Reforming drug policies is essential to end human rights violations - IDPC statement at the 57th session of the Human Rights Council

57th session of the Human Rights Council (September-October 2024)
Agenda item 3 (General Debate)
Statement delivered by the International Drug Policy Consortium

Mister President,

This statement is made jointly by IDPC and three other organisations. We welcome report A/HRC/57/85 summarising the intersessional panel discussion on human rights challenges in addressing and countering all aspects of the world drug problem.

The OHCHR report, as well as the panel, highlighted the pervasive and systematic human rights abuses committed in the name of drug control, including the ongoing use of the death penalty, extrajudicial killings, arbitrary detention, criminalisation, mass incarceration, militarised eradication campaigns, and lack of access to life-saving harm reduction services and essential medicines, fuelling the HIV epidemic and largely contributing to the catastrophic rise in overdose deaths.

The panel also drew attention to positive developments in drug policy, including moves to abolish the death penalty for drug offences, decriminalisation, and scaling up of harm reduction services, in various regions of the world.

But much remains to be done to align drug policies with human rights.

We call on the Human Rights Council, and the High Commissioner for Human Rights, to engage more systematically in drug policy debates, to continue to raise awareness of the human rights implications of drug control, and to provide key recommendations to policy makers on much-needed reforms. In this regard, we urge you to consider mandating the OHCHR with regular reporting on this issue, or creating a new Special Procedure dedicated to drug policy.

Thank you very much for your attention.

Co-signatories:

• Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales
• Dianova International
• Harm Reduction International