The London Olympic Games and Paralympics Act 2006 (the Act) received its Royal Assent on 30 March 2006, well over six years before the Games themselves are due to begin. The early passing of this Act is partly to ensure that the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) has sufficient time to organise the Games, and partly to ensure that Parliament has sufficient legislative time to implement the legal framework necessary to stage a modern Games to the satisfaction of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). The Act as a whole covers a variety of issues from the creation of the ODA and the defining of its role and powers in respect of planning and transport to the creation of several new criminal offences.
Within the Act are certain key areas worthy of socio-legal investigation. Indeed, many of the provisions are emblematic of how the law maps the cultural and commercial tensions that we have identified elsewhere (James and Osborn, 2009 and Greenfield and Osborn, 2001). These tensions are particularly pronounced with respect to an event such as the Olympics, where the historically entrenched cultural values and identity of the Olympic movement must now be read alongside the commercial imperative of maximising income (Tomlinson, 2005)
