International Centre on Human Rights and Drug Policy (ICHRDP)

Article 33 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) is an important international legal instrument that obligates States Parties to protect children and youth from involvement with illicit drugs and the drug trade. This article provides  an analysis of the drafting history of article 33 to the evolving interpretations of its terms in the Concluding Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child. It reveals a  clear connection to the right to health as well as a dynamic interpretation of the article by  the Committee. To improve the Committee’s Concluding Observations moving forward, a  General Comment on the article is recommended.

This article analyses the death penalty for drug-related crime in China. It considers the basis upon  which China applies the death penalty for drug-related offences, and the debates surrounding the  imposition of the death penalty for drug-related offences from the perspective of both penology  and human rights. Based on the evidence discerned about China’s current situation, the article discusses the possibility of China abolishing the death penalty for drug-related crime in the future

This article reviews and critiques the International Narcotic Control Board’s (INCB) 2010 Annual Report’s recommendation about plant materials containing psychoactive substances. It first provides an overview of the United Nations drug control system, then contextualises the INCB’s role in the UN system. Through a reading of the text of the INCB’s 2010 Report and references to contemporary
practices of ayahuasca drinking based in fieldwork, the article shows how this Report fits into the international paradigm of the war on drugs and its conflicts with human rights. It is argued that the Board’s recommendation demonstrates an unwarranted attempt to extend the scope of its powers, conflates and thus
misrepresents widely diverse plant materials and their effects, fails to distinguish between ‘use’ and ‘abuse’ of psychoactive substances and appears to assume that particular elements of culture—specifically, traditions involving psychoactive
substance use—are, or should be, static, eternally frozen in time and place.

In the context of international debates about ways to reduce the harms related to the use of illicit drugs and their control, this article explores the specific issue of coerced treatment of people who use drugs. It uses established standards of human  rights and medical ethics to judge whether it is ethical to apply either of two types of coerced treatment (compulsory treatment and quasi-compulsory treatment, or QCT) to any of three groups of drug users (non-problematic users, dependent drug users and drug dependent offenders). It argues that compulsory treatment is
not ethical for any group, as it breaches the standard of informed consent. Quasi-compulsory treatment (i.e. treatment that is offered as an alternative to a punishment that is itself ethically justified) may be ethical (under specified conditions) for drug
dependent offenders who are facing a more restrictive penal sanction, but is not ethical for other people who use drugs. The article also briefly reviews evidence which suggests that QCT may be as effective as voluntary treatment.

After being fought for over half a century, the failure of the global war on drugs is now an open secret. The impossibility of creating a 'drug free world' has been evidenced by history and yet universal prohibition is still the default position of the law regarding drugs. The persistence of prohibition troubles the normative presumptions of the rule of law to be objective, rational and teleological. Whilst showing evidence of the failures of prohibition has been a key driver changing drug policy and laws in many jurisdictions, the mythology of drug laws has been more difficult to dispel and its allure haunts the discourse of the Special Session on Drugs at the United Nations General Assembly in 2016 (UNGASS). This meeting is unlike its predecessor in 1998 for many reasons. Drug policy has changed dramatically over the last 20 years and in multiple ways. This change has been driven largely by local practice, evidence-based policies, and an active and well-organized global civil society. However, there is still, the question of unpacking the ideologies that gave birth to and continue to sustain the 'war on drugs.' That is the question we will engage with at 'Theorising the Drug War.' In this symposium, we aim to expand the scope of research into drug policy by viewing drug prohibition as a contemporary example of the role that ideology continues to play in questions of the law. The purpose of this symposium is to examine this ideology from a multidisciplinary and critical perspective. We invite contributions that use different methodologies and disciplines within the humanities and social sciences (for example, sociology, critical race theory, human rights, critical geography and history, socio-legal studies, disability studies, political theory, security studies, postcolonial and gender studies), and particularly encourage contributions that draw upon the critical theory tradition (Psychoanalysis, Marxism, Post-structuralism, Feminism).