Whatever Happened to the International Convention Against Doping in Sport: The United States Ratified It, But Then What?
In April of 2008 the United States ratified the UNESCO International Convention against Doping in Sport. The Convention addresses national and international level activities, education and research, and monitoring related to doping. The ratification raised questions about the potential impact on sport entities in the United States because the Convention directs member nations to take steps, including legislative, to combat doping. However, since ratification the United States' compliance level with the Convention had remained unchanged at 78.6% until 2015, when it increased to 89.3% The past lower overall compliance was due to low compliance levels in several categories, including: Financial Measures; Professional Codes of Conduct; Nature of Research; and Sport Science. All of these areas are dealt with by private entities in the United States and the government takes little to no active role. Due to constitutional concerns, the government is unlikely to get involved in these areas in the future, thus depending on improvements by private entities, leaving the United States unable to fully comply with the