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3/4 UNGASS 2016 Preparations - Official Timeline and implicated U.N. actors

  • Benjamin-Alexandre Jeanroy
  • Apr 3, 2016
  • 9 min read

The timeline of the debate preparation (IDPC, 2015k) leading up to the Special Session has been set up by the UNGASS preparatory Committee and agreed upon by member states during CND Sessions.

The time limitation of this thesis being set for February 29, 2016, the current debate and preparations for the upcoming session have obviously gone further than this present work could describe. Nonetheless, we will intend to show the premises of the debate preparations and indicate where it might go afterwards.

What is striking in the analysis of the debate preparations is that sometimes, the deliberations are self-reflecting, as during the 57th session of the CND, held on March 2014, when representative from Mexico “asked that a sentence be included acknowledging that a real debate on global drug policy was needed.” (Redmond, 2014) To need to specify that a real debate must take place in an arena supposedly dedicated to the very idea of debate may seem superficial to some, but as we will see this is far from being the case.

The importance of the current debate preparation is highlighted by scholar Cindy Fazey (2003): “in the UN, appearance and reality are two different things. Major conferences are carefully choreographed presentations, not arenas for discussion. Discussions, debates and compromises take place at much earlier stages before formal meetings. UN conferences are like plays where all roles are carefully defined and the scripts written in advance. They are not places for debate but for statements of position, where any potential conflict has been headed off months before through a series of preliminary discussions and preparatory meetings.” This accurate description of how U.N high summits process is not necessarily to be understood in the negative sense, as if “these meetings are pointless”, but that it is crucial to scrutinize how actors behave there because often their actions are the reflection of agreements pre-defined sometimes months before. In this regard, understanding the decision making process or the importance of what may often seem at the time, irrelevant speeches, remain essential.

Notable achievements of such high-level meetings, can often be buried among the bureaucratic documentation and remain so until dedicated citizens and organizations decide to dig them up and to hold governments accountable for them. It should be noted that the lack of transparency intrinsic to these forums is a formidable obstacle to the understanding of the process. Although it is important to note that, for the upcoming Special Session, progress has been made in that regard, they often remain largely insufficient and depend on the work of civil society organizations so that the public may be able to access them. The work of the CND Blog (1) in this regard is particularly relevant and present a formidable tool for pro-reform advocates.

In March 2014, at the high-level segment of the CND 57th session, government representatives “adopted by consensus a joint ministerial statement, in which they underscored (2) that the three international drug control conventions constituted the cornerstone of the international drug control system.” (CND, 2014) Alongside these three international binding treaties, two other documents are important to underline in order to understand the limitations to which are bound the preparatory debates for the upcoming Special Session: The 2009 Political Declaration and Plan of Action (UNODC, 2009b); and the Joint Ministerial Statement (CND, 2014). The former defines specific concepts that are repeatedly mentioned by U.N. actors and forge the very framework within which debate is allowed to exist. Most notably, the concept of a “world drug problem”, which we will further analyze in a later article, is defined there as “the illicit cultivation, production, manufacture, sale, demand, trafficking and distribution of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances, including amphetamine-type stimulants, the diversion of precursors and related criminal activities.” (UNODC, 2009b). This definition is largely inspired for and by law-enforcement activities and agents and remains silent on the issues that may be caused by the system created to resolve this very “problem”.

The second document is the review by member states of the implementation of the first document among the U.N. countries. As members states jointly declared at the 2015 CND 58th Session (Item 7): “in accordance with the assessment contained in the Joint Ministerial Statement, many challenges of the world drug problem have persisted and new ones have emerged in some parts of the world, and that those new trends need to be taken into account in the implementation of the Political Declaration and Plan of Action, within the framework of the three international drug control conventions.” Again, this declaration is important as it gives us an overview of the institutional limitations set for the Special Session. The latter is guided by the U.N. members Joint Declarations, which are themselves linked to the Political Declaration and Plan of Action. As we will further observe, the Declaration is entrenched within a specific framework, set up by the U.N. drug conventions, which can indubitably severely limit the wishes of U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon as to his declaration calling for member states to use the UNGASS “to conduct a wide-ranging and open debate that considers all options.” (Ki-moon, 2013) Both documents remain at the core of the UNGASS 2016 preparatory debates, delimits them, and by extension, delimits the upcoming Special Session itself and the actors involved in the process.

U.N. Institutional actors in charge of the preparation

In regard to the preparatory meetings for the upcoming Special Session and as noted by a 200 civil society organizations statement “the negotiations have mostly taken place in closed informal meetings rather than official ‘intersessionals’ – excluding civil society participation and contributing to the lack of transparency.” (UNGASS Civil Society, 2016) In charge of the preparatory meetings, the UNODC, INCB, UNGASS Preparatory Committee and U.N. member states remain, at different degrees, at the center of the preliminary processes.

  • UNODC

Appointed by the U.N. Secretary General in March 2011, the U.N. Task Force on Transnational Organized Crime and Drug Trafficking, which is co-chaired by UNODC and the U.N. Department of Political Affairs, has been charged with “helping to guide preparations for the UNGASS.” (OSF, 2014a) This is not without incidence. Although requested to be “the leading entity in the United Nations system for countering the world drug problem” by the CND in its resolution 57/5, UNODC has been somehow put under guardianship by the Department of Political Affairs and is far from having the latitude it possessed at the end of the 1990’s to influence the UNGASS preparations.

As we will later observe in an article on UNODC, the organization - which has its headquarters in Vienna - finds itself in a very precarious financial situation, being almost headed by the U.N. Department of Political Affairs and the U.N. Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS), both located in New York. The co-chairing of the preparation of the event is worth noting as it could also be considered as most welcomed for those wishing other U.N. agencies (beside UNODC) to have an active role in the event. Indeed, the U.N. drug control agency has in the past arguably shown blind-sidedness in regard to the International Drug Control Regime (IDCR) (3) and the fact that the agency does not have the upper hand in the organization of the upcoming Special Session could mean an actual more “balanced” view on the matter. By balancing the UNODC traditional law enforcement stance with a more health and human rights oriented view of which the Department of Political Affairs could theoretically be more prone, this could further push the UNODC to pursue its undergoing, but tumultuous change towards a more realistic take on the subject of drug control (4). Theses changes will be further describe in a set of articles dedicated to the drug control organization.

  • The INCB

In the eyes of the members of the INCB, the upcoming Special Session should offer the international community an opportunity “to discuss best practices and exchange views on models and methods to analyse various aspects of the world drug problem.” (INCB, 2014, Para. 3) In this respect, it could be argued that the INCB “views the approaching UNGASS entirely in terms of previous events in the UN drug control chronology and the measurement of ‘progress’ achieved from markers laid down at those events.” (IDPC, 2014a) This again, coming from one of the IDCR’s institution triumvirate, could be an indication of the scope of reforms available to state members during the Special Session. The CND 58th Session held in March 2015, has shown several examples of how the Board is attempting to moderate its traditionally prohibitionist discourse while firmly anchoring its speech within the existing legal framework. While INCB President at the time, Dr. Naidoo explained that “the conventions did not require the incarceration of people who use drugs, and that drug control required a balanced approach” (5) (IDPC, 2015a) he kept defending “the continuing relevance of the conventions, urging governments to apply them fully and appropriately.” (IDPC, 2015a)

In this regard, the IDCP (2014a) has declared that “it appears that the Board views the next UNGASS as an opportunity to reaffirm the current system.” Indeed, by declaring in its 2014 annual report that it “invites Governments to give due consideration to the universally recognized principles of international law in respecting their obligations assumed by ratification of the drug control conventions and in interpreting the provisions of those conventions” (INCB, 2014), the Board gives very little space to those who may wish to present the possibility of a debate on the idea of treaty reforms. We would argue here that by putting the issue under the rope, the INCB takes the risk of seeing the current framework be increasingly compromised by the possible unilateral retraction of certain country from the conventions, notably due to the already created systemic breaches appearing in the Americas.

  • The UNGASS Preparatory Committee

Extremely limited information has been made available on the most decisive group in charge of the preparatory meetings for UNGASS 2016. Essentially, as noted by analyst Steve Roles, the UNGASS Preparatory Committee board is “controlled by hardliners keen to stifle any criticisms of the status quo, and prevent discussion on contentious issues around reform.” (Rolles, 2015b) Chaired by Egypt - whose delegation has recently shown its willingness to derail the, innovative and well balanced African Union common position on drug control policy (Cullinan, 2016) -, the Committee has been tasked by the CND to oversee the Special Session preparation, notably in the drafting of the fundamentally important Outcome document. The lack of information available to the public in regard to this committee is troubling to say the least.

(1) Live reporting from the U.N. Commission on Narcotic Drugs by the IDPC. http://cndblog.org

(2) “Underscore that the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs of 1961 as amended by the 1972 Protocol, the Convention on Psychotropic Substances of 1971, the United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances of 1988 and other relevant international instruments constitute the cornerstone of the international drug control system, welcome the efforts made by States parties to comply with the provisions and ensure the effective implementation of those conventions, and urge all Member States that have not yet done so to consider taking measures to ratify or accede to those instruments.” (CND, 2014)

(3) As we will see in later articles, until recently, rather than recognizing than progress towards goal set up by UNGASS 1998 had not been met, UNODC “promoted a “containment” hypothesis, claiming the “undeniable success” of a century of international drug control.” (Jelsma, 2015)

(4) As indication of the change in speech currently undertook by UNODC, the U.N. drug control agency declared during the CND 58th Session that its role is to “assist countries in the implementation of evidence-based drug use prevention strategies and treatment programmes for drug dependence” and that this “approach is health centered and is based on the respect for human rights, social protection and cohesion.” (CND 58th Session, Item 8, 2015)

(5) Furthermore, the Board referred to UNGASS 2016 as being “critically important for re-addressing the centrality of the principle of a balanced and comprehensive approach to addressing the world drug problem.” (INCB, 2014, Para. 39).

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