Collapse of the Global Order on Drugs

From UNGASS 2016 to Review 2019

Axel Klein, Blaine Stothard, Axel Klein, Blaine Stothard, Blaine Stothard, Alex Klein

• Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781787564893
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Public Health, Administration & Care

This book describes the events, activities and negotiations leading up to the 2016 UN General Assembly Special Session on international drug policy. A range of respected authors from International institutions, academia and civil society organisations detail the background to the negotiations and the outcome; and possible future scenarios for continued reform and change at the High Level Review in 2019. The chapters include consideration of the positions taken by blocs and nation-states at all points on the prohibition – reform continuum. Topics covered include discussions on the importance of human rights, access to essential medicines and the role played by cannabis in revealing the contradictions and divisions in both national and international contexts. The break-down of the previous international consensus on 'the world drug problem' is clearly described and analysed, as is the slow progress being made to the adoption of a human rights and health-based approach to currently illegal drugs. Consideration is also given to the nations and arguments which continue to defend prohibition and its repressive impacts on national populations, and the prioritising of geo-politics over population health this represents in practice. There are lessons and examples here for international politics and national policy reform.

Chapter 1

The 2016 UNGASS on Drugs: A Catalyst for the Drug Policy Reform Movement

Ann Fordham and Heather Haase

Abstract

This chapter reviews the history of civil society engagement on drug policy at the UN. Despite the challenging beginnings characterised by small numbers of civil society attendees at the Commission on Narcotic Drugs, coupled with government mistrust, in the last two decades, civil society representatives have made visible progress in advocating for policy reform and changing the terms of the debate.

Efforts by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in the lead up to, as well as during the 2016 United Nations General Assembly Special Session on Drugs (UNGASS), best illustrate this increase in impact and engagement. Reform-orientated civil society strategised heavily on how to bring ‘comprehensive, diverse, balanced, and inclusive’ representation to the UNGASS and achieved this through the Civil Society Task Force, which was carefully balanced in terms of geographic, gender and ideological diversity, and included nine representatives from affected populations, including people who use drugs, people in recovery from drug use disorders, families, youth, farmers of crops deemed illicit, harm reduction, prevention, access to controlled medicines and criminal justice.

The 2016 UNGASS saw the fruition of greater civil society engagement. Eleven speakers were chosen to speak in the forum showcasing the calibre and diversity of civil society representatives. They made powerful, at times poignant statements and pleas for better, more compassionate treatment of people who use drugs, farmers of crops deemed illicit, as well as respect for human rights, sustainable livelihoods and the need to approach the issue through a public health and human rights lens.

The chapter concludes with the finding that reform-orientated civil society had a significant impact on the UNGASS – both on the gains in the Outcome Document and at the actual event, while noting that the most impactful ways to influence has nonetheless been through reform advocacy efforts outside of the official civil society mechanisms. Civil society engagement remains a serious challenge. International solidarity and global networking remain a central part of the drug policy reform movement’s strategy to advocate for change at the national, regional and global levels.

Keywords: Civil society participation; drug policy reform; UN General Assembly Special Session on Drugs 2016; harm reduction; networking; decriminalisation

The History of Civil Society Engagement on Drug Policy at the UN Leading up to UNGASS 2016

Historic Resistance to Civil Society Engagement in Drug Policy

Globally, drug control is highly centralised, and the international regime exerts a great deal of normative pressure on national and regional drug policies. Narrow interpretations of the UN drug control treaties are often presented by the UN drug control bodies and national governments opposed to reform to justify continuing repressive responses and to stifle reform attempts (e.g., harm reduction, decriminalisation or cannabis regulation).

Civil society has played a role in international drug control since it was debated under the League of Nations and has been critical in shaping the trajectory of policy developments (Bruun, Pan, & Rexed, 1975).¹ Despite the limited space for engagement, civil society representatives have been attending Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) meetings almost since the meetings began in 1947, albeit initially in quite small numbers. At the 9th session of the CND in 1954, six non-governmental organisations (NGOs) attended,² in 1964 only two, in 1976 there were eight and in 1981 six attended (Economic and Social Council of the United Nations (ECOSOC), 1964, 1976, 1981). Regular participants were the International Criminal Police Organisation and the International Federation of Women Lawyers – in some of the early years they were the only two NGOS represented.

Governments have not always welcomed civil society engagement on this issue at the national level or the United Nations, because drug control is seen as a sensitive area of policy making strongly linked to other agendas such as national security, terrorism or insurgency.

The International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC, 2008) noted that many member states still spoke out against civil society participation at the CND and that ‘NGOs are still largely assumed to have suspicious intentions, and are simplistically viewed through the prism of whether they are “liberal” or “prohibitionist”’.

In the very early days, civil society groups that were active at the UN comprised NGOs calling for greater controls (from the temperance or anti-opium movements) and representatives from industry and commerce that sought to limit controls (Bruun et al., 1975). The composition of NGOs attending the CND has changed dramatically in the last two decades, with the emergence of advocacy groups calling for policy reform, upholding human rights, ensuring the centrality of public health, promoting just and proportionate criminal justice responses and highlighting structural elements such as socio-economic pre-determinants of low-level engagement in the drug trade. Much of this progress is visible in the debates and Outcome Document of the 2016 UNGASS and as such, it is critical to take account of the important role played by civil society organisations in changing the terms of the debate.

Civil Society Engagement in Vienna from the Early 1990s

The main seat of drug policy at the UN is in Vienna, where the UN bodies with the lead responsibilities for drugs are housed – the CND, the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), collectively known as ‘the Vienna Institutions’. The CND, as a Functional Commission of the ECOSOC, has to engage NGOs in its work, however the space provided for participation has previously been severely limited (Cook, 2009), although this situation has improved in recent years. At regular sessions of the CND meetings, NGOs have to wait until the end of each agenda item after all the government statements and interventions before being given the floor. NGO representatives have sometimes been ejected from the Committee of the Whole (COW) and there have been instances of security confiscating NGO publications. The provision of formal spaces for NGOs to interact with UN and government officials was also previously very limited.

To improve civil society participation at the CND, the Vienna NGO Committee on Drugs (VNGOC) was founded in 1983, and the New York NGO Committee (NYNGOC) the following year. In 1984, 28 NGOs attended the CND (ECOSOC, 1984).³ Numbers remained at this level for several years with 27 NGOs in 1988 and 28 in 1996 (ECOSOC, 1988, 1996a). In the PrepCom of the 1998 UNGASS at the 39th CND session, 25 NGOs attended (ECOSOC, 1996b). Regular NGO attendees during the 1980s and 1990s included the International Council of Women, International Council on Alcohol and Addictions, General Arab Women Federation, the International Association of Lions Clubs −Lions Club International, International Federation of University Women and the World Organisation of the Scout Movement. While participation remained steady for the next decade, there was a clear shift in the composition of civil society groups in attendance in the early 2000s. In 2003, Open Society Foundations appeared on the participants list and in 2005 (ECOSOC, 2003, 2005), Human Rights Watch attended the CND for the first time − both organisations and other civil society representatives had attended previously under different ECOSOC badges.

The first resolution on civil society participation, adopted in 2011 at the 54th session of the CND, was arguably the most contentious that year. Though China and Russia in particular succeeded in watering down the final text, it was still a critical milestone. The first informal Civil Society Hearing took place at the CND the following year. Since 2008 there have also been informal ‘dialogues’ between senior officials and civil society, kicking off with a meeting with the previous Executive Director of the UNODC, Antonio Maria Costa – although he made derogatory remarks about reform-orientated NGOs (IDPC, 2008), whom he would often refer to as the ‘pro-drug lobby’ (Easton, 2009). A different tone was taken by his successor, Yury Fedotov, who although not exactly friendly towards civil society, particularly reform NGOs, was professional and courteous. There has been a marked improvement in how civil society is received in Vienna under Mr Fedotov’s tenure. For example, to make the debates at thematic sessions and intersessionals⁴ more interactive, NGOs interventions are now interspersed between the statements from the member states, and many of the sessions are also now webcast.

The 1998 UNGASS: A Crucial Starting Point for Broader Civil Society Mobilisation

The policy positions of civil society organisations attending the CND meetings today range from those advocating for a drug-free world, proponents of harm reduction and decriminalisation and those calling for the full legal regulation of all drugs. There is much nuance in between these positions and a diverse range of organisations, including those working on human rights, criminal justice reform and palliative care or HIV/AIDS.

This is a relatively recent development, because until the mid-1990s, most NGOs were focussed on ‘demand reduction’ efforts,⁵ such as drug prevention, treatment and rehabilitation, towards the goal of achieving a drug-free world. Then in 1996, two years before the UNGASS on drugs in June that had been initiated by Mexico, the Transnational Institute (TNI, 1998) joined the only other ‘reform-orientated’ group at the VNGOC – the Transnational Radical Party (Jelsma, 2005). Forming the International Coalition of NGOs led by the European Coalition of NGOs, they submitted a ‘draft manifesto’ calling on member states to revise punitive and damaging drug policies at the 1998 UNGASS (European Coalition for Just and Effective Drug Policies (ENCOD), 2007).

With the tentative support of some member states (TNI, 1998), ECOSOC-accredited NGOs were able to observe all the preparatory meetings in Vienna, and the UNGASS itself in New York. Space was given for six civil society interventions from the floor during the formal proceedings in the COW, including a representative from the ‘producers’ and one from the ‘consumers’. These two powerful and critical interventions made by representatives from these affected ‘communities’ from the two opposite ends of the drug market were considered to be an important achievement for the reform groups in 1998. Their statements brought the realities of failing and disastrous policies momentarily to the fore. It was ‘a clear moment when the hypocrisy of the event became briefly apparent and perceptible, even to the ones who were running the show’ (ENCOD, 1998).

Civil society rep...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Introduction
• Chapter 1. The 2016 UNGASS on Drugs: A Catalyst for the Drug Policy Reform Movement
• Chapter 2. The Death Penalty for Drug Offences: Pulling Back the Curtain to Expose a Flawed Regime
• Chapter 3. Measuring the ‘World Drug Problem’: 2019 and Beyond
• Chapter 4. Improving Access to Internationally Controlled Essential Medicines in the Post-UNGASS, Agenda 2030 Framework
• Chapter 5. The Elephant in the Room: Cannabis in the International Drug Control Regime
• Chapter 6. Drug Policy in the Russian Federation: Do Control Policies Produce More Harm than Drugs?
• Chapter 7. Consensus and Contradictions in Asean: An Analysis of Southeast Asia At and After UNGASS 2016
• Chapter 8. Deconstructing the Islamic Bloc: The Middle East and North Africa and Pluralistic Drugs Policy
• Chapter 9. Breaking Ranks: Pioneering Drug Policy Protagonism in Uruguay and Bolivia
• Chapter 10. The Netherlands, Portugal and the Czech Republic: Political Perceptions and Legal Realities
• Chapter 11. The European Union in Panglossian Stagnation
• Chapter 12. United States Drug Policy: Flexible Prohibition and Regulation
• Chapter 13. West Africa
• Chapter 14. Switzerland: Moving Towards Public Health and Harm Reduction
• Chapter 15. Epilogue
• Index