The drugs omnibus resolution 2024: The cold war between ‘drug-free world’ and ‘harm reduction’

On Thursday 21st November 2024, after months of negotiations, Member States gathered at the Third Committee of the UN General Assembly to adopt the latest drugs ‘omnibus’ resolution (draft resolution A/C.3/79/L.6/Rev.1).

This omnibus resolution aims to collate and summarise all developments around drugs across the UN system.

Screenshot from UN Web TV live streaming of adoption of the drugs omnibus resolution

The pressure was high as, two years ago, the adoption of the previous drugs omnibus resolution (Resolution 77/238) had been mired in diplomatic tensions. At the time, Mexico - the ‘penholder’ for these resolutions - had streamlined, shortened and rebalanced the text by placing an unprecedented focus on human rights, while removing the call for a ‘society free of drug abuse’.

In 2022, this approach faced significant resistance from more conservative countries - with Russia eventually calling for a historic vote on the resolution. For the first time in decades, the consensus was broken on a UN drug-related resolution. In the end, it was an overwhelming victory even though a number of delegates abstained, criticising the opaque proceedings, lack of consultations and delayed information sharing during the negotiations process, leading to a vote of 124 States in favour, only 9 against, and 45 abstentions.

The pressure on the international drug control regime then continued to escalate at the 67th session of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) in March 2024, where Member States adopted two of the four tabled resolutions by vote for the first time since 1985 - with the term ‘harm reduction’ being at the centre of the tensions.

In this unprecedented context, Mexico made huge efforts to ensure a transparent, inclusive and conciliatory process for the 2024 drugs omnibus resolution, initiating preliminary consultations early in the year to understand the divergent positions and red lines of delegates, and discuss how these could be reconciled in an attempt to return to consensus.

And, after 28 hours of intense negotiations in the UN General Assembly Third Committee in New York and countless side consultations to find a compromise on the most contentious issues, this year’s resolution was eventually adopted by consensus, and supported by 71 co-sponsors from all continents*.

Positively, early on in the process, Member States had agreed with Mexico’s approach to take the 2022 omnibus resolution as the basis for this new text, rather than reverting to the 2021 resolution as was originally called for by various delegations led by Russia. As a result, the final omnibus resolution is mostly a repeat of the 2022 omnibus resolution (but this time adopted by consensus), with various improvements alongside inevitable compromises.

Drug-free world vs harm reduction

This year, and in the aftermath of the 67th session of the CND, the main controversies related to whether or not to explicitly mention ‘harm reduction’, and whether to allow the reintroduction of ‘drug-free world’ language in the omnibus resolution. The latter was resisted and is a key win of these negotiations, as the 2024 omnibus does not reiterate the harmful and unrealistic goal of achieving a ‘society free of drug abuse’ and was adopted by consensus.

Traditionally, human rights language had been included in drug-related resolutions, both at the CND and the UN General Assembly, in exchange for the inclusion of this ‘drug-free world’ language. The departure from this tradition by Mexico in the 2022 omnibus resolution had been one of the main reasons why Russia had decided to call for a vote at the time.

This year, the debate had shifted away from a focus on human rights, and focused on two red lines: the more conservative Member States refused any mention of ‘harm reduction’, while on the other hand, ‘drug-free world’ language was deemed unacceptable by progressive States, including Colombia, Switzerland and the EU.

At the end of the day, as a compromise, Mexico produced a final draft that included neither. And although it would have of course been useful to crystallise the wins of the 67th CND at the General Assembly, it is important to remember that ‘harm reduction’ has been agreed language at the UN in New York for more than two decades, since the adoption of the 2001 Political Declaration on HIV and AIDS.

More human rights wins

Because most of the negotiations revolved around the controversies above, progressive Member States managed to push through various paragraphs related to human rights. Importantly, the 2024 omnibus resolution restates the strong human rights language that had already featured in its predecessor, including on systemic racism in law enforcement and criminal justice systems, on addressing impunity for human rights abuses, on Indigenous Peoples’ rights, on the need for non-custodial measures and proportionate sentencing, on HIV prevention and treatment (including funding for these critical services), and on the need to secure alternative sources of income before any crop eradication takes place as part of alternative development programmes.

Going further, the 2024 resolution ‘takes note of’ the landmark reports produced by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health - a first for a drugs omnibus resolution which had historically been unable to welcome any of the previous reports produced by OHCHR on drug policy.

Perhaps as an attempt to echo the reports on harm reduction produced by the Special Rapporteur on the right to health earlier this year, the resolution now also includes a separate paragraph reaffirming the right to health for ‘drug users’, ‘regardless of whether they are imprisoned, detained or incarcerated’. This paragraph also refers to the right to health for ‘their children and other family members’ - a wording which could be problematic if it perpetuates the harmful narrative laid out in the UNODC’s World Drug Report 2024, as it could be used by some Member States to justify the criminalisation and stigmatisation of people who use drugs in the name of protecting their children, families and communities more broadly.

Finally, the 2024 omnibus resolution also emphasizes the need to ensure access to controlled medicines, with a new paragraph acknowledging that ‘availability remains low to non-existent in many countries, in particular in developing countries’ and recognising the major issues related to ‘affordability’ and access for children - issues that also came up at the 67th session of the CND.

A ‘rebalancing’ of the resolution towards supply reduction

The drive to achieve consensus inevitably led to difficult compromises from the co-sponsors of the resolution. This translated into the inclusion of a number of paragraphs relating to various aspects of supply reduction which had been omitted in 2022 (some of which were drawn from the 2021 omnibus resolution), including language on new technologies (i.e., the darknet, electronic payment systems and virtual assets), money laundering, criminal intelligence sharing and cooperation, and two mentions of INTERPOL.

Consensus or ‘disassociation’?

The adoption of the resolution by consensus at the UN General Assembly Third Committee was followed by a number of country statements. Various delegates from across the board (including Algeria, Egypt, Malaysia, Peru, South Africa and Switzerland) praised Mexico for the constructive nature of the negotiations, which enabled a return to consensus-based decision-making on drug policy. Similarly, the Mexican Ambassador declared: ‘Today, we have sent a message of unity, of a deeply transborder nature. It is a joint and global response, and this must be celebrated… We can all speak with a single voice’.

However, several statements seemed to undermine this consensus. The delegates’ speeches clearly showed divergent positions on whether to emphasize a society free of drug abuse (as did Algeria, China, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia and Singapore), or whether to move away from the goal of a drug-free world and promote harm reduction and human rights instead (as was the case for Brazil, Canada, Colombia, South Africa, Switzerland and the EU).

Even more problematically, Member States including Argentina, Egypt, Iran, Russia and Saudi Arabia, made statements to ‘disassociate’ themselves from a number of the agreed paragraphs (most commonly those relating to the contributions of UN human rights entities, referring to the Political Declaration on HIV and AIDS, or to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development). Argentina even questioned the language on Indigenous Peoples’ rights, expressing concerns that this could ‘be used as a veiled questioning of the international drug control system’ - no doubt referring to the WHO critical review of the coca leaf which was, in fact, initiated by Bolivia in an effort to decolonise the international drug control regime and align it with human rights.

This seemingly new trend of Member States ‘disassociating’ themselves from various paragraphs within a resolution adopted by consensus again raises questions as to what the future of multilateral drug policy holds. Does this mean that Member States can now choose à-la-carte what they want to be bound by? Or is it simply a way to perpetuate an illusion of consensus (or avoid embarrassing vote losses) despite the fact that government positions on drugs are becoming increasingly irreconcilable? Our attention turns now to the 68th session of the CND and how these dynamics will play out in Vienna.

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* Co-sponsors: Albania, Andorra, Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Côte d’Ivoire, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Latvia, Liberia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Malta, Mexico, Monaco, Montenegro, Morocco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Korea, Republic of Moldova, Romania, San Marino, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, United Kingdom, United States of America.