ABSTRACT
The preparations for the 2012 London Olympic and Paralympic Games have brought to
the fore many of the issues addressed in this collection of papers. The debate in the British
Parliament on the invocation of the Olympic Truce at the Games is a case in point. The
Baroness Garden of Frognal’s announcement in the House of Lords that the UK
government fully supports the principles of tolerance, equal opportunities and fair play
which underpin the Olympic Truce and that it would seek a fresh resolution calling for the
observance of the Olympic Truce during the 2012 Games met with considerable
scepticism. For example, Lord Bates pointed out that the modern Olympic Games fail to
live up to the ideal of peacemaking:
[T]he modern Olympic Games have been running for 110 years. They have been cancelled
due to war three times, the subject of terrorist attacks twice and of mass boycotts five times,
and the truce has been violated on virtually every occasion.
