Global Practical Authority. An Analysis Through the Case of WADA

In the last decades, the global relevance of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has been steadily rising, through both the widespread global adoption of the WADA Code by sport organizations and public authorities and its role in establishing of adjudicatory mechanisms for decisions in individual cases. Prima facie, it seems that in this scenario there are some notes or features that could be considered as authoritative; WADA’s specific characteristics, however, seem to make it difficult to claim that it is a (typical practical) authority. Does this suggest that WADA is not an authority —or something else? Here, we will argue that our theoretical frameworks might not be enough to account for cases as WADA —that is, cases of global (practical) authority. First, we will start by offering a starting theoretical framework for the analysis of authority (Section II). Then, we will consider Himma’s recent proposal related to the nature of practical authority as an example of contemporary theoretical framework, giving particular attention to the “existence conditions of practical authority” and the concomitant “Sanctions Thesis” (Section III). Second, we will test how this framework fares when applied in a transnational/global setting. We will analyze, in such settings, why —and to which extent— it is still preferable to talk about authority instead of governance (Section IV). Finally, we will consider the case of WADA as a case of what we call “global (practical) authority”, and how this analysis reveals some limitations of Himma’s framework to deal with —or to downright consider— such cases (Section V).