Leisure and Human Rights

Events

August 2025 World Leisure Congress, Breda Netherlands:

• Congress presentation session: four presentations committed
• Open meeting of Leisure and Human Rights Special Interest Group: inaugural face-to-face meeting to discuss future plans of the group. All welcome.

Research

A leisure rights research agenda
A research agenda for leisure and human rights was proposed in articles on the topic in the World Leisure Journal in 2015 and 2022. These suggestions can be seen as drafts of a research agenda to be further developed by the Leisure and Human Rights Group over time. The issue of funding for implementation of all or parts of the agenda may be considered in due course. The current draft of the agenda is as follows:

1. Examine the leisure-related content of individual member states’ periodic reports to the UN on progress with implementation the International Covenant on Economic, Social Cultural Rights (ICESCR).*
2. Assess the place of leisure rights in individual national human rights arrangements, including national constitutions and human rights legislation and institutions.
3. For nations which have not ratified the ICESCR: examine reasons for non-ratification and leisure implications.
4. Examine adjudicated leisure-related cases of discrimination under national or regional (EU) anti-discrimination legislation.
5. Explore ways in which leisure might be incorporated into human rights measurement and indexing frameworks.
6. Examine the relationship between human right and social justice approaches to leisure and human well-being.
7. Examine child exploitation and abuse in leisure contexts.

* The ICESCR is one of the UN legal treaties which establishes human rights as part of international law.

Research project: “Leisure rights: Holding governments to account”

This project can be seen as a contribution to implementing items 1 and 2 of the above research agenda.

Participation is invited in a collaborative research project to investigate the performance of individual nation states in regard to their respecting, protecting and fulfilling of human rights, particularly leisure rights, using a common conceptual and research framework. Individual state reports would be published as journal articles and also possibly on-line.

While the emphasis will be on member states of the United Nations, it is envisaged that the programme will accommodate contributions related to sub-national entities which have legislative powers in regard to human rights – for example, states/provinces in federal systems and arrangements such as the ‘countries’ of the UK.

Education and communication

Development of on-line teaching and research materials

The Charter for Leisure web-page (www.worldleisure.org/charter) includes the following support materials:

• Material for governments
• Educational materials
• Bibliography

These materials are currently in draft form and will be developed further over time under the auspices of the Leisure and Human Rights Special Interest Group.

Future activities 

• Promotion of the Charter for Leisure internationally: programme to be devised.
• Encouragement of research papers on disciplinary aspects of leisure rights – e.g., Education; Public policy; Philosophy; Sociology.
• Regarding item (4) of the above research agenda on adjudicated human rights cases: an example, involving access by people with disabilities to cultural venues in Australia, is the study by Darcy and Taylor (Leisure Studies, 2009, 28(4)). Similar studies for other countries, social groups and activities could be encouraged.
• Discriminatory practices and leisure activity. The above Darcy and Taylor study is also an example of research concerned not just with adjudicated cases, and not just with leisure rights per se, but also with documenting examples of practices which infringe the rights of a group to fair treatment and access in leisure settings. A considerable body of research exists in a variety of settings (e.g., sport, tourism, mega-events, culture: see above-mentioned on-line Bibliography). This body of work could be reviewed and evaluated and gaps identified.
• Policy contributions. Governments at regional, national, state/provincial and local often call for submissions in regard to draft policies – e.g. sport, recreation of cultural strategic plans, or inquiries. Typically, such documents fail to make any reference to rights to leisure, sport or cultural participation. The Special Interest Group could become involved in encouraging submissions to these policy exercises. A data-based of such submissions could be created on the WLO website. An example is listed in the references above.