Call for papers: International Yearbook on Human Rights and Drug Policy

The International Centre on Human Rights and Drug Policy is calling for papers for the first Volume of The International Yearbook on Human Rights and Drug Policy, the first and only peer-reviewed journal focusing on human rights and drugs.

The journal is open access and there is no fee for submission – each article is published online as in press once it has been peer-reviewed, edited and accepted. They are later combined into a yearly volume.

Deadline

The deadline for submissions for Volume 1 is 15^th October 2010, but submissions are accepted on a rolling basis and later accepted submissions will be included in Volume 2

Submission

Submissions are accepted in the following categories:

1. Original articles – research and analysis on drug policy issues as they intersect with international human rights law, international humanitarian law, international criminal law and/or public international law.   Articles focusing on human rights-based approaches to drug policies are also invited.
2. Opinion/Commentary – these submissions are designed to allow authors a forum to explore new and innovative thinking, promote debate and highlight emerging areas of interest.
3. Case commentaries/summaries – these are intended to highlight and summarise new court decisions and other jurisprudence related to the Centre’s mandate.
4. Responses - these are short comments on previously published papers

The Centre is always willing to discuss ideas for articles or commentaries in advance of submission

Sample articles from the first volume of the yearbook can v=be viewed in ‘Latest Articles‘

For more information, including author guidelines, please click here

Update: Ecuador v Colombia, International Court of Justice

Proceedings in Ecuador v Colombia are ongoing with both parties having submitted their Memorials within the time limits previously assigned by the International Court of Justice. The Court has now set dates for the reply by Ecuador and the Rejoinder by Colombia.

Ecuador has issued proceedings at the ICJ claiming that Colombia’s aerial fumigation campaigns have “caused serious damage to people, to crops, to animals, and to the natural environment on the Ecuadorian side of the frontier”

Colombia is currently the only country in the world to utilise aerial fumigation as a method of illicit crop eradication.

International Court of Justice, Press release No. 2010/20

THE HAGUE, 2 July 2010. The International Court of Justice (ICJ), the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, has directed the Republic of Ecuador to submit a Reply and the Republic of Colombia to submit a Rejoinder.

By an Order dated 25 June 2010, the Court fixed 31 January 2011 and 1 December 2011 as the respective time-limits for the filing of these written pleadings.

The Court made its decision taking account of the agreement of the Parties and of the circumstances of the case. The subsequent procedure has been reserved for further decision.

History of the proceedings

On 31 March 2008, Ecuador seised the Court of a dispute between itself and Colombia concerning the alleged “aerial spraying [by Colombia] of toxic herbicides at locations near, at and across its border with Ecuador”.

In its Application, Ecuador states that “the spraying has already caused serious damage to people, to crops, to animals, and to the natural environment on the Ecuadorian side of the frontier, and poses a grave risk of further damage over time”. It further contends that it has made “repeated and sustained efforts to negotiate an end to the fumigations” but that “these negotiations have proved unsuccessful”.

Ecuador accordingly requests the Court “to adjudge and declare that:

(a) Colombia has violated its obligations under international law by causing or allowing the deposit on the territory of Ecuador of toxic herbicides that have caused damage to human health, property and the environment;

(b) Colombia shall indemnify Ecuador for any loss or damage caused by its internationally unlawful acts, namely the use of herbicides, including by aerial dispersion, and in particular: – 2 -

(i) death or injury to the health of any person or persons arising from the use of such herbicides; and

(ii) any loss of or damage to the property or livelihood or human rights of such persons; and

(iii) environmental damage or the depletion of natural resources; and

(iv) the costs of monitoring to identify and assess future risks to public health, human rights and the environment resulting from Colombia’s use of herbicides; and

(v) any other loss or damage; and

(c) Colombia shall:

(i) respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ecuador; and

(ii) forthwith, take all steps necessary to prevent, on any part of its territory, the use of any toxic herbicides in such a way that they could be deposited onto the territory of Ecuador; and

(iii) prohibit the use, by means of aerial dispersion, of such herbicides in Ecuador, or on or near any part of its border with Ecuador.”

As a basis for the Court’s jurisdiction, Ecuador invokes, in its Application, Article XXXI of the American Treaty on Pacific Settlement of 30 April 1948 (officially known as the “Pact of Bogotá”), to which both States are parties. Ecuador also refers to Article 32 of the 1988 United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances.

In its Application, Ecuador reaffirms its opposition “to the export and consumption of illegal narcotics” but stresses that the issues it presents to the Court “relate exclusively to the methods and locations of Colombia’s operations to eradicate illicit coca and poppy plantations and the harmful effects in Ecuador of such operations”.

By an Order of 30 May 2008, the Court fixed 29 April 2009 as the time-limit for the filing of a Memorial by Ecuador and 29 March 2010 as the time-limit for the filing of a Counter-Memorial by Colombia. Those two pleadings were duly filed by the Parties within the time-limits thus prescribed.

Mexico rethinks drugs strategy as violence escalates, Guardian UK, 11 August 2010

Rising fatalities spur calls for legalisation as president admits military tactics are failing

Jo Tuckman, 11 August 2010

Mexico’s president, Felipe Calderón, launched his presidency three and a half years ago with an unprecedented military-led offensive against the country’s drug cartels. Since then 28,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence that continues to escalate, with little sign that the power of the traffickers has been reduced.

Yesterday Calderón finally accepted that the strategy had failed to rein in the cartels, and called on his growing number of critics to help him revise the government’s approach to the drug wars.

“I agree that the strategy should be questioned,” the president said. “And so I am willing to receive and analyse proposals of how to change and improve it.”

The admission came days after Calderón’s predecessor called for drugs to be legalised. Vicente Fox, who also belongs to the National Action party, said prohibition had failed to curb violence and corruption. “We should consider legalising the production, sale and distribution of drugs,” Fox wrote on his blog. “Radical prohibition strategies have never worked.”

Calderón himself fervently opposes legalisation, although he recently called for a “fundamental debate” on the issue. He has also claimed that Fox’s relative inaction in the face of the cartels’ growing power contributed to the current situation.

In the latest of a series of government-organised debates on the drug war, Calderón repeated that unilateral legalisation would increase drug use and do little to reduce the cartels’ income. But he was forced to listen to blistering attacks on the government strategy by opposition leaders.

“The government’s strategy is not working,” Jesus Ortega, leader of the leftist Democratic Revolution party, said. “If the government only attacks the traffickers then the error, and the failure, of the strategy is evident.”

Ortega also railed against the use of the army and navy in anti-drugs operations. Critics of the offensive say the military’s lack of preparation for an internal policing role has caused human rights abuses.

Calderón said he agreed that withdrawing the military was desirable, but impossible until civilian state and municipal police forces had been purged of rampant corruption and were strong enough to face the problem on their own.

The sessions also produced complaints about the scant attention paid by the government to the money-laundering that fuels the illegal industry and finances the violence. Mexican drug trafficking is estimated to be worth anywhere between $10 billion (£6.4b) and $40b a year.

Calderón admitted that not enough had been done to track illicit earnings but said the government had trouble hiring top financial experts who could make much more money in the private sector without putting themselves in danger.

The president agreed with calls by other leaders on the need to improve education and employment opportunities for young people to help them avoid drug use or recruitment by the cartels.

Analysts said the Mexican president’s new willingness to open the debate marks a dramatic departure from his previous tendency to equate any criticism with a capitulation to organised crime.

“In almost four years the government cannot claim any kind of victory and the debate is the result of the crisis of legitimacy in the strategy,” said Samuel Gonzalez, a former Mexican drugs tsar who has been pushing for a rethink for years. “But at least it is now being discussed and that has to be a good thing.”

The debate was also seen as an attempt to spread responsibility for the bloodshed. “If we join together we can win this battle,” Calderón said. “But if we continue to lack coordination and blame each other, the simple truth is that we cannot move forward. I understand perfectly well that there is a perception that the war is being lost, but I do not share it.”

The main problem, he said, is that local public institutions are too weak to maintain control when the forces withdraw.

He added: “I am asking for the political parties for their help, their strength and their collaboration to allow us to rebuild the institutions of security and justice at all levels,” he said. “We can beat the criminals. We can re-establish the rule of law in this country.”

Turf Wars

Mexico’s drug violence is rooted in a series of turf wars between different trafficking organisations that are also involved in other illegal activities, such as kidnapping, extortion and people trafficking. The violence and the number of civilian casualties has increased since December 2006, when the government launched an offensive against them involving tens of thousands of soldiers and federal police. The main axis of the war is the rivalry between the Sinaloa cartel and the Zetas – a group founded by renegade special forces troops. Sinaloa, led by the country’s most famous kingpin, Joaquin El Chapo Guzman, is based in the Pacific coast state of the same name. The Zetas control much of the Gulf coast. Both Sinaloa and the Zetas are also present in other parts of the country. One of the most intense current battles is for control of the northeastern border state of Tamaulipas, just across from Texas, where Zetas are fighting their erstwhile bosses in the Gulf Cartel, which has now reputedly allied with Sinaloa.

Other relevant trafficking organisations involved in the wars include La Linea, which is based in Ciudad Juarez, just across from El Paso in Texas, and is trying to hold off the encroachment of Sinaloa. Here the extreme violence is intertwined with rivalry between local youth gangs reflecting a dramatic degree of social decomposition.

Elsewhere, the quasi sect-like group called La Familia is rooted in the central state of Michoacan, and the Tijuana cartel maintains its bastion in the border city just over from San Diego in California. The Beltran Leyva group is involved in a bitter struggle for control of the organisation following the death of its leader in a navy operation last year

The Vienna Declaration: A Global Call to Action for Science-based Drug Policy

In Lead Up to XVIII International AIDS Conference, Scientists and Other Leaders Call for Reform of International Drug Policy and Urge Others to Sign-on

28 June 2010 [Vienna, Austria] – Three leading scientific and health policy organizations today launched a global drive for signatories to the Vienna Declaration, a statement seeking to improve community health and safety by calling for the incorporation of scientific evidence into illicit drug policies. Among those supporting the declaration and urging others to sign is 2008 Nobel Laureate and International AIDS Society (IAS) Governing Council member Prof. Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, co-discoverer of HIV.

The Vienna Declaration is the official declaration of the XVIII International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2010), the biennial meeting of more than 20,000 HIV professionals, taking place in Vienna, Austria from 18 to 23 July 2010.

“Many of us in AIDS research and care confront the devastating impacts of misguided drug policies every day,” said AIDS 2010 Chair Dr. Julio Montaner, President of the IAS and Director of the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS. “These policies fuel the AIDS epidemic and result in violence, increased crime rates and destabilization of entire states – yet there is no evidence they have reduced rates of drug use or drug supply. As scientists, we are committed to raising our collective voice to promote evidence-based approaches to illicit drug policy that start by recognizing that addiction is a medical condition, not a crime.”

The Vienna Declaration describes the known harms of conventional “war on drugs” approaches and states:

“The criminalisation of illicit drug users is fuelling the HIV epidemic and has resulted in overwhelmingly negative health and social consequences. A full policy reorientation is needed…Reorienting drug policies towards evidence-based approaches that respect, protect and fulfill human rights has the potential to reduce harms deriving from current policies and would allow for the redirection of the vast financial resources towards where they are needed most: implementing and evaluating evidence-based prevention, regulatory, treatment and harm reduction interventions.”

Outside of sub-Saharan Africa, injecting drug use accounts for approximately one in three new cases of HIV. In some areas of rapid HIV spread, such as Eastern Europe and Central Asia, injecting drug use is the primary cause of new HIV infections. Legal barriers to scientifically proven prevention services such as needle programmes and opioid substitution therapy (OST) mean hundreds of thousands of people become infected with HIV and Hepatitis C (HCV) every year. The criminalization of people who inject drugs has also resulted in record incarceration rates placing a massive burden on the taxpayer. HIV outbreaks have also been reported in prisons in various settings internationally. This emphasis on criminalization produces a cycle of disease transmission, along with broken homes and livelihoods destroyed. Yet these costs, along with the more direct costs of the ‘war on drugs’, produce no measurable benefits.

“The current approach to drug policy is ineffective because it neglects proven and evidence-based interventions, while pouring a massive amount of public funds and human resources into expensive and futile enforcement measures,” said Dr. Evan Wood, founder of the International Centre for Science in Drug Policy (ICSDP) and Clinical Associate Professor at the University of British Columbia. “It’s time to accept the war on drugs has failed and create drug policies that can meaningfully protect community health and safety using evidence, not ideology.”

The Vienna Declaration calls on governments and international organizations, including the United Nations, to take a number of steps, including:

• undertake a transparent review the effectiveness of current drug policies;
• implement and evaluate a science-based public health approach to address the harms stemming from illicit drug use;
• scale up evidence-based drug dependence treatment options;
• abolish ineffective compulsory drug treatment centres that violate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; and
• unequivocally endorse and scale up funding for the drug treatment and harm reduction measures endorsed by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations.
• The declaration also calls for the meaningful involvement of people who use drugs in developing, monitoring and implementing services and policies that affect their lives.

“As a scientist, I strongly support drug policies that are based on evidence of what actually works,” said Prof. Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, Director of the Regulation of Retroviral Infections Unit at the Institute Pasteur, IAS Governing Council member and recipient of the 2008 Nobel Prize for Medicine. “I join with my colleagues around the world today to sign the Vienna Declaration in support of science-driven policies and human rights.”

The effectiveness of opioid substitution therapy (OST) and needles and syringe programmes is well-documented, though access to such interventions is often limited where HIV is spreading most rapidly. According to various scientific reviews conducted by WHO, the US Institutes of Medicine and others, these programmes reduce HIV rates without increasing rates of drug use. These cost-effective interventions also produce significant savings in future health care costs, and help people who use drugs access health care and drug treatment. No evidence exists demonstrating negative consequences of use of these programmes.

“Reflecting the AIDS 2010 theme of Rights Here, Right Now, the Vienna Declaration is rooted in the belief that global drug policy must respect the human rights of people who use drugs if it is to be at all effective,” said AIDS 2010 Local Co-Chair Dr. Brigitte Schmied, President of the Austrian AIDS Society. “No one who is familiar with addiction would deny the negative impacts it has on individuals, families and entire communities, but those harms do not justify human rights violations. People addicted to illicit drugs have the right to evidence-based drug treatment, to interventions to prevent infection, and, if they are living with HIV, to antiretroviral treatment.”

The Vienna Declaration was drafted by an international team of scientists and other experts, many of whom will participate in AIDS 2010 next month. It was initiated by the International AIDS Society (IAS), the International Centre for Science in Drug Policy (ICSDP), and the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS based in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Those wishing to sign on may visit www.viennadeclaration.com, where the full text of the declaration, along with a list of authors, is available. The two-page declaration references 28 reports, describing the scientific evidence documenting the effectiveness of public health approaches to drug policy and the negative consequences of approaches that criminalize drug users.

Human Rights Watch: Thailand, Investigate Killing of Handcuffed Drug Suspect

For Immediate Release

Thailand: Investigate Killing of Handcuffed Drug Suspect
Recent Cases Raise Concerns of a Return to Thaksin’s Brutal ‘War on Drugs’

(New York, July 1, 2010) – Thai authorities should immediately investigate the shooting death of a suspected drug trafficker and murder suspect while he was handcuffed and in police custody, Human Rights Watch said today.

Manit Toommuang, alias Tong Donsai, was in the custody of police from Ratchaburi provincial command and the Bang Pae district station when they shot him on June 26, 2010. The police said they had arrested Manit and had taken him to his apartment in Potharam district to search for methamphetamine pills. The police claimed that while they were searching his room, the handcuffed Manit struggled, grabbed an 11 mm pistol from one officer, and fired one round, causing a policeman to shoot and kill Manit in self defense.

“The killing of a handcuffed criminal suspect in police custody requires a real investigation, not a hasty justification by the officers involved,” said Elaine Pearson, acting Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Thai police will only make progress in combating Thailand’s surging drug problem if they themselves abide by the law instead of running roughshod over it.”

Police said Manit was listed among the most wanted criminals in Ratchaburi province, in Western Thailand. They said that on June 25, Manit rode his motorcycle through a police checkpoint in Bang Pae district. Police at the checkpoint opened fire and killed Manit’s girlfriend, Suwisa Upan, who was riding on the seat behind him. During his escape, Manit allegedly shot and killed police Sgt. Maj. Suvit Kwanmuang. Police captured him the next day.

Police said Manit was a member of a drug trafficking network headed by Wisan Sansoy, who was killed by police together with his wife, Wassana Chanhom, on June 4 when they allegedly tried to flee a police raid on his forest hideout in Pak Tho district. The police reported that members of this network have a history of killing and wounding many police officers.

International human rights law prohibits the ill-treatment of persons in custody. Thai police have a long history of using unlawful violence against criminal suspects in custody, particularly suspected drug traffickers and users. Human Rights Watch documented extrajudicial killings and other serious human rights violations in the context of Thaksin Shinawatra’s “war on drugs” in 2003 and 2004, when he was prime minister. Many of those killed had been blacklisted by police as suspected drug traffickers. Frequently, the victims were killed at police checkpoints or soon after being summoned to police stations for questioning, implicating the police in the killings.

Human Rights Watch’s findings were echoed by the 2007 Independent Committee for the Investigation, Study and Analysis of the Formation and Implementation of Drug Suppression Policy (ICID), chaired by former Attorney General Khanit na Nakhon. The committee concluded that the “war on drugs” was formulated and implemented by the Thaksin government without respect for human rights or due process of law. The committee found that 2,819 people had been killed during the three-month “war on drugs” between February and April 2003. Of those killed, 1,370 were related to drug dealing, while 878 were not. Another 571 people were killed without apparent reason. Human Rights Watch is unaware of any prosecutions of police officers for these killings.

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva announced on June 9 that his government would renew the ICID and bring to justice those responsible for human rights violations in the context of Thaksin’s “war on drugs.” Human Rights Watch urged the committee to examine similar abuses by the security forces since that period.

“Thaksin’s ‘war on drugs’ was a brutal and dark period for human rights in Thailand,” Pearson said. “To ensure that the country does not go down that road again, Abhisit should immediately investigate allegations of police brutality in anti-drug operations and prosecute abusive officers.”

For more Human Rights Watch reporting on Thailand, please visit:
http://www.hrw.org/en/asia/thailand

Mandatory death penalty for drugs challenged in India (Lawyers Collective)

June 23, Mumbai: The Bombay High Court admitted a petition challenging the constitutionality of Section 31 A of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 (NDPS Act) that prescribes a mandatory death sentence for certain drug offences upon subsequent conviction. One of the most stringent laws in the country, the NDPS Act incorporated a mandatory death penalty in 1989 amidst heightened paranoia around drugs. Acknowledging the constitutional import of the issue, the Court sent notices to the Union of India and the Attorney General and assigned the matter for arguments.

In 2008, two persons were sentenced to death under Section 31A NDPS Act by Courts in Mumbai and Ahmadabad, respectively. Today, the Bombay High Court stayed the confirmation and appeal of the case before it, pending adjudication of the constitutional challenge.

The Indian Harm Reduction Network (IHRN), a registered consortium of NGOs working for humane drug policies, challenged the vires of Section 31 A NDPS Act calling it – arbitrary, disproportionate and excessive, which exacerbates the stigma and prejudice surrounding drugs as well as demonizes people involved with drugs including persons who use drugs.

Appearing for the IHRN, Anand Grover, Advocate drew the Court’s attention to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Mithu v. State of Punjab, (1983) 2 SCC 277 where a mandatory death sentence imposed upon persons convicted for murder while serving life imprisonment under Section 303 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 was declared unconstitutional.

Conceived and drafted by the Lawyers Collective HIV/AIDS Unit, the petition contends that a mandatory death sentence is unlawful as it precludes judicial discretion, prevents individualized sentencing and denies the accused the opportunity to be heard on the question of sentence. These procedural requirements cannot be eliminated as they are important safeguards against arbitrariness in the criminal justice system.

Across the world, Courts have held that mandatory death sentences constitute cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment. In prescribing death for drug offences, India is joined by Brunei-Darussalam, Egypt, Iran, Kuwait, Laos, Malaysia, Oman, Singapore, Sudan, Syria, United Arab Emirates and Yemen. The commitment of some of these States to democratic principles and human rights standards is doubtful.

The petition also questions the appropriateness of a death sentence for drug trafficking, which does not constitute the “most serious crime” in international human rights law. In India, life imprisonment is the norm and death the exception for the offence of murder. But for drug crimes, which do not involve the taking of life, death is the norm, without any exception.

The matter is kept peremptorily for arguments on 16th September 2010.  A copy of the petition and the order is available at www.lawyerscollective.org

New UN drugs tsar must be a leader on human rights, Damon Barrett, Guardian Comment is Free, June 24

China’s likely execution of drug dealers this week should inspire UN to choose a drugs tsar who will avoid complicity in abuses

This weekend China will most likely execute dozens of people and, contrary to standard practice, it will make sure everyone knows about it. Why? Because once again it is time to mark the UN’s international day against drugs – 26 June. Last year I predicted that China would carry out executions on 26 June and, sure enough, at least 20 were put to death. It was not difficult to predict. The day has served as a pretext for executions in China for many years with, as many as 50 people being executed to mark the day in some years.

In response to concerns about the death penalty, we often hear that we must respect the laws of foreign states and that this is none of our business. On 26 June 2008, however, two Nigerians were executed by firing squad for drug offences in Indonesia. They had been held in an EU/US-funded supermax prison intended for terrorists, but housing mostly drug offenders – many on death row. This raised serious concerns about where international funding is going in the so-called “war on drugs”.

In 2004, Tan Xiaolin (also known as Tan Minglin) was executed to mark the UN anti-drug day. In 2008, Han Yongwan, another notorious trafficker, was executed to mark the same occasion. Both were Chinese nationals executed in China. What sets these cases apart is that these individuals were arrested with the assistance of the United Nations using international funds – in the latter case, the relevant UN programme received substantial funding from the United Kingdom and the European commission, as well as Australia, Sweden and Canada.

This week, the Guardian reported on links between the death penalty for drugs and international funding and technical assistance for counternarcotics operations through the United Nations office on drugs and crime (UNODC). Such links have been documented between a range of projects and activities in countries including Iran, China and Vietnam. A number of named individuals, such as those above, have either been sentenced to death or executed as a result of international aid and UN support.

Recently, the UNODC has begun to take notice of the impact of its counternarcotics work on human rights. Antonio Maria Costa, the current executive director, has set out a series of recommendations for internal reform intended to improve the agency’s human rights performance. This leadership on human rights is very welcome, and much needed, but it may already be under threat. Costa leaves his post at the end of July. Unfortunately, the current frontrunner for the role of UN drug tsar is the candidate being pushed by the Russian government.

The candidate is Yuri Fedotov, current ambassador to the UK. But this is not about the individual except to the extent that he is a career diplomat of over 40 years’ service. It is about Russia’s disastrous drug policies, its appalling human rights record and despite this, a government official nonetheless taking a high-profile position of strategic importance to both issues.

Russia is no supporter of human rights scrutiny in drug control, and works to block any such progress in international political fora such as the UN commission on narcotic drugs. There are nearly 2 million people who inject drugs in Russia, and the government has abandoned them to HIV and abusive “treatments” such as “flogging therapy”. Moreover, the government regularly seeks to block political progress on public health interventions such as opioid substitution therapy and needle and syringe exchange intended to fulfil their human rights. It is now estimated that 37% of people who inject drugs in Russia are HIV positive and as many as 80% of all new HIV infections in the country are due to unsafe injecting practices.

To deflect attention from this, Russia has been seeking to push the blame onto farmers in Afghanistan by calling for Nato intervention and aerial spraying of opium poppy. Experience from Colombia should indicate what terrible ideas military intervention and aerial spraying really are, where this has led to human displacement, food insecurity, health problems and increased poverty amid rising coca production rates and falling cocaine prices. What is needed is a leader on human rights, not an oppressive and abusive government’s first choice.

The UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, will soon make his decision and with it he will send a strong message, one way or the other. So Ban has a choice to make: a candidate that represents the current problems in the international drug control system, or one that represents leadership on human rights?

I hope, at the very least, that this weekend’s killings in China to again mark a UN celebration will give him some pause for thought.

See also:

Agence France Presse: China marks anti-drug day with executions, state media. At least six people already executed.

Washington Post June 25 2010: Approximately 50,000 drug trafficking cases in china last year, around 17,00 sentenced to severe penalties, from five years to death.

International drug crime measures ‘lead to executions’, Guardian 21 June 2010

Enforcement by Britain, the UN and the EU backs up regimes that ignore human rights, says report

The United Nations, the European commission and individual states including Britain are flouting international human rights law by funding anti-drug crime measures that are inadvertently leading to the executions of offenders, according to a report seen by the Guardian.

The International Harm Reduction Association (IHRA), a non-governmental organisation that advocates less punitive approaches todrugs policy globally, says it has gathered evidence revealing “strong links” between executions for drugs offences and the funding of specific drug enforcement operations by international agencies.

It says programmes aimed at shoring up local efforts to combat drug trafficking and other offences are being run “without appropriate safeguards” that could prevent serious human rights violations in countries that retain the death penalty.

The report concludes that the UN Office on Drugs and Crime ( “are all actively involved in funding and/or delivering technical assistance, legislative support and financial aid intended to strengthen domestic drug enforcement activities in states that retain the death penalty for drug offences.

“Such funding, training and capacity-building activities – if successful – result in increased convictions of persons on drug charges, and the potential for increased death sentences and executions”.

The report claims there is evidence of “complicity in acts that violate international human rights law”, undermining the Council of Europe’s commitment to abolish the death penalty, the United Nations Charter and UNODC’s stated opposition to the penalty for drugs offences.

The 33-page report lists a series of case studies it says illustrate how efforts to garner convictions for drugs offences across borders have resulted further down the line in executions. International law does not prohibit the death penalty but does limit its use to the “most serious crimes”. The meaning of “serious” is challenged by some states with the death penalty.

Rick Lines, deputy director of the IHRA and co-author of the report, said: “Many people around the world would be shocked to know that their governments are funding programmes that are leading people indirectly to death by hanging and firing squads.” He said agencies and countries were not intentionally funding programmes that led to people facing the death penalty but that it was “a fact” that executions were happening.

The report comes soon after the execution by firing squad of Ronnie Lee Gardner in Utah, America, that once again highlights human rights concerns about capital punishment. However IHRA’s focus on the persistence of capital punishment in other “retentionist” countries for drugs crimes is likely to resonate this week. Saturday is UN International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, organised to highlight that some states, including China, have always executed drugs offenders to make a public example of them.

An IHRA report published last month revealed that of the 58 states that retain the death penalty, 32 permit it for drug-related crimes. Some use it more readily than others. The estimated overall number of executions including those for drugs-related offences in 2009 was 714, according to Amnesty International, although this does not account for potentially thousands more executions that are not disclosed by China.

Commenting on the IHRA report, Rebecca Schleifer, advocacy director of Human Rights Watch, said that while UNODC in particular has recently “taken steps in the right direction” to account for the human rights implications of its programmes, its drug enforcement activities, and those of other organisations and countries, continue to “put them at risk of supporting increased death sentences and executions in some countries”.

Sebastian Saville, director of Release, a British drugs and human rights charity, said there was an urgent need for political leaders in Britain and the US to rethink their “disastrous ‘war on drugs’ policy and tacit support for regimes that continue executing people for relatively minor offences”.

A UNODC spokesman welcomed the report for drawing attention to capital punishment, saying it raised “legitimate concerns” about how actions designed to deal with drugs crimes “may indirectly result in increased convictions and the possible application of the death penalty”. He said UNODC had taken “concrete steps” to implement human rights assessments as part of “all drug enforcement activities”. The IHRA report makes a number of recommendations including that European governments, the European Commission and UNODC urgently leverage their influence with countries that retain the death penalty “to restrict or abolish the death penalty for drug offences.”

Download the full report at http://www.ihrablog.net/2010/06/international-drug-crime-measures-lead.html

International criminal markets have become major centres of power, UNODC report shows

17 June 2010 – A report released today by UNODC shows how organized crime has globalized and turned into one of the world’s foremost economic and armed powers.

The Globalization of Crime: A Transnational Organized Crime Threat Assessment, released at the Council of Foreign Relations in New York, looks at major trafficking flows of drugs (cocaine and heroin), firearms, counterfeit products, stolen natural resources and people (for sex and forced labour), as well as  smuggled migrants. It also covers maritime piracy and cybercrime.

“Today, the criminal market spans the planet: illicit goods are sourced from one continent, trafficked across another and marketed in a third,” said UNDOC  Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa.  ”Transnational crime has become a threat to peace and development, even to the sovereignty of nations,” warned the head of UNODC. “Criminals use weapons and violence, but also money and bribes to buy elections, politicians and power – even the military,” said Mr. Costa. The threat to governance and stability is analysed in a chapter on regions under stress.

The full report is available via UNODC’s website

Colombia’s war on drugs fails in Cordoba, Guaviare, and Cauca. Colombia Reports, 8 June 2010

Brett Borkan, Colombia Reports, 8 June 2010

The Colombian departments of Cordoba, Guaviare, and Cauca saw significant increases in coca cultivation in 2009, although national production dropped 16%, El Tiempo reported Tuesday.

According to a forthcoming United Nations report, coca production in the northern department of Cordoba rose from 1,710 to 2,700 hectares, a 58% increase, after declining the previous year.

In the southern department of Guaviare, coca production rose from 6,629 to 8,300 hectares during the year, a 25% increase, returning to its 2005 level of production.

Meanwhile, in the south-western department of Cauca, where the FARC have been very active in the last year, coca production rose from 5,400 to 6,100 hectares in 2009, a 13% increase. The province also saw an increase of over 1,000 hectares between 2007 and 2008.

Overall the report, which was compiled using data submitted by Colombian authorities in April, found that Colombia reduced its national coca production from 81,000 hectares in 2008 to 68,025 in 2009, a 16% drop.

The department with the highest production, according to the report, remains Nariño, which despite showing a drop of 3,000 hectares, farmed 16,800 hectares of coca.

According to Colombia’s anti-narcotics police, there are various reasons for the rise in coca production in the three “losing” departments.

In Cordoba, they explain, emerging gangs such as the one led by Juan de Dios Usuga, alias “Giovanni,” an heir to notorious drug kingpin “Don Mario,” and the use of Paramillo Natural Park, where authorities are not allowed to conduct arial fumigation, have led to a rise in the cultivation of coca.

Meanwhile, in the departments of Cauca and Guaviare, the police claim that legal restriction that have prevented them from entering indigenous territories have allowed gangs to exploit these territories to freely cultivate coca.

The areas that showed the greatest improvements were the department of Putumayo, dropping from 9,600 to 5,300 hectares, followed by Valle del Cauca (2,089 to 900), Choco (2,794 to 950), Santander (1,791 to 950), Vaupes (557 to 350), Amazonas (836 to 277) and Magdalena (391 to 150).

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