HIV AND HUMAN RIGHTS CONSEQUENCES OF THE GLOBAL “ WAR ON DRUGS ” Effects of UN and Russian Influence on Drug Policy in Central Asia (original) (raw)

The UN Drug Control Conventions: The Limits of Latitude

Legislative Reform of Drug Policies, 2012

ABSTRACT Faced with a complex range of drug related problems, a growing number of nations are exploring the development of nationally appropriate policies that shift away from the prohibition-oriented approach that has long dominated the field but is losing more and more legitimacy. In so doing, such countries must pay close attention to the UN based global drug control framework of which practically all nations are a part.This briefing paper outlines the international legal drug control obligations, the room for manoeuvre the regime leaves open to national policy makers and the clear limits of latitude that cannot be crossed without violating the treaties. It also covers the vast grey area lying between the latitude and limitations, including the legal ambiguities that are subject to judicial interpretation and political contestation.The paper applies the traffic light analogy to drug law reform in order to divide ongoing policy changes and emerging proposals into three categories regarding their legal tenability: red - stop or challenge the conventions; orange - proceed with caution; and green - please proceed.The present system of worldwide drug control is based upon three international conventions. These are the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, as amended by the 1972 Protocol, the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances and the 1988 Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances.While the substance of the drug control conventions is complex, their function is simple. They provide the legal structure for an international system of drug control by defining control measures to be maintained within each state party to these conventions and by prescribing rules to be obeyed by these Parties in their relations with each other. These rules can be categorized by two principal methods of achieving drug control. These are commodity control (the definition and regulation of the licit production, supply and consumption of drugs) and penal control (the suppression through criminal law of illicit production, supply and consumption.)The conventions therefore operate with the intention of creating an appropriate balance between penal sanctions, the degree of real and/or potential harm associated with specific drugs and their therapeutic usefulness.The overarching concern for the ‘health and welfare of mankind’ expressed within the conventions’ preambles, required a dual goal: reducing the availability of drugs to prevent abuse and addiction that ‘constitutes a serious evil for the individual and is fraught with social and economic danger to mankind’, while at the same time ensuring adequate availability because their medical use is ‘indispensable for the relief of pain and suffering’.The global control system, established with that twin purpose, effectively ended the large-scale diversion of narcotic drugs like cocaine and heroin from pharmaceutical sources to illicit channels. However, it was unable to prevent the resulting rapid expansion of illicit production that began supplying the non-medical market instead.The tensions resulting from the inherent duality exacerbated as the system evolved based on the implicit principle that reducing availability for illicit purposes could only be achieved through the penal enforcement of predominantly prohibition oriented supply-side measures.The tightening of drug laws, escalation of law enforcement efforts and an actual ‘war on drugs’ against the illicit market, over time distorted the balance at the expense of the other side of the coin.Key Points: Decriminalization of possession, purchase and cultivation for personal use operates reasonably comfortably inside the confines of the UN drug control conventions; Harm reduction services, including drug consumption rooms, can operate lawfully under the drug control treaty system; There is greater scope to provide health care or social support instead of punishment for people caught up in minor offences related to personal use or socio-economic necessity; All controlled drugs can be used for medical purposes, including heroin prescription and ‘medical marijuana’; what constitutes medical use is left to the discretion of the parties; The INCB often increases tensions around interpretations instead of resolving them, though the Board should be guided ‘by a spirit of co-operation rather than by a narrow view of the letter of the law’; There are limits of latitude; a legal regulated market for non-medical use of cannabis or any other scheduled drug is not permissible within the treaty framework; Legal tensions exist with other international legal obligations such as those stemming from human rights or indigenous rights; Growing doubts and inherent inconsistencies and ambiguities provide legitimate ground for demanding more space for experimentation with alternative control models than the current systems allows.

The Case for International Guidelines on Human Rights and Drug Control

This special section of Health and Human Rights Journal examines some of the many ways in which international and domestic drug control laws engage human rights and create an environment of enhanced human rights risk. In this edition, the authors address specific human rights issues such as the right to the highest attainable standard of health (including health protection and promotion measures, as well as access to controlled substances as medicines) and indigenous rights, and how drug control laws affect the protection and fulfillment of these rights. Other authors explore drug control through the lens of cross-cutting human rights themes such as gender and the rights of the child. Together, the contributions illustrate how international guidelines on human rights and drug control could help close the human rights gap—and point the way to drug laws and policies that would respect, protect, and fulfill human rights rather than breach them or impede their full realization. Next year marks the 70th anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the foundational instrument of the modern system of international human rights law, a system now underpinned by nine core UN treaties and multiple regional conventions. The growth of the international human rights regime has provided a critical tool to address the abusive and unaccountable exercise of state power. Multilateral treaties on drug control predate the foundation of international human rights law by several decades. Beginning with the 1912 International Opium Convention and evolving through a series of conventions adopted under the auspices of the League of Nations, drug control was already a well-established subject of international law by the time the UN General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration in 1948, and the first UN drug convention in 1961. 1 The preamble of that treaty, the Single Convention on

Harm Reduction, HIV/AIDS & the Human Rights Challenge to Global Drug Control Policy

Health and Human Rights, 2005

The global HIV/AIDS pandemic, and the role of unsafe drug injection as one of its principal drivers, have added to the list of harms associated with unsafe drug use. HIV/AIDS has highlighted ways in which prohibitionist drug policy causes or contributes to such harms and focused attention on the international regime of illicit drug control. At the same time, HIV/AIDS has catalyzed the “health and human rights movement” to articulate legal and policy responses that both represent sound public health policy and fulfill human rights obligations recognized in international law; this necessarily includes scrutinizing the interpretation and implementation of the UN drug control conventions. This article brings together public health evidence and legal analysis as a contribution toward changing the global drug control regime to a more health-friendly, human rights-based system. https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hhrjournal/wp-content/uploads/sites/2469/2013/07/13-Elliott.pdf https://www.hivlegalnetwork.ca/site/harm-reduction-hivaids-and-the-human-rights-challenge-to-global-drug-control-policy-health-and-human-rights-an-international-journal-vol-8-no-2-2005/?lang=en

Drug Treatment: Legality and Obligation under the International Drug Conventions and Human Rights

Although the three international drug control treaties take a very broad approach to drug treatment, limitations do exist. These are limits of ethics and effectiveness, clarified and refined by human rights law. Thus, although States are not under any direct obligation to implement or prohibit specific treatment modalities, they do need to ensure, under both drug and human rights law, that the treatment options available to drug using individuals are first rights compliant and then effective. Reaching this conclusion involved an analysis of human rights law related to drug treatment and constructive interpretation of the drug treatment articles in the three international drug control treaties. Many human rights standards, instruments and mechanisms are applicable to the topic of drug treatment. It is thus straightforward to identify State obligation, under human rights, as regards this topic. As expected, the human right to health is prominent, along with the rights of prisoners and children - particularly vulnerable groups in relation to drug treatment. Although the drug conventions are broad when referring to treatment - to allow for future develop- ments in medicine, among other things - standards could be identified which limit the flexibility of States regarding drug treatment approaches. In both cases, international human rights and international drug law, rights compliance and efficacy emerged as the most appropriate tests of State obligation regarding drug treatment. These tests should be applied to all currently implemented and potential drug treatment options, in order to ensure that obligations under both human rights and drug law are respected. A test of rights compliance should be applied first to a drug treatment approach, followed by a test of efficacy. A drug treatment programme which is effective but not rights compliant is still not appropriate under the human rights and drug control regimes. The practicality of these tests, and thus the usefulness of human rights in drug policy discussions, is further demonstrated via their successful application to opiate substitution therapy (OST) and compulsory treatment. OST is found to be both rights compliant end effective under these tests, and thus also under human rights law and the international drug conventions. Compulsory drug treatment is only rights compliant in very rare and temporary circumstances, but quasi-compulsory treatment (QCT) - for example, drug courts where individuals choose drug treatment as their only alternative to penal sanctions - is rights compliant in more cases. It was thus concluded that only when these specific, rights respecting criteria were met would QCT be appropriate. Following that assurance, the resulting drug treatment should be effective to justify the limitation of the individual’s rights through coercion.

Heroin-Assisted Treatment and the United Nations international drug control apparatus

2021

• There is now a powerful evidence base for heroin-assisted treatment (HAT). In view of the present epidemic of drug-related mortality, the treatment should have a more significant role in public health policy. • Much research concerning the impact of the international drug control regime on the implementation of harm reduction interventions by member states attributes an often 'chilling' role of the guardian of the UN drug control conventions, the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB or Board) • Interviews with former health officials from countries that pioneered the trialling of HAT in the 1990s revealed that while some felt that the INCB sought to act as a break on the intervention, others believed that-although the Board was generally hostile to new policy interventions-its stance on HAT was relatively neutral. • In recent years, the INCB has undergone a shift in tone and outlook regarding HAT, changes that took place particularly under the leadership of Werner Sipp. • However, the UN drug control system, including the World Health Organisation, has in general been lukewarm at best in its support for HAT. • The most realistic and promising appraisal of HAT came in the UN System Report of 2019, which directly backed the use of HAT. • The INCB has clearly long been hostile to drug policy innovation and has carried this over into its attitudes to HAT. Yet, while the influence of the Board is complex, it is likely that national governments themselves are the main source of reluctance in making use of this intervention.