Inter se Modification of the UN Drug Control Conventions (original) (raw)
Related papers
Cannabis regulation and the UN drug treaties. Strategies for reform
2016
This report which was compiled by a group of experts in the United States, Mexico, the Netherlands, Canada, and the United Kingdom, makes clear that the problem is not that countries are pursuing reforms to legally regulate cannabis, but rather the antiquated drug treaty provisions that explicitly block such reforms. Overcoming that hurdle, the report argues, does not require a global consensus to re-write the UN drug treaties—an impossible task under current conditions—but can be achieved by procedures available to individual countries and groups of countries under international law.
CANNABIS REGULATION AND THE UN DRUG TREATIES Strategies for Reform APRIL 2016
2016
As jurisdictions enact reforms creating legal access to cannabis for purposes other than exclusively “medical and scientific,” tensions surrounding the existing UN drug treaties and evolving law and practice in Member States continue to grow. These treaty tensions have become the “elephant in the room” in key high-level forums, including the 2016 United Nations General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on drugs — obviously present, but studiously ignored.
The cannabis plant has been used for spiritual, medicinal and recreational purposes since the early days of civilization. In this report the Transnational Institute and the Global Drug Policy Observatory describe in detail the history of international control and how cannabis was included in the current UN drug control system. An increasing number of countries have shown discomfort with the treaty regime’s strictures through soft defections, stretching its legal flexibility to sometimes questionable limits. Today’s political reality of regulated cannabis markets in Uruguay, Washington and Colorado operating at odds with the UN conventions puts the discussion about options for reform of the global drug control regime on the table.
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.
FAAAT editions, 2022
In the current legal landscape, it is possible to craft policy that combats drug abuse and drug harms, protects human rights, and complies with international drug control law in good faith, by regulating the recreational uses of cannabis products rather than outlawing them. This essay proposes exactly that solution. The international drug control Conventions establish the international legal regime for cannabis, but they are silent on “recreational” or “adult use.” However, they do include broad exemptions in the case of “other than medical and scientific uses in the context of industry.” They are not prohibition treaties, but Framework Conventions on the Control of Some Medicines within the Medical and Pharmaceutical Sectors. Shortcomings in the history of the drug control Conventions, and the current hegemony of one particular interpretation (articulated around prohibition), may have impacted our interpretive frames and discouraged legal scholarship from the study of these exemptions for non-medical uses, purposefully added in the treaty. Via an applicatory contestation of the Conventions reliant on classical methods of treaty interpretation, this essay underlines the relevance of these exemptions in the context of domestic “cannabis legalization” efforts. The legal scheme which applies to the Cannabis plant and its derivatives is two-fold: (1) activities related to medical and scientific purposes are under control, (2) activities for “other than medical and scientific purposes” are exempt from control, provided that two requirements are met: implement effective measures to avoid harms & provide reasonable statistical reporting to the INCB. This existing, good faith, legitimate international legal regime for adult-use cannabis opens an alternative pathway for decision-makers, appeasing rule tension and rerouting international relations on Cannabis matters onto less conflictual tracks.
Challenging the UN drug control conventions: problems and possibilities
International Journal of Drug Policy, 2003
Increasing numbers of sovereign states are beginning to review their stance on the prohibition based UN drug control conventions. Recent years have seen nations implement, or seriously discuss, tolerant drug policies that exploit the latitude existing within the legal framework of the global drug control regime. With efforts to implement pragmatic approaches to drug use at the national level, however, comes the growing recognition that the flexibility of the conventions is not unlimited. It seems that the time is not too distant when further movement within states away from the prohibitive paradigm will only be possible through some sort of change in or defection from the regime. This article suggests that efforts to implement treaty revision are fraught with difficulties. It will be shown how the UN procedures permitting revision of the conventions allow nations supporting the current prohibition based system, particularly the United States of America, to easily block change. The article argues that such systemic obstacles may lead parties wishing to appreciably expand policy space at a national level to consider a form of treaty withdrawal. It is suggested that such action by a group of like-minded revision oriented states may be sufficient to trigger a weakening of the regime. The article contends, however, that total withdrawal would be a problematic option, not least because it would have serious consequences for the entire international treaty system.
The Rise and Decline of Cannabis Prohibition
2014
The cannabis plant has been used for spiritual, medicinal and recreational purposes since the early days of civilization. In this report the Transnational Institute and the Global Drug Policy Observatory describe in detail the history of international control and how cannabis was included in the current UN drug control system. Cannabis was condemned by the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs as a psychoactive drug with “particularly dangerous properties” and hardly any therapeutic value. Ever since, an increasing number of countries have shown discomfort with the treaty regime’s strictures through soft defections, stretching its legal flexibility to sometimes questionable limits. Today’s political reality of regulated cannabis markets in Uruguay, Washington and Colorado operating at odds with the UN conventions puts the discussion about options for reform of the global drug control regime on the table. Now that the cracks in the Vienna consensus have reached the point of treaty breach, this discussion is no longer a reformist fantasy. Easy options, however, do not exist; they all entail procedural complications and political obstacles. A coordinated initiative by a group of like-minded countries agreeing to assess possible routes and deciding on a road map for the future seems the most likely scenario for moving forward. There are good reasons to question the treaty-imposed prohibition model for cannabis control. Not only is the original inclusion of cannabis within the current framework the result of dubious procedures, but the understanding of the drug itself, the dynamics of illicit markets, and the unintended consequences of repressive drug control strategies has increased enormously. The prohibitive model has failed to have any sustained impact in reducing the market, while imposing heavy burdens upon criminal justice systems; producing profoundly negative social and public health impacts; and creating criminal markets supporting organised crime, violence and corruption. After long accommodating various forms of deviance from its prohibitive ethos, like turning a blind eye to illicit cannabis markets, decriminalisation of possession for personal use, coffeeshops, cannabis social clubs and generous medical marijuana schemes, the regime has now reached a moment of truth. The current policy trend towards legal regulation of the cannabis market as a more promising model for protecting people’s health and safety has changed the drug policy landscape and the terms of the debate. The question facing the international community today is no longer whether or not there is a need to reassess and modernize the UN drug control system, but rather when and how to do it.