Directive Role of Precedents in Application of Law for International Sports Arbitration

To discuss the influence of precedents to the application of law in international sports arbitration by comparison, contrast and case study is valuable for the construction and development of the sports arbitration system in China.The arbitral practices for sport disputes attach great importance to the directive role of precedents in application of law, for the sake that the relatively independent and pyramid-like organizational existence of international sport field demands a consistently solid trade order.Precedents play the directive role within the discretion for the panels to apply certain rules.There has not been a general principle of“Stare Decisis”to bind the panel of arbitration for sports, which has always reserved the authority to accept or deny precedents.The directive role of precedents will be highlighted where the existing statutory merits are not sufficient enough to decide the dispute in issue.The nature of dispute, regardless of commercial or disciplinary, does not influence the Panel's intend of referring to precedents, neither does the composition of the Panel by common-law background or non-commonlaw.It has the priority that the future Chinese mechanism for sport arbitration to establish our own precedents system by means of putting on weight to the directive role of precedents.