Human rights
Human Rights Day demonstration against extrajudicial killings in the Philippines.
Reuters
Share
From extrajudicial killings to the denial of access to controlled pain medication, repressive drug policies continue to be a major driver of violence, suffering, and human rights violations across the world. We work to ensure that national and international institutions recognise, prevent, and redress these abuses.
Human rights violations committed in the name of drug control are frequent and pervasive. These include the death penalty for drug offences, mass incarceration, countless instances of police brutality, a global dearth of life-saving harm reduction, and the systematic denial of indigenous rights.
In all cases, violence, neglect and exclusion disproportionately affect marginalised individuals and communities, pushing them further into vulnerability.
We work to ensure that the abuses associated with drug policies are consistently taken into consideration by human rights bodies both at the UN level and regionally, such as the Human Rights Committee, or the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights. Together with our membership and partners, we advocate for the effective inclusion of these standards in drug policies designed at international, regional, and national level.
