Each year, RightsCon convenes business leaders, policy makers, general counsels, government representatives, technologists, academics, journalists, and human rights advocates from around the world to tackle pressing issues at the intersection of human rights and technology. In engaging fireside chats, hands-on workshops, strategic roundtables, private meetings, and a lively exhibition space, RightsCon is where a global movement comes together to build strategies and drive forward change toward a more free, open, and connected digital world.

Over the past 12 years, RightsCon has rotated to key hubs around the world, including San José, Tunis, Toronto, Brussels, Rio de Janeiro, Manila, and San Francisco, and grown, both in size and in scope to meet the evolving needs of a movement.

For its 13th edition, we’re excited to host RightsCon 2025 in Taipei and online from February 24 to 27. As a leading democracy in the region, Taiwan is recognized globally for the freest online environment and greatest human freedom in Asia, a whole-of-society approach to human rights, and a vibrant civil society community. As the routine location of large-scale international events, coupled with the rapidly growing presence of international NGOs and global tech companies, we look forward to hosting our first summit in East Asia in Taipei and returning to the Asia Pacific region after a decade.

RightsCon 2025: Taipei

Thursday, 27 February 2024 / 14:00 - 15:00 (London) - 

The tenth edition of the IDPC webinar on the regular session of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) focuses on its 

, which will take place in Vienna from 10-14 March 2025.

The webinar will shed light the key issues that are likely to structure the debates, discuss tabled resolutions and opportunities for engagement, and showcase the experience of IDPC network members in navigating and leveraging this forum for political advocacy.

This event will be available in English, Spanish and French.

 (International Drug Policy Consortium - IDPC).

CND 68: Key issues and opportunities

Tuesday, 18 February / 14:00 - 15:30 (Indonesia)

What next for drug decriminalisation in Asia?


Join community and civil society advocates as they discuss recent developments, advances, and setbacks in drug decriminalisation efforts across Canada, Portugal, and Australia. The webinar will explore key advocacy strategies and implications for humane drug policies in Asia.

 – Policy Director, Canadian Drug Policy Coalition (

 – Executive Team Member, European Network of People who Use Drugs

 – Executive Director, Canberra Alliance for Harm Minimisation & Advocacy (CAHMA); President, Australian Injecting and Illicit Drug Users League (AIVL)

 – Human Rights Lawyer, Lawyers Collective, India

 – Asia Programme Officer, International Drug Policy Consortium

Interpretation available in Thai and Indonesian

Drugs and decriminalisation in Asia: Global updates on drug decriminalisation

The 68th session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) will take place at the Vienna International Centre (VIC) between 10-14 March 2025. For general information on the CND, check out the dedicated section of our website on 

Vienna NGO Committee's (VNGOC) Guide for Participants

, which will take place in Vienna from 10-14 March 2025. The webinar will shed light the key issues that are likely to structure the debates, discuss tabled resolutions and opportunities for engagement, and showcase the experience of IDPC network members in navigating and leveraging this forum for political advocacy. 

All applications must be fully completed to be considered, and requests will be processed in the order they are received, with Member States given priority. 

Side events can be held in person, hybrid, or online, with limited technical support available. 

There is no interpretation provided, and organisers are expected to manage their own event logistics. 

Time slots for side events are as follows: 

Morning sessions (Tuesday to Friday: 10-11am, 11.30am-12.30pm)

Afternoon: sessions (Monday to Thursday: 1-2pm, 3-4pm, 4.30-5.30pm).

The Vienna NGO Committee (VNGOC) is planning to arrange Informal Dialogues with the Executive Director of UNODC, the President of INCB, the Chair of CND , representatives of WHO and representatives of other UN agencies (UNAIDS,OHCHR and UNDP) in the margins of the 68th CND (10-14 March in Vienna).

In preparation for the meetings and to ensure the best possible results for all participants, the VNGOC asks you to send specific questions you would like to have addressed in the dialogues.

Organisations can submit one question per dialogue. Please note that due to the limited time available, not all questions received will be addressed during the dialogues

Deadline for the submission of questions:

68th session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND)

Tuesday, 22 April 2025 / 13:00 - 14:30 (London time - Check here for other time-zones).

: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_iTZ2PohuRKG5ESpqaafgkA 

Join us for a debrief session on the 68th session of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) to discuss progress, gridlocks and potential ways forward for the UN drug control regime.

CND68 and drug policy reform: Unpacking key implications

The Harm Reduction International Conference 2025 (HR25) will be held in Bogotá, Colombia on 27-30 April 2025.

In October 2023, Colombia’s new government announced a bold new drug policy that broke away from the war on drugs. It focussed on opportunity and justice.

Among other things the new policy looked to: prevent deforestation linked to drug trafficking; help transition small farmers to the legal economy; and tackle drug use with a focus on public health and human rights.

The Harm Reduction International Conference is going to Colombia to support a country that is taking the leap towards a new paradigm and to learn from the country and region.

Harm Reduction International Conference 2025

The 18th annual ISSDP conference 11-13 June 2025, hosted by the Drugs, Policy, and Social Change (DPSC) research group at Manchester Metropolitan University, envisions a transformative dialogue on drug policy grounded in social justice. Our aim is to foster an inclusive platform where diverse voices from affected communities, practitioners, and policymakers converge to explore and address the complexities of drug policy processes and formation.

Social justice is important in drug policy to ensure that policies are fair, equitable, and inclusive, addressing the needs of all individuals, especially marginalised and vulnerable populations. Drug policy consistently shows that the most marginalised are disproportionately impacted and that many new reforms either exacerbate gaps or fail to reduce these gaps. Novel ways of thinking about how to improve social justice in drug policy is thus a key focus for this conference.

With ISSDP’s primary focus on connecting and facilitating world-leading drug policy research, the conference will also highlight novel methodological approaches to analysing drug policy and a broad range of scholarship across the drug market, incorporating use, supply, cultivation/production and trafficking as well as other sub-themes (see below).

The conference invites contributions from scholars from the Global North and the Global South. By doing so, it aims to promote a comprehensive understanding of drug policy issues worldwide and identifying ways to advance drug policy and practice.

18th Annual Conference of the International Society for the Study of Drug Policy (ISSDP)

Angela McBride, Executive Director at South African Network of People Who Use Drugs

Dr. Andrew Scheibe, Technical Advisor, TB HIV Care, Researcher, University of Pretoria.

We are thrilled to invite you to INHSU 2025, which will take place in our vibrant home city of Cape Town, South Africa. It marks INHSU’s first return to South Africa since a satellite conference—INHSU Africa—was held here in 2020, just before COVID-19. It was a pivotal moment for our community, and bringing the main conference here in 2025 will be a platform for the continued strengthening of community-led networks in the region on both local and national levels. It’s also a testament to INHSU’s continued growth into a global platform that meaningfully involves people who use drugs, with an increasing focus on representatives from Africa.

13th International Conference on Health and Hepatitis in Substance Users (INSHU 2025)

Reform Drug Policy. Join us in Detroit. #Reform2025

The Reform Conference is the premier gathering of the growing and dynamic drug policy reform movement. Every other year, the 

 hosts this event, bringing together people working on the full range of drug policy issues from across the United States and around the world to listen, learn, and strategize. In 2025, the conference will take place in Detroit, Michigan from November 12-15.

The International Drug Policy Reform Conference took place October 18-21, 2023, in Phoenix, Arizona. Attendees spent three days building community with people committed to finding alternatives to the war on drugs while participating in sessions given by leading experts from around the world. More than 1,500 attendees representing over 50 countries joined us!

 and to strategize and mobilize reform with you in 2023.

We strategized, built community, and organized around:

Decriminalizing Drugs and Building Health-Based Alternatives

Ensuring Our Systems Help, Not Hurt by Uprooting the Drug War from Our Daily Lives

Reinvesting Resources into Communities and Divesting from Punitive Police Responses

Rethinking and Reducing Punishment of People in the Drug Trade

Legalizing and Regulating Drugs the Right Way

 to see programs and videos from previous years.

Events