World

News11 December 2025

INCB statement for Human Rights Day 2025

The INCB warns against extrajudicial responses to drug offences and calls for rights-based, proportionate, and health-focused drug control.

News11 December 2025

WHO rejects request from Bolivia and Colombia to remove the coca leaf from list of most-persecuted substances

By recommending that coca remain in the most restrictive category, the WHO has reinforced a decades-old, colonial classification that undermines scientific research and Indigenous rights.

Blog10 December 2025

A lost five years? New leadership on the horizon as Ghada Waly departs UNODC

Ghada Waly’s quiet exit masks the loud problems consuming UNODC, heightening the urgency for new leadership to reset the agency’s course.

News8 December 2025

A critical failure of a system still mired in the past - IDPC joint statement at the CND Reconvened 68th Session

By ignoring Indigenous knowledge and human rights impacts, the coca leaf review reveals a system unable —or unwilling— to shed colonial bias.

News3 December 2025

World leaders pledge $11 billion to fight AIDS, malaria and TB, short of target

Amid shrinking global health budgets, the Global Fund secured $11.34 billion—well under its $18 billion goal—to continue the fight against AIDS, TB and malaria.

Publications3 December 2025

Global State of Harm Reduction: 2025 update to key data

Harm Reduction International discusses a 'global paradox' in which growing policy recognition and community resilience collide with devastating funding cuts that now threaten decades of harm reduction progress.

Press Releases2 December 2025

WHO upholds coca leaf ban, defying evidence and ignoring Indigenous rights

Despite clear evidence and contravening Indigenous rights, WHO recommends the harshest scheduling for the coca leaf, upholding racist and colonial underpinnings of its ban.

Publications1 December 2025

Overcoming disruption, transforming the AIDS response - 2025 World AIDS Day report

UNAIDS examines the threats facing the HIV response, including funding cuts, rising criminalisation, and growing gender-based violence, urging bold action to safeguard progress and build sustainable, community-led systems of care.

Events

The ‘narcoterrorism’ threat: Exploring avenues to uphold human rights amidst a new 'war on drugs'

Online

9 December 2025

As the 'narcoterrorism' rhetoric is weaponised to intensify the 'war on drugs', this event explores its human rights consequences and the mechanisms needed to ensure accountability and protect international law.

Publications14 November 2025

Report of the Special Rapporteur: Collective action and human solidarity facing an existential threat

Romero outlines how the dismantling of global aid and civic participation pathways poses an existential threat to the UN's goals of rights-based governance.

Events

Rethinking coca: Indigenous knowledge, science, and international drug policy

Vienna, Austria

3 December 2025

Join researchers, policymakers and Andean community voices at CEU Vienna to explore coca’s cultural, scientific and political dimensions — and what the WHO’s review means for global drug governance.

Publications3 November 2025

Neo‑colonialism and financing for the war on drugs: a review of current policy and recommendations for countries in the global north

Daniels et al. explore how financing, technical aid, and corporate interests perpetuate neo-colonial power through drug control, calling to dismantle these systems in favour of rights-based reform.

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