The Human Rights Council asserts its role in drug policy at a time of global change

The Human Rights Council asserts its role in drug policy at a time of global change

Today marked a turning point in global drug policy, as Members of the Human Rights Council (HRC) adopted Resolution L.31 on ‘The human rights implications of drug policy’. After weeks of intense negotiations, and months of civil society advocacy, this was a hard-fought win.

The resolution – introduced by Colombia on behalf of a cross-regional group – was adopted by consensus, and has so far been supported by 35 co-sponsors.¹ This reinforces the role of human rights in drug policy debates precisely as the international community embarks on an independent review of the global drug control regime. A shifting geopolitical landscape - with the USA now openly carrying out extrajudicial killings off the coast of Venezuela in the name of drug control - made the urgency of this initiative clearer than ever to many in Geneva.

The strategic objective of the resolution was threefold: first, to assert the role of the HRC to engage in drug policy debates in its own right, instead of contributing to processes taking place outside of Geneva; second, to strengthen the mandate of OHCHR in providing guidance and recommendations on how to better align drug policies with human rights instruments; and third, to consolidate and expand human rights language in relation to drug policy.

In a way, all three objectives were achieved.

Asserting the role of the Human Rights Council in global drug policy

This is the fourth HRC resolution dedicated to drug policy and human rights. The first three, adopted in 2015,2018and 2023, aimed to feed into drug policy processes taking place in New York (around the 2016 UNGASS) and Vienna (2024 midterm review). This time, the objective was to separate the work of the HRC from processes outside of Geneva, and to assert the independent role of the Council to address the human rights impacts of drug policy.

Of course, this was met with resistance from various Member States, fearing that this might somehow undermine the international drug control regime and weaken the role of the CND and UNODC. Countries like Algeria, China, Cuba and Russia all made statements to that effect as the resolution was adopted. And this was one of the key arguments brought forward by Singapore during the informals. It should be noted here that, as Singapore was questioning the resolution in Geneva, it was internationally criticised for yet another execution of a person for a drug offence back home.

The Core Group and its allies countered this attack. In his presentation of the resolution today, Colombia’s Ambassador made it clear that the purpose of the resolution was in fact to strengthen cooperation between the UN human rights system and UN drug control bodies, ensuring more synergy on drug policy, in light of the widespread human rights abuses committed in the name of drug control.

There, the Ambassador specifically mentioned the alarming recent military strikes (by the USA) in the Caribbean sea as a justification for this resolution - an act that was strongly condemned as a blatant violation of the right to life by a number of UN human rights experts. ‘This item should remain on the Council’s agenda’, Colombia continued, as ‘it is essential for supporting States in their commitment to designing drug policies that are more humane, more efficient and more respectful of the rights of all persons’.

Supporting Member States were also well coordinated as the resolution and proposed amendments were considered for adoption by the Council, with Albania, Belgium, Bolivia, Mexico, Romania, Spain, Switzerland and the EU each making statements against Russia’s amendments and/or in favour of the resolution. And while African countries remained mostly silent during the proceedings, Ethiopia made a welcome intervention, aligning itself with the ‘aspirations of this resolution to ensure that drug policy is designed and implemented in a manner that upholds human rights, public health, dignity, equality and non-discrimination’.

In the end, the resolution included two key operative paragraphs: one encouraging all relevant HRC mechanisms, OHCHR and the rest of the UN human rights system to ‘share their contribution to addressing the human rights implications of drug policies with the Commission on Narcotic Drugs’, and the other deciding ‘to remain seized of the matter’.

This is the strongest acknowledgement of the role of the UN human rights system in drug policy to date, and an unequivocal commitment for it to be more systematically involved.

A recognition of the role of OHCHR in drug policy discussions

The second objective of the resolution was to provide a standing mandate to OHCHR for the production of periodic reports on specific aspects of drug policy - ensuring that OHCHR can regularly analyse the human rights implications of various facets of drug policy, highlight examples of best practice, and provide much-needed guidance on rights-oriented drug policies.

This was a highly contentious topic during the negotiations, with countries like Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Peru, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Singapore strongly rejecting the periodic nature of OHCHR reports. In the end, the revised version of L.31 only retained the drafting of one OHCHR report, focusing on the human rights implications of drug policy for women and girls.

That being said, and in sharp contrast with previous resolutions, no State objected to OHCHR producing a new report on the human rights implications of drug policy, nor the organisation of a panel discussion at the Council. In previous years, such a proposal had been met with significant opposition from a small but vocal group of Member States, and led to the introduction of amendments to remove the request. This new development is, in and of itself, a win. It shows that OHCHR’s sustained work on drug policy issues and its presence at the CND and elsewhere have become much more widely accepted than ever before.

The fact that the resolution was adopted by consensus is a reflection of this. Interestingly, few Member States, among them China, Kuwait and Sudan, decided to ‘disassociate’ themselves from the contents of this resolution this time around - in particular on issues relating to women, and the death penalty in the case of Sudan. Algeria and Cuba, on the other hand, expressed their concerns over the resolution and their plans to restrict their interpretation and implementation of the resolution in alignment with their own national legislations.

Consolidating human rights language on drug policy

In terms of content, the resolution not only locks in key gains from 2023, it also builds on them, expanding the scope and pushing for a broader, more inclusive view of how drug policy intersects with human rights.

To begin with, the resolution upholds all the significant progress made in 2023, with regards to commitments to end racial discrimination in drug laws and practices, and to protect the rights of Indigenous Peoples to their traditional medicines and health practices. Notably, none of these elements were challenged during the negotiations. This highlights the added value of the human rights system compared to the CND, where issues like racial discrimination have never been addressed, and Indigenous rights remain highly contested.

The term ‘harm reduction’, which appeared for the first time in the 2023 HRC resolution on drugs - was not only retained but expanded from one paragraph to three. The Russian proposal (amendment proposal L.55) to remove the term was rejected with 25 votes against, 10 in favour, and 12 abstentions. In comparison, in 2023 there were 23 votes against, 13 in favour, and 12 abstentions. Small shifts towards normalising the harm reduction approach, which in practice is supported by 108 countries across the world.

Beyond keeping the language from 2023 intact, the standout changes in 2025 are as follows:

• Asserting the leadership of the Human Rights Council in drug policy. The rationale for the new resolution is set out in preambular paragraphs 15, 17, and 19. Together, they convey a clear message: the Council has the mandate to promote universal respect for human rights, and drug policies - given their significant human rights implications - fall squarely within that mandate. PP9 in particular asserts that the HRC has the responsibility to promote universal respect for human rights, and that it should promote the effective coordination and mainstreaming of human rights within the UN system. This is a useful reminder to Vienna that the Council is ready to take leadership on the human rights dimension of drug policy.
• Recognising the work of OHCHR and human rights mechanisms. In recent years, OHCHR and human rights mechanisms have undertaken ground-breaking work on drug policy, addressing issues such as harm reduction, punitive measures, and arbitrary detention. However, acknowledging this work in political resolutions has long been extremely challenging, as some Member States fear it could undermine the mandate of UNODC. In this resolution, however, cooperation between OHCHR and UNODC is explicitly encouraged as a means to enhance system-wide coherence. The resolution also urges human rights mechanisms to continue examining the human rights implications of drug policy. The next step will be for the CND to recognise the important work done by UN entities outside Vienna with mandates on human rights - an overdue development.
• A broader and more diverse understanding of human rights. This time around, the resolution was tabled by Colombia and this was an opportunity to integrate substantive human rights issues that are particularly relevant to production countries - mostly in the Global South. The best example of this is the inclusion of a first-ever reference to the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment in designing drug policies, and a call to prevent the adverse impacts on the environment not only of drug production and trafficking, but also of drug-policy responses themselves. This was complemented by language on alternative development and emphasising the need to respect traditional uses and to take into consideration the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples when addressing cultivation. None of these additions introduce language that is new to CND texts, but they do help place cultivating communities - a population historically overlooked in Geneva - more firmly at the centre of human rights discussions. We hope that UN human rights mechanisms will follow this call.
• Protecting civil society space. The 2023 resolution had emphasised the contribution of civil society and affected communities to all aspects of drug policy. The 2025 text takes a step further by calling on Member States to ‘create and maintain a safe and enabling environment to ensure that they can operate free from hindrance, insecurity and reprisals’ (OP 8). This is particularly important given the ongoing repression that harm reduction and drug policy organisations are experiencing under the guise of ‘foreign agent’ and ‘drug propaganda’ laws, particularly in the CEEECA region.
• Strengthening the gender perspective. In line with the request to OHCHR to prepare a report on the implications of drug policy for women and girls, the resolution also introduces three new preambular paragraphs on gender. As it was the case for the new paragraphs on alternative development, the language in itself largely borrows from other UN documents and does not present substantive innovations. Instead, the progress here is giving more weight to gender in debates on the human rights dimension of drug policy.
• Discarding stigmatising and confusing ‘drug-free’ language. The resolution marks a gradual shift away from the confusing and stigmatising terminology that has long characterised UN texts. For the first time, it adopts the formulation ‘individuals who use drugs’ instead of ‘individuals with drug use disorders’ in several paragraphs addressing the right to health, stigma and marginalisation, and HIV/AIDS, where the reference to disorders was simply inaccurate. This change helps to dispel narratives that wrongly conflate the two groups. In a crucial development, this is the first Human Rights Council resolution on drugs that excludes the paragraph that has historically committed the international community to achieving a ‘society free of drug abuse’. This language has already been removed from the two latest resolutions at the UN General Assembly, but it is a mainstay at the CND. In 2023, this language was excluded from the draft proposed by the Core Group, but reintroduced through an amendment; this time around, no amendment was proposed on the text. The goal of a drug-free world has long been used to justify policies that systematically violate human rights, so seeing it slowly disappear from UN resolutions is a welcome development. The CND should be next.

¹ Albania, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Iceland, Kyrgyzstan, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Malta, Mexico, Netherlands, North Macedonia, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, Thailand, UK, Ukraine and Uruguay