Home » L10 Committee of the Whole (Wednesday) – Resolution L.10 Recognizing the needs of vulnerable populations in addressing the world drug problem

L10 Committee of the Whole (Wednesday) – Resolution L.10 Recognizing the needs of vulnerable populations in addressing the world drug problem

Chair: Let’s turn to L10

Australia: Thank you. We’ve held 5 informals and made progress. We’ve approved all preambular paragraphs and 6 OP paragraphs, we’re very happy to present it now.

Chair: Ok we’ll start with the title

New Zealand: No comment on the title, we’d like to thank Australians for presenting this resolution and we’d like to co-sponsor it

Egypt: Thank you Australia for this resolution and all efforts they’ve made. I think we’ve already made an agreement on the title to use UNGASS language ‘vulnerable members of society’ and I think we can approve the title

Chair: Ok, can we remove the tracking – the title is now approved. Let’s move to preambular. PP1 is in green – any comments? Can we approve it? I see no objections – PP1 is approved. Let’s move to PP2 – I invite any remarks. Can we approve? PP2 is approved. The next – 2bis, any remarks? I see no objections – 2bis approved. Next one – PP3 – approved. PP4 – any remarks – it’s approved. PP5 – any remarks – it’s approved. PP6 – Egypt you have the floor

Egypt: We support this but would like to replace ‘including poverty’ with ‘in particular poverty’

Chair: I see no objection – it’s approved.

Chair: I see so objections to approving the next paragraph. We can move on. Are there any remarks.

Egypt: We have previously made comments on this paragraph. We would like to keep it bracketed for the time being.

Chair: There are no other remarks. We will bracket it and move on. I see no objections, let’s move onto the next paragraph. This is the operative part. There are no objections, so it is approved. We can proceed to OP2. Are there any remarks on that?

Russia: We would like to put a full stop after drug use.

Chair: Thank you. Are there any other remarks? There is a request from Sweden.

Sweden: We would prefer to have the last line in this last paragraph. It was agreed in the informal that we would stick with this language with the Russian Federation.

Australia: We agree and are happy to consider this to expedite the process.

Egypt: We would like to add ‘and involvement and illicit drug-cultivation, production, trafficking and drug-related crime with a view to preventing such activities’

Australia: The member in the room in the informal agrees that if this resolution was focusing on the prevention and treatment we would keep the original language. 

Spain: We are in agreement with the comments made by Australia. This would have an adverse impact on the resolution and would be something that we would need to address in another resolution. We could not go along with the last part.

Germany: We want to express our support for what our colleagues from Australia and Spain just said. We would like to keep the focus on health and treatment and would like to delete the last part of this paragraph.

Egypt: Thank you, we do agree. If we focus only on treatment then ‘social consequences’ has no point here – it’s being discussed elsewhere in resolutions, so we agree it doesn’t need to be here. Thank you Australia for flexibility, we’re happy if the paragraph ends with ‘drug use’.

Australia: Thank you. That sentence was proposed by Russia in informals.

Russian Federation: It’s our view that the sentence can finish at ‘drug use’, and we don’t need to repeat it.

Australia: If we are able to explain: some people are more vulnerable to the adverse consequences of drug use – more severe consequences can be higher for vulnerable populations such as young people

Norway: We prefer to have the last part of the sentence in there

Egypt: Maybe if we put ‘specific challenges on public health and risk factors’, then we can remove after ‘drug use’.

Chair: Ok, can we go with this paragraph after Egypt’s proposal?

Iraq: I second Egypt’s proposal but prefer to also keep ‘social consequences’ as this is agreed language

Chair: Any other comments?

Egypt: Sorry – not ‘specific challenges on public health’, we mean ‘specific challenges to public health’

Iraq: We prefer to have ‘social consequences’, instead of ‘risk factors’

Australia: We want to keep ‘risk factors’ as it’s the risk factors associated with vulnerable members of society. So perhaps another way to address it – is to say ‘to public health and wellbeing’ and leave in ‘risk factors’

Chair: Ok that is now on the screen, any comments? Is that agreeable? Ok no objections – OP1 approved.

Chair: We can now move to OP2. I see no remarks, so it is approved. Let’s move to OP3.

Egypt: We have had extensive discussions on this and it is now getting very complicated and losing the original point. We want involvement from these stakeholders, but this involvement should be appropriate within a national context. I propose that we bracket it and come back to it at the end of the session.

Chair: Move on to 3bis.

Egypt: We are not comfortable with the social context of this paragraph. Prehapas we can bracket it for now.

Australia: Can we suggest to our colleagues from Egypt that we replace social consequence with

Spain: The consequences of social and public health is repeated in many resolutions. It si an accepted term and well understood. If the Australia proposal works well, we will withdraw the present comment.

 Egypt: We can go along with the Australian proposal.

Spain: We can agree with the paragraph.

Germany: We wonder if minimising the adverse public health and drug abuse.

Australia: To be more precise we will have to take a moment to think about how that text should read. Could we reshuffle the text to say: ‘effective measures at ensuring well-being and minimizing the adverse public health consequences’

Belgium: This delegation thinks that the language of the UNGASS outcome document should not be changed. It is difficult to accept this change as it is on the previously agreed language.

Singapore: WE would like to propose that we remove the wording of; women who use drugs and keep it as ‘the involvement of women’

Egypt: we agree with Singapore and do not see why we should limit this resolution to a specific group of women.

Russia: In the first line, we would like to add ‘of women, as appropriate’. We are unsure as to the specific meaning of ‘sexual-reproductive health and rights’

Iran: We support the amendment made by the delegation of Egypt. These terms are not familiar to us.

We likewise, support the proposal of Egypt. We have a preference for the solution that was mentioned by Singapore. Policies must relate to women in many different aspects and not just prevention.

Belgium: We agreed in the UNGASS and I don’t see it appropriate to include half of the world’s population.

Chair: We will have to bracket it and come back to it later.

UK: We would like to support our Belgium colleagues. To caveat it ‘as appropriate’ would be redundant. It is one caveat too far, but in the interest of making progress, we are happy to join consensus about all of the other comments. We would like to suggest the addition of ‘gender-sensitive’ in the third line.

Australia: We would also like to remove ‘as appropriate’ as this language is already sufficiently drafted to encourage Member States.

Egypt: We are fine with going along with the comments, but we do not need ‘gender-sensitive’

Iran: We encourage the involvement of women

Russia: For compromise purposes we can take out our original caveat and go back to the original proposal of Egypt.

Chair: I see no objections to the paragraph as it is. It is approved.

Egypt: I propose that we go to OP9 and use some of the language in this paragraph.

Australia: The working that we have in OP9 was agreed in informals and we would be happy to weave that language into this paragraph.

Chair: With that we can bracket this and look forward the consultation between Egypt and Australia.

Russia: Am I understanding correctly that the third line will be referring to ‘drug abuse ‘and not ‘drug use’?

Australia: Yes, I can confirm that.

Chair: With that clarification, the gavel remains.

USA: To potentially move this forward we believe we should change the paragraph to read ‘’

Australia: We are happy to accept the suggestion from the US.

 Iraq: As an agreed language we use ‘within national legislative and administrative system. I also propose that we move indigenous and approach the population in general.

Australia: We would strongly prefer that ‘among indigenous populations’ remains in this paragraph as it covers the position of all nations.

Egypt: We are flexible on this idea, but if we remove indigenous populations there will be no need for the paragraph as a whole as the points have been raised in other paragraphs.

Ecuador: We support it as it stands, because if we take out indigenous populations the paragraph has now added value. There are too many caveats for a topic that is rather generic in its interest value.

UK: This delegation agrees with the comments made by our colleagues of Ecuador.

Russia: In the interest of strengthen international participation, we would like to add ‘to keep the CND appropriately informed about the progress made in this regard’.

Belgium: I would like to ask our colleagues in Russia what they mean by their comments?

Russia: WE understand from the current practices that the CND gets information’s from |UNDC and we do not envisage any additional reports. However, we would like to understand how the specific needs of vulnerable members of society will be addressed.

Belgium: We make clear that there are no new demands and understand that this is a process that we have already been doing.

Chair: Let’s move onto paragraph 9. Are we able to approve it as it is? I see no objections, so therefore the paragraph is agreed. Let’s move to paragraph 10. I see no objections, so this paragraph is adopted.

Australia: Thank you to all of the members for the consideration and cooperation of our resolution. To be able to move quickly and to achieve consensus we have a new informal in MOE07 at 14:00 today.

Russia: In the interest of strengthen international participation, we would like to add ‘to keep the CND appropriately informed about the progress made in this regard’.

Belgium: I would like to ask our colleagues in Russia what they mean by their comments?

Russia: We understand from the current practices that the CND gets information’s from |UNDC and we do not envisage any additional reports. However, we would like to understand how the specific needs of vulnerable members of society will be addressed.

Belgium: We make clear that there are no new demands and understand that this is a process that we have already been doing.

Chair: Let’s move onto paragraph 9. Are we able to approve it as it is? I see no objections, so therefore the paragraph is agreed. Let’s move to paragraph 10. I see no objections, so this paragraph is adopted.

Australia: Thank you to all of the members for the consideration and cooperation of our resolution. To be able to move quickly and to achieve consensus we have a new informal in MOE07 at 14:00 today.

Chair: to make progress, we can discuss these paragraphs now, so that there is no need to go to informals.

Egypt: Could we change ‘reaffirming’ to ‘recalling’

Pakistan: We support the changes made by Egypt.

Australia: I think that ‘noting’ would be a better word for the start of the paragraph

Chair: Any other comments?

Ecuador: This resolution was already adopted. ‘Noted’ is a little too vague. Could we say ‘recalling’?

UK: ‘recalling’ is the best way to find consensus in this paragraph.

Australia: We are happy to go along.

Egypt: We are not happy to go along with the previous suggestions and insist on the word ‘noted’.

Chair: We need to make progress and the chair would be reluctant to bracketing this paragraph because of one word.

Pakistan: The secretariat has raised a very valid point.

Australia: In paragraph 9 it is the exact same text of the resolution, so the word ‘recalling’ is fine for this paragraph.

Chair: Can we approve it? I see no objections; this paragraph is approved.

Egypt: We would like to reword the paragraph to read ‘encourages member states as appropriate and within their national context to promote a participatory role for all members of society, in particular those who are vulnerable in the development of the national drug policies’.

Australia: We would like to add ‘and programme’ to the end of the paragraph.

Iraq: I am not familiar with the word context. It is too broad for me. I suggest we add ‘national, legislative and administrative systems.

Russia: There are two caveats here that are superfluous.

Malaysia: We are supportive of Egypt’s proposal, but we

Russia: We would like to support the proposal made by Egypt and replace ‘participatory role’ and replace it with’ contributions by all members of society’

USA: We are moving away from a formula that would be acceptable to my delegation. In our view there are other ways to promote the participatory role. The language is problematic to us and we would like to add ‘as appropriate’. This language provides enough ambiguity.

Bulgaria: We think that the initial; Egypt proposal was acceptable. The addition of legislative and administrative systems provides a complicated discussion that we do not want to get into.

Yemen: We would like to support the amendment by our colleague of Iraq as it covers the concern of all states.

Iran: We believe that the original proposal from Egypt is very useful and that we should go back to it. WE are comfortable with replacing national contribution to national legislation.

Belgium: We like this new proposal but believe that there is one element missing. WE should say ‘in the development and implementation’. 

UK: We would like to agree with Belgium. We would not add ‘design and monitoring’ We are in line with Yemen.

Australia: We consider the revised text is an excellent compromise for this resolution. We are happy with the inclusion of implementation and development. In the interest of cooperation and collaboration, we urge our colleagues to agree with the text on screen

Egypt: We are not comfortable with removing the caveat in the beginning of the paragraph. We insist that the paragraph remains ‘as appropriate and in line with national legislation’. 

Russia: We can agree with this proposal but would like to add ‘all relevant members of society’. WE do not it is the place of all members of society to participate in national drug policy.

China: We support the proposal of Russia.

Pakistan: We also support the comments of Russia and china.

UK: We are fine with the recent additions but would like to go back to one caveat. We would like to add ‘in line with national and legislative systems’.

Australia: There are sufficient caveats and would urge Member States to approve the paragraph on screen.

Chair: I see no objections; this paragraph is approved. We can now move onto paragraph 3.

Australia: We note that this is agreed language and that the adverse consequences of drug abuse do not only relate to public health.

Czech Republic: We think that the wording of this paragraph is in line with the UNGASS Outcome document.

Russia: We would like to change the wording to read ‘social integration measures’

Egypt: We will be happy to include the word ‘well-being’ and remove ‘social’.

Belgium: Our colleagues are trying to create something new.

Bulgaria: This delegation would like to support Belgium and stick to the agreed language.

Egypt: To clarify, I do not think that the words ‘social consequences’ has been included in any previous paragraphs of the UNGASS Outcome document. We are very insistent on removing ‘social’ at this point in time.

Australia: We appeal to all of our colleagues that this is agreed language in reference to the problems of drug abuse. This language is simply emphasising the consequences of drug abuse to specific sectors of the population who are susceptible to the consequences of drug abuse. We do not understand why we cannot use agreed language that captures adverse consequences. We appeal that we include the word ‘social’

Belgium: We agree with our Australian colleagues.

Chair: We are very close to consensus here. I give the floor to Argentina.

Argentina: social consequences should be retained, and I am grateful to Belgium for their addition of the Caveat.

Egypt: I will have to go back to my Capital. Could we bracket it for now?

Chair: We will bracket this for now and move to the next paragraph. OP 5. I encourage Egypt and Australia to engage bilaterally to address the bracket paragraph above.

Australia: In earlier discussion, our colleagues suggested that this paragraph use similar language that is used in OP9.

Egypt: We can add ‘encouraging member states while developing drug policies and programmes addressing the specific needs of vulnerable members of society to promote the contribution of young people and the organisations that work with them as appropriate a participatory role where appropriate’.

We add ‘as appropriate’ because young people include those who are under five years old and are unable onto participate.

Australia: We agree with out Egyptian colleagues and agree with the need to add ‘as appropriate’ because of the need for parental consent for those of a certain age.

Egypt: We prefer to keep ‘participatory role’.

Australia: We do not see the need to add ‘participatory role’ as the words ‘as appropriate’ acts as a caveat for this issue.

Singapore: Our delegation is flexible in this matter. I suggest that we reshuffle to words to read ‘to promote, as appropriate, a participatory role’. This ensures that we are talking about age when it comes to the participatory role.

Iran: The proposal made by Singapore is a constructive one.

Pakistan: We support the additions made by Singapore and I suggest we close this paragraph and move on.

Australia: We agree that the intention behind this is about age, but also propose that there is more to it. The suggestion by Singapore allows the flexibility. Can we accept this language?

Argentina: The suggestion brought forward by Singapore is one way of making this paragraph acceptable to a number of other delegations.

Egypt: We can go along with the paragraph the way it shows on screen.

Chair: This paragraph is approved. We are left with one paragraph that Egypt have said that they would like to consider during further consultations.

Egypt: WE cannot accept the paragraph as it is on screen and look forward to discussing this matter with Australia at a later time.

Chair: We suspend consideration of this resolution and move onto L6.

USA: We are happy to now have L6 under consideration by the Committee of the Whole.

Chair: I propose that we start with the title. Are we able to adopt the title?

Belgium: During informals, we did not discuss the title and my delegation is not in a position to accept this as it stands. Could we change the wording to read ‘Enhancing international cooperation to address the international posed by the non-medical use of synthetic opioids’.

Ecuador: Could we change it to ‘Enhancing and strengthening’

USA: I would like to echo what our colleagues from Belgium said.

China: This is not only about international cooperation, but also about domestic efforts. I suggest that we add ‘national efforts to address’

USA: ‘Enhancing and strengthening international, regional and national cooperation to address international threats posed to non-medical use of synthetic opioids.

The better formation would be international cooperation and regional and cooperation and domestic efforts.

France: We believe that there is a word lacking after posed. Shouldn’t it be ‘international threats posed by the non-medical use of synthetic opioids’.

Belgium: We accept that over prescription has cause part of the problem, but we would not want to give out the wrong message.

Japan: We would like to ask for a clarification from Belgium.

Belgium: Over prescription means non-medical use.

Chair: The title of this resolution is agreed. Let’s move to the body of the resolution.

The first preamble paragraph is agreed.

USA: We consider the second pp. to be duplicative and would suggest that we delete it.

Chair: Gives the floor to Norway.

Norway: I suggest that resolution 53/4 should be recalled and add resolution 53/7.

Chair: We can now move to the next resolution.

Mexico: We would like to include a reference to increased demand. We suggest the addition of increased trafficking and increased use of non-medical opioids.

 USA: We propose that we delete ‘problem’ in the first line and; law enforcement and security’ in the third and fourth line.

China: we insist that we include the phrase ‘rising demand for drugs caused drug traffickers exploiting the market’.

UK: We support the USA, as there are a number of causes in this regard and it is not only because of the rising demand. We would therefor like to delete the comments made by China.

Turkey: Keeping this notion of challenges to law enforcement and security. We suggest the third line read ‘to public health, safety, law enforcement and security, in some cases’

Chair: Gives the floor to the Secretariat.

Secretariat: The following informals will be held:

L3 (Chair) at 15:00 in M2

L2 (Russia) at 16:00 in M0E05

L9 (Germany/Peru/Thailand) 16:30 – 17:30 in M0E03

Chair: We will resume this discussion at 16:30 and it will continue until 19:30.

 

 

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