The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) was founded as an international non-governmental organisation in 1999 on the initiative of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in the wake of the doping scandal during the 1998 Tour de France. The current version of the World Anti-Doping Code came into force on January 1, 2021. An anti-doping rule violation under Article 2.1 is the presence of a "Prohibited Substance or its Metabolites or Markers in an Athlete’s Sample". For the purposes of establishing such a violation, it is immaterial whether the athlete knowingly, intentionally, culpably or negligently ingested the detected prohibited substance. Article 2.2 states accordingly that an attempt to use a prohibited substance or method constitutes an anti-doping rule violation. The question of whether an improvement in performance was actually achieved is therefore as irrelevant to the existence of an anti-doping violation as the question of whether the athlete is at fault. Article 2.6 accordingly states that even the possession of a prohibited substance or method is already considered an anti-doping rule violation. Other types of violations are those where an athlete fails to comply with their reporting requirements or otherwise evades testing.

WADA presents the anti-doping test results obtained worldwide since 2013 in four different overviews. One breaks down the data by the laboratories that conducted analyses, one by the anti-doping organizations that ordered the tests, and one by sport. The fourth overview refers specifically to the blood samples collected for the so-called Athlete Biological Passport (ABP). The following report compiles all four overviews (Laboratory Report, Sport Report, Testing Authority Report and the ABP Report).

The World Anti-Doping Code is supplemented by so-called "International Standards", which contain, among other things, detailed rules for conducting doping tests, analyzing doping samples and granting medical exemptions. These Standards include an annually updated Prohibited List, which lists the substances and methods whose use constitutes an anti-doping rule violation. The National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) (cf. module on National Anti-Doping Agency) provides German translations of the Prohibited List and other international standards. The system of the WADA Prohibited List distinguishes between substances and methods that are prohibited at all times and those that are only prohibited in competition. There are also substances and methods for which a ban applies only in certain sports. The classes of substances that are prohibited at all times include, for example, anabolic steroids and other endocrine disrupters. Stimulants and (because of their pain-suppressing effect) certain narcotics are only prohibited in competition. The methods prohibited at all times include various manipulations of blood (so-called "blood doping") and gene doping (cf. module on Gene doping) as well as methods which, although they do not increase performance, can prevent the detection of doping violations.