A September release announcing the locations of three upcoming coffee competitions was suspended the same day when the human rights record of one host country, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), was called into question.
World Coffee Events (WCE), an event management operation owned by the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA), announced that Amsterdam, Belo Horizonte (Brazil), and Dubai would host world coffee championship events in 2018. The same day coffee news website Sprudge posted an article questioning the decision to include Dubai based on the country’s reported use of slave labor and its laws forbidding homosexual behavior.
Later in the day, SCA posted a statement indicating Dubai would not be a championship site.
The statement read, in part: “We have followed the response to the announcement and have heard from many in our community today about this decision. The UAE’s human rights issues were not taken into consideration in the selection process. This is a serious problem that shows that our selection process was not broad or inclusive enough and we at the SCA intend to correct it.”
“For this reason, we have decided to suspend further planning on these four events in Dubai while we consult with the boards of directors of SCA and WCE. We commit ourselves to developing the appropriate policies and procedures that ensure we have gathered enough information to make the best possible decisions for how and where we engage in the world for all current and future activities.”
SCA eventually formed a panel to review the process, reconsider Dubai and make recommendations.
See SCA statement here: http://bit.ly/2xXOqed