INTERNATIONAL GUIDELINES ON HUMAN RIGHTS AND DRUG POLICY: From Principles to Rights-based Action

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The International Guidelines on Human Rights and Drug Policy represent a comprehensive framework designed to align global drug control efforts with fundamental human rights standards, spanning the entire spectrum from cultivation to consumption. Developed through an extensive three-year participatory process involving governments, civil society organizations, academics, and United Nations partners such as WHO and UNAIDS, these guidelines do not create new rights but rather reconcile existing international human rights law with the three major drug policy conventions. Since their launch in 2019, they have served as a vital tool for shifting national policies away from punitive enforcement models that often fail to address root causes, toward approaches centered on public health, harm reduction, and the protection of individual dignity. By providing concrete legal arguments and technical support, the guidelines empower policymakers to design drug strategies that are compliant with international treaties while prioritizing human rights over strict punishment or criminalization. The practical impact of these guidelines is evident in diverse national contexts where they have driven significant legislative and policy reforms. In Colombia, for instance, the document became a cornerstone of foreign policy engagement and was instrumental in legal challenges before the Constitutional Court regarding forced eradication via aerial spraying and personal autonomy over drug use; this helped pivot enforcement focus toward high-level traffickers rather than low-level growers or users. Similarly, Ghana utilized the guidelines to identify gaps in its new drug laws during national dialogues involving key ministries, leading to the launch of nationwide harm reduction programs and a specific roadmap for reducing stigma against people who use drugs. In Scotland, facing Europe's highest recorded drug-related deaths, authorities used the framework to develop a charter of rights that shifts the narrative from criminalization to public health support, while Brazil has integrated these principles into rebuilding its prevention policies to address broader issues like violence, inequality, and social reinsertion alongside substance consumption itself. Beyond individual national successes, the guidelines have fostered regional collaboration and advocacy across Latin America and Europe by uniting academia, government officials, human rights offices, and communities of people who use drugs around shared priorities. In Mexico, activists and NGOs have employed the document to sensitize decision-makers on balancing policy objectives with human rights indicators, specifically advancing gender equity while challenging discrimination within supply chain control measures. The guidelines also provide a crucial reference point for countries in transition or seeking EU membership, such as Moldova and Ukraine, reminding stakeholders of their obligations to uphold human rights agendas even amidst political instability. Ultimately, these documents demonstrate that placing human rights at the center of drug policy reform is not an abstract ideal but a tangible strategy that strengthens legal arguments, reduces stigma, improves health outcomes, and creates more just societies capable of addressing complex challenges through inclusive dialogue rather than coercion.

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The international guidelines on human rights and drug policy provides a comprehensive set of human rights standards applied to the entire human experience [music] of drug control from cultivation to consumption. The guidelines were result of a robust three-year participatory process with governments, civil society, academics, [music] and UN partners. They were developed in partnership with the World Health Organization, the United Nations Development [music] Program, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and UNAIDS. >> And since their launch in 2019, we've started to see a range of implementations experiences taking shape [music] around the world. These global experiences are demonstrating the power and the possibility of placing human rights at the center of drug policy reform >> [music] >> processes. >> The guidelines don't invent new rights. They reconcile human rights to international human rights framework with the three drug policy conventions. And they help us provide policy advice and technical support to governments and partner with all stakeholders of how you can actually develop drug policies that are compliant with the drug conventions, but can focus on human rights and public health more uh and rather than on enforcement and punitive measures. >> In many countries, we know that uh drug policy has been uh based on the punitive approach, but it didn't work. So, to shifting that, we have these international guidelines on human rights and drug policy helping the government to developing a drug policy which is based on human rights approach. >> The guidelines are crucial because they show that the idea of taking human rights into account with respect to drug policy isn't some pie-in-the-sky abstract notion. There are ways concretely that as policy makers and as the public consider these, you know, and wrestle with these tough issues, that it can make it real and detailed. >> It's really amazing actually to see how the guidelines have been used in, you know, national level policy discussions. The international guidelines are also mentioned in the previous EU drug strategy, for example, explicitly. This is an incredibly important document that I think, you know, the whole of drug policy reform really um stands behind and and leans on heavily. >> [music] >> Columbia was the first country to include the international [music] guidelines on human rights and drug policy into the national policy. So, they were very, very useful to sort of focus our um change in policy. And it was very useful to present it to society. To us, a presentation to society. It was very useful because, as you know, we decided that we will no longer have a drug policy focusing on law enforcement against the lowest levels of the chain, you know, the coca bush growers and so on. And the micro traffickers, uh we wanted drug policy that will enforce, that will seek enforcement against the higher echelons. But beyond that, I have to say that we have turned human rights into one of the pillars of our international engagement. And this is aspirational because I come from a country that has huge human rights problems. We know the country we want to be. And that's why we have mainstream human rights in all our foreign policy activities. >> In our work in Dejusticia, we started using the guidelines around the right to a healthy environment and specifically on the recommendation that the guidelines provide on the prohibition of use of agrotoxics in reduction of coca crops. In that moment, we were experiencing the very high risk of resuming aerial spraying of illicit crops, which is very harmful to human health and the environment. And the guidelines gave us the legal arguments to be able to provide high courts references that were strong and to international human rights standards and to why it was needed to limit the use of this practice in Colombian drug policy strategies. So, the Constitutional Court in Colombia has been one of the her the first high courts in the world that has referenced the international guidelines on human rights in drug policy. It was used in this court case around forced eradication with aerial spraying, but also around drug use in public spaces, freedom, autonomy of personal use of drugs. Furthermore, we've also used them just in general advocacy with government partners. >> [music] >> The international human rights guidelines have been very effective for us to use when in 2023 we had done away with the death penalty or the capital punishment for drug-related offenses. The international human rights guidelines, they've been the guiding principle for us to follow in having a more human rights-centric approach and in a harm prevention and harm reduction approach as opposed to going for strict punishments. We're trying a a different approach this time and of course those international human rights guidelines have been very effective in formulating the policy and shaping up the the policy that we have which is human rights-centric. >> [music] >> We have been using the international guidelines on human rights and drug policy >> [music] >> as part of developing a human rights-based approach to a situation in Scotland where we have the highest recorded drug-related deaths of any country in Europe. So, I was asked by the Scottish government to help develop the shift from criminalization and stigmatization of people affected by substance use to a public health and a human rights based approach towards people affected by substance use. And so, the process that we've been leading for the last couple of years is to develop a charter of rights for people affected by substance use. And that's been done through a process of empowering individuals and communities to understand their rights and to build a charter and and a toolkit for its implementation. And we've also involved uh in a collaborative way what we call the duty bearers, the decision makers across design, delivery, and monitoring of related services. And together, we've produced the charter and the toolkit to implement it. It was launched at the end of last year uh with the uh support of the uh First Minister of the Scottish Government uh and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. And we're now just embarking on the the next phase, which is the implementation of the charter. >> The international guidelines on human rights and drug policy have really been very useful for me as a country, Ghana, because when they were launched, um that was the same period when we had passed our new law on drugs. We thought it was necessary to begin to bring everybody on the table to see how these guidelines can help us identify the gaps in the law and how we can plug in to address most of the challenges. So, in April 2022, we organized the first-ever national dialogue, which brought together key national agencies like um the Ministry of Interior, Ghana AIDS Commission, the Human Rights Commission. We brought together the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to discuss how as a country we could ensure that these laws really reflect human rights provisions that uh protect people who use drugs. And also to ensure that we put in place um services. Through this dialogue, um we also identify a gap like harm reduction. And as we speak now, we have kick-started harm reduction in 2022, which was a pilot, and we have now substantively begun a a nationwide program. We developed um what we call a national stigma reduction roadmap for people who use drugs, which was launched and um currently many of the institutions are using this a lot of the time to address issues of stigma. >> [music] >> We were involved in the dissemination and the presentation of the guidelines on human rights and drug policy in Latin America. We organized an event in Mexico, and since then we've been using the guidelines to sensitize other NGO members, other um activists in Mexico as to politicize them and to uh help them take action in shaping new drug policies and alternatives to prohibition and to the war on drugs, but also to use the guidelines as means to evaluate or better incorporate other indicators into the evaluation of drug policies in Mexico. We've also tried to use the guidelines to sensitize decision makers uh for them to understand how to balance uh policy priorities and also how to incorporate the approach of human rights into their decision-making processes, whether legislative or executive in implementing programs and policies. So far, we've made advancements, particularly in the gender front. Uh there's still a lot to be done in terms of discrimination, stigma against people who use drugs, but also in terms of better integrating human rights indicators and actions in uh violence reduction and um the control of the supply chain. >> [music] >> We are now rebuilding [music] the policies for prevention in social reinsertion in the scope of the drug policy in Brazil. It's extremely important that we look at >> [clears throat] >> um the rights of people who use drugs. When we talk about prevention, we are not talking only about prevention of drug use, primary prevention. We are also talking about developing a prevention policy in a context of inequalities in the country. We have been discussing and developing the concept of a comprehensive prevention. There is a prevention that talks not only about drug uh consumption or substance consumption, substance use, but also about crime, about violence, and uh related deaths. And to discuss that, we definitely need to discuss human rights, human rights policies. So, we have been developing the drug policy in close cooperation with the Ministry of Human Rights in the country. And in this sense, uh the international guidelines on human rights and drug policies has been a fundamental uh instrument to develop and to rebuild [music] these policies. >> [music] >> We were providing to these guidelines some our cases, but the most important part was the regional consultation we did for the guidelines using the guidelines, but that was important moment of uh uniting academia, state government representatives, the um human rights offices, and and ombudsman from the countries, and civil society, and community of people who use drugs. Of course, it's like with the changing political environment, it's very hard to achieve what we wanted, but actually guidelines supported the development of the key priorities and we're still following them. >> I want to believe that this book would be [music] helpful, especially at this time when human rights is under threat and the services [music] under threat, we can just remind to decision-makers and to stakeholders [music] why it is important and for instance, if it's a country like [music] I don't know, Moldova or Ukraine with the status of candidate to EU, you always have to remind this human rights >> [music] >> agenda and it works in fact, it works because there is certain obligations to follow and to be then finally considered [music] to be a EU member state.