The Committee of the Whole (CoW) has just started working on the first resolution, Resolution L2 – Promoting international cooperation in responding to new psychoactive substances. This resolution was introduced by Australia, Japan and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. We will be providing updates on the ongoing negotiations on next blog posts.

Some discussions are taking place on a number of paragraphs. A considerable debate continues on the mention of the SMART programme within the resolution. This seems to be problematic because of the amount of resources that this would involve.

Some uncertainties whether “capacity” is referring to only financial capacity or is to include other types of capacity, including technological etc.. Informal consultations will clear up this ambiguity.

Concerns brought up about the increased in costs with sharing information by the UK. Interpol’s role in information sharing is also being questioned.

The INCB could have some role in developing information on new psychoactive substances, however the INCB claims it doesn’t really have a mandate to collate all this information and instead suggests its more the role of national governments to collect this information.

Budgetary language still causing some issues, and UNODC suggests member need to provide some extra-budgetary resources.

L2 adopted after informal meetings