
Human rights obligations were written into the contract as core requirements, with express reference to the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, for the 2024, 2026 and 2028 editions. Three features make that more than a statement of values:
- the obligation is contractual, not a declaration in a bid book;
- it references an external framework with its own tests, rather than defining its own;
- it sits among the core requirements, which are the terms the contract treats as fundamental rather than aspirational.
What the contract covers besides
Operational requirements, delivery guarantees, financial arrangements, and the obligations of the national committee alongside the host authority. The practical weight of the human rights clause is that compliance with it becomes a matter of contract performance, assessed on the same footing as venue delivery. The committee signs as a party, which is why its own standing under the Charter — see A suspended NOC is not a banned team — is part of the host's risk and not only the committee's.
The contract and the selection process are different reforms
They are often reported as one. The contract governs what the host must do once chosen; the selection of the host changed separately when the bidding contest was replaced by permanent commissions and a dialogue process, described in How an Olympic host is chosen without a vote. One changed the terms, the other changed how the parties get to the table.
The useful question to ask of any edition
Not whether the host has promised to respect human rights — every host has. It is which edition's contract applies, since the clauses were introduced edition by edition, and the text binding a 2028 host is not the text that bound hosts before the change.
Where this is written: the Olympic Host Contract and its Operational Requirements, published by edition at olympics.com/ioc; the referenced framework is the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.