A flawed human rights assessment of Saudi Arabia's FIFA 2034 World Cup bid by AS&H Clifford Chance, part of the global partnership of London-based law firm Clifford Chance, leaves the global firm at risk of being linked to abuses which result from the tournament, 11 organizations, including Human Rights Watch, said today.
AS&H Clifford Chance, which is based in Riyadh and sits within Clifford Chance's integrated global partnership, produced an "independent human rights context assessment" that was published by FIFA. The assessment has helped pave the way for Saudi Arabia to be confirmed as 2034 hosts on December 11, 2034. But it contains no substantive discussion of extensive and relevant abuses in Saudi Arabia, documented by multiple human rights organizations and UN bodies, and has formed the basis of Saudi Arabia's human rights strategy for the tournament, which was described by Amnesty International as a "whitewash."
The 11 organizations, which include a Saudi Arabian diaspora organization, Gulf human rights groups, and labor organizations, as well as Football Supporters Europe, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch, wrote to Clifford Chance's Global Managing Partner, setting out in detail all the concerns in a statement and inviting the authors to publish an updated report. The firm, which says that it works in partnership with "some of the world's leading NGOs
