Video | ‘Incorporating Child Rights into Scheduling Decisions at the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs’ explained by Damon Barrett

Damon Barrett introduces his chapter ‘Incorporating Child Rights into Scheduling Decisions at the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs‘, co-authored with Diederik Lohman and published in the 12th thematic issue of International Development Policy.
Damon Barrett is a Co-Founder and Co-Director of the International Centre on Human Rights and Drug Policy based at the Human Rights Centre at the University of Essex. Diederik Lohman is a Senior Adviser in the Public Health Program of the Open Society Foundations and a former Director of the Health and Human Rights division at Human Rights Watch.

This paper focuses on the child rights implications of bringing new substances into the global drug control regime. Focusing on the examples of ketamine and khat, which in turn highlight the issues of access to medicines (SDG 3) and child labor (SDG 8), it outlines the process for placing substances under international control and the child rights implications of such decisions. To date, however, child rights law has not been featured in this procedure. While child rights law may not be determinative in terms of outcome, the chapter focuses on an important process in global drug policy governance. If decisions to place substances under international control within the drug control architecture of the United Nations engage the obligations of child rights treaties, then there is a strong case for formally taking the obligations arising under those treaties into account.

Reference

Damon Barrett and Diederik Lohman, ‘Incorporating Child Rights into Scheduling Decisions at the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs‘ in Julia Buxton, Mary Chinery-Hesse and Khalid Tinasti (eds.) (2020) Drug Policies and Development, Conflict and Coexistence, International Development Policy series No.12 (Geneva, Boston: Graduate Institute Publications, Brill-Nijhoff), http://journals.openedition.org/poldev/3972; DOI: 10.4000/poldev.3972