Human rights in drug policy: A self-assessment tool

In the past decade the human rights dimensions of drug policy have risen to prominence in international and European policy debates. At European and UN levels it has been agreed upon for many years that the response to drug use and the drug trade should be implemented in full conformity with human rights. Based on this commitment, the Council of Europe’s Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights commissioned a ‘baseline’ study on the status of human rights in relation to drug policy in the region, which identified good practices as well as areas of concern and knowledge gaps. The UN Human Rights Council has now issued resolutions calling for greater attention to the human rights consequences of efforts to control drugs. A UN Common Statement on drug policy was agreed upon in 2019 by the heads of all UN agencies. What these and other important documents highlight is that while there is a strong consensus that human rights must be fully adhered to in drug law, policy and practice, there remains much work to put this commitment into practice. [...]
With this new self-assessment tool, the Pompidou Group aims to address the challenge of assessing human rights in drug policy. There are challenges with how to measure progress in the absence of standardized indicators across many issues, and across countries. In addition, both human right and drug policy are very broad, and bringing them together can seem daunting. The aim of this tool is to provide a straightforward entry point for human rights assessment across key issues. This assessment is envisaged as a collaborative, reflective process, recognizing the variation in approaches and differing contexts across the region. By linking key topics to human rights standards and more specific probing questions, its aim is to provide a practical framework to investigate and assess the human rights implications of drug laws, policies and practices. [Extracts]