Panel discussion on issues related to the scheduling of substances in accordance with the international drug control conventions and on substantive issues for the special session of the General Assembly on the world drug problem in 2016

2014 ◽  
pp. 75-78
Author(s):  
Keyword(s):  
Panel Discussion ◽  
Drug Control ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
Special Session ◽  
Drug Problem ◽  
The World

UNGASS 2016: Prospects for Treaty Reform and UN System-Wide Coherence on Drug Policy

2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Jelsma
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
Special Session ◽  
Drug Problem ◽  
Regime Changes ◽  
United Nations General ◽  
The World ◽  
United Nations General Assembly ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
Treaty Reform

AbstractThis paper explores key lessons from the 1990 Special Session of the United Nations General Assembly on Drug Abuse (UNGASS 1990) and the 1998 Special Session of the United Nations General Assembly on the World Drug Problem (UNGASS 1998), and tracks subsequent policy events and trends. It discusses the wide array of increasing tensions and cracks in the “Vienna consensus,” as well as systemic challenges and recent treaty breaches. Various options for treaty reform are explored and the following questions are considered: Given policy developments around the world this past decade, what outcomes can the 2016 Special Session of the United Nations General Assembly on the World Drug Problem (UNGASS 2016) have in terms of a new political compromise? How can UNGASS 2016 contribute to more system-wide coherence where previous attempts failed? Can UNGASS 2016 realistically initiate a process of modernizing the global drug control system and breathe oxygen into a system risking asphyxiation? Finally, is there a chance that treaty reform options will be discussed at all, or do today’s political realities still block possible future regime changes?

Global drug control norms will shift

2015 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Drug Users ◽  
Control Policy ◽  
Drug Control ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
Drug Problem ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The World ◽  
Drug Policies ◽  
Un General Assembly

Subject Shift in the global fight against drugs. Significance UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will convene a UN General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on the World Drug Problem in 2016. The last UNGASS on the World Drug Problem was held in 1998. A ten-year review of global drug policies had previously been scheduled for 2019, but insistence by Mexico, Colombia and Nicaragua brought the session forward. Pro-reform countries are pushing to reframe UN drug policy around reducing social and economic harms of drugs, rather than eliminating their use. Impacts UN drug control policy is likely to be re-centred around development, human rights and health, as well as law enforcement. After marijuana legalisation in some states, US authorities may reiterate their call for "flexibility" in interpreting UN drug conventions. Harm reduction programmes that stem HIV/AIDS transmission among injecting drug users will gain increased international acceptance.

The spirit of Vienna: health strategies in managing the world drug problem

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (Supplement_5) ◽  
Author(s):  
D Morais ◽  
M Silva
Keyword(s):  
Control System ◽  
Harm Reduction ◽  
Drug Policy ◽  
International System ◽  
Well Being ◽  
World Health ◽  
Drug Control ◽  
Drug Problem ◽  
The World ◽  
Women Who Use Drugs

Abstract Health sciences have always had a lot of influence in the formulation of drug policies. However, the international system for the control of illicit drugs is distant from the World Health Organization, for example. It was in the name of health and well-being protection that the Single Narcotics Convention (1961) established a ban on drugs as a rule, with the exception of medical and scientific uses. But it was also in the name of a health category, Harm Reduction, that the so-called Vienna consensus began to break in 2009: it is about the global bipolarization around drug policy, locating member states in two groups. Taking strategy as a means designed to achieve a purpose, which updates the position of agents in the International Drug Control System and which operates the renunciation of the other (FOUCAULT, 2001), we ask: what, in the last decade, was their strategy groups of countries in managing the global drug problem? To answer this question, an ethnography of events and documents was carried out, in addition to semi-structured interviews and participant observation. The field research was the 62nd Ministerial Segment of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs (Vienna, 2019), when the last 10 years of drug policy were evaluated and the next decade was planned. Following the Brazilian resolution, created in partnership with Norway, entitled “Promoting measures to prevent transmission of HIV for women who use drugs, including by improving access to post-exposure prophylaxis”, it was possible to observe the effort to maintain that space as a place where health has no voice. Categories such as 'women who use drugs' and 'emergency contraceptives' have been the subject of controversy among diplomats, who have backed down to maintain the already weakened consensus. It is concluded that health is historically used as a strategy for the prohibition of substances, but it can be a tool for changing the paradigm if observed as an instrument in dispute and based on Harm Reduction Key messages Health is the strategy to legitimize drug prohibition, but it can also be the protagonist of the paradigm shift in drug policy if it is anchored in harm reduction. There is an effort to keep the UN's international illicit drug control system out of the health field.

U.N. General Assembly Convenes Special Session on “gender Equality, Development and Peace in the 21”

2000 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 103-116
Keyword(s):  
Gender Equality ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
Special Session ◽  
The World

Five years ago, delegates and NGOs went to Beijing to right wrongs and promote rights. To show the world that when women suffer injustice, we all suffer; that when women are empowered, we are all better off. The conference was a success: the result was the Beijing Platform for Action.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document