58th Human Rights Council: Drug policy highlights
Between 24 February and 4 April 2025, the Human Rights Council held its 58th session. This briefing highlights key debates, decisions, and documents in which drug control and its impact on human rights were analysed and addressed.
BIENNIAL HIGH-LEVEL PANEL ON DEATH PENALTY
This high-level panel analysed the contribution of the judiciary to the advancement of human rights and the question of the death penalty. Providing examples of good practices, the panel explored how the judiciary has contributed to reducing the application of the death penalty and discussed how the Council and its mechanisms can support states to abide by their international human rights obligations regarding the death penalty.
There was consensus among the speakers about the incompatibility of the death penalty with human dignity and rights and about the key role that the judiciary can play in limiting the use of the death penalty as a key step towards abolition. In his opening remarks, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, expressed his concern over the surge in executions over the years, largely driven by drug offences, and urged states that have yet to adopt a moratorium on capital punishment to take decisive steps toward its full abolition. Türk also encouraged members of the judiciary to “redouble their efforts towards abolition of the death penalty in practice, by using their discretion to impose alternative sentences.”
Panellist Ramkarpal Singh (member of parliament and former Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department of Malaysia) provided insights into the 2023 legal reform that resorted to judicial discretion in death penalty cases, and the resentencing of people on death row (most of whom were convicted for drug offences). After the reviewing process, 860 out of 936 resentencing applications were approved, including all drug-related cases, with death sentences replaced by imprisonment and whipping.
The panel discussion was followed by an interactive dialogue. The majority of member states recognised the crucial role of the judiciary in upholding human rights and limiting the use of capital punishment. Delegations from Australia, Belgium (on behalf of the Death Penalty Core group), European Union, Iceland (on behalf of Nordic Baltic countries), Sierra Leone, among others, expressed their concern for the use of the death penalty in cases that do not meet the legal threshold of most serious crimes; including drug crimes. Malaysia reaffirmed its commitment to ensuring the implementation of safeguards in capital cases in line with human rights obligations.
Civil society made valuable contributions, including HRI, which emphasised that drug offences are driving executions globally and that drug policy reform is instrumental to achieving total abolition of the death penalty. HRI expressed concern over drug control laws restricting judicial discretion by prescribing mandatory death sentences or legal presumptions; and called for a coordinated international response to halt executions, promote moratoria on capital punishment for drug offenses, and protect civil society’s role in the reform.