IDPC addresses the Substantive Session of ECOSOC on the adoption of the CND report

The Substantive session of the Economic and Social Council on Thursday, 30th July 2009 in Geneva embedded the Vienna outcomes deep into international drug policy. However, the efforts of the United Kingdom delegation and the chair of IDPC, ensured that that the door is not closed to further debates.

Under Item 14(d) of the ECOSOC Agenda, the Report of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs on its fifty-second session (E/2009/28) was proposed for adoption. The report, which buries mention of the most controversial aspect of the negotiation of the declaration (the ‘interpretive statement from 26 countries on harm reduction) deep in the narrative at pp. 119-120, would have been adopted without any recognition of the deep divisions of perspective between member states were it not for the speeches of the United Kingdom Delegate and of Mike Trace, Chair of IDPC. Indeed, the representative of Namibia (the country that Chaired this year’s CND) introduced the report in glowing terms , stating ‘the time is now for us to tackle the world drug problem and to actively promote a society free of drugs’. Bizarrely, Namibia also congratulated the CND on the strong role played by civil society in the CND process – despite repeatedly ignoring repeated civil society requests for more meaningful access to the debates. Read the full address below

Considering that twenty-six countries had been so concerned by the Vienna process in March as to formally state that they would interpret harm reduction into the political declaration, it was disappointing that only the United Kingdom and IDPC formally intervened at this stage to point out the fractured consensus and the system wide incoherence that is demonstrated by the political declaration.

The United Kingdom drew particular attention to the fact that during the negotiations to agree the political declaration ‘many areas of agreement existed, and equally there were a significant number of differences in approach and understanding that in the end were not wholly resolved.’ Read the UK's speech.

Mike Trace, on behalf of the IDPC, detailed for ECOSOC how ‘efforts to reduce the scale of drug markets have had very little impact… these efforts incur a large public expenditure cost for limited returns… [and] can lead to negative consequences for the health and social wellbeing of communities… [whereas] there are programmes and activities that governments can pursue that have been proven to be effective in reducing some of the harms associated with drug markets and use, while not necessarily reducing their scale’. Mr Trace also gave a compelling example of the inconsistency riven within high level policy on drugs that had many delegates taking note, specifically that this same ECOSOC meeting had only last week passed a resolution on the UNAIDS programme that explicitly supported harm reduction approaches to HIV prevention amongst drug users (E/2009/L.23) at paragraph 19, whereas the CND, equally explicitly, had rejected this approach. The IDPC briefing note ‘The 10 year review of the United Nations Drug Control System: Difficult Questions Remain for member states and UN system wide coherence’ was also distributed to delegates.

Otherwise, very few national delegations commented on the report; even the USA, who took the floor during this agenda item, were silent on the drugs issue. Of those who spoke, Russia expressed their support of the political declaration but regretted that the Afghan threat had not been sufficiently reflected and called for the creation of zones of narcotic security around Afghanistan; St Lucia highlighted the magnitude of the drug problem in their region, and called for a move away from punitive measures to preventative measures. Sweden, on behalf of the European Union, welcomed the report but called, in strong terms for UNODC to adopt a comprehensive and integrated approach that addresses the drugs issue in a balanced way and highlighted the issue of data collection stating that ‘may countries lack the most basic knowledge on their own drug situation’.

The CND report will now go to Committee Stage in New York.