18 September 2024
4th Brandenburg Forum in Geneva: Towards transformative change in human rights-based drug policy - Meeting report
The 4th Brandenburg Forum in Geneva took place on 10th and 11th June 2024 at the historic retreat of the Château de Bossey, approximately 30 minutes outside of Geneva, Switzerland. The Forum was once again organised by the Swiss Confederation, the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), the Office of the Commissioner of the German Federal Government for Drug and Addiction Policy, the Government of the Netherlands, the Norwegian Ministry of Health and Care Services, the Transnational Institute (TNI), and the International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC).
The meeting is part of a long-running series of events and deliverables under the framework of the Global Partnership on Drug Policies and Development (GPDPD) – which is implemented by GIZ on behalf of BMZ. The main Brandenburg Forums have been held in Germany on an annual basis since 2016, with additional Geneva events held since 2021. These Forums seek to provide a unique opportunity for invited government and United Nations (UN) officials to convene alongside academic, civil society and community experts. In order to create a safe space for participants to discuss complex ideas and strategies, the Forums are held under the ‘Chatham House Rule’, which states that anyone can use the information received, but the identity of those making interventions should not be revealed.
The 4th Brandenburg Forum in Geneva was attended by 43 participants, and brought together government representatives from Australia, Bolivia, Colombia, Czechia, Germany, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland and the USA – as well as officials from the European Union, the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD), the World Health Organization (WHO), and several representatives from civil society organisations and academia.
