Chair: Welcome. The voting of rescheduling of substances will take place on Wednesday morning under Item 5. The COW will be suspending during the voting on this matter.
9 draft resolutions tabled and will be introduced to the committee.
Secretary:
We will discuss:
L2 Russian resolution – Protecting children from illicit drug threat,
L4 Pakistan resolution – strengthening efforts to prevent drug use in educational settings,
L5 Austrian resolution – laboratory support for the implementation of the scheduling decisions of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs,
L6 USA resolution – enhancing international cooperation to combat the synthetic opioid crisis,
L7 Norway and Sweden resolution – promoting measures to prevent transmission of HIV and other blood-borne viruses associated with the use of drugs from mothers to babies during pregnancy, birth or breastfeeding,
L8 Switzerland resolution – Promoting the full implementation of the International Import and Export Authorization System for licit trade in narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances,
L9 Germany, Peru and Thailand resolution – Promoting the implementation of the UN Guiding Principles on Alternative Development and related commitments on alternative development and regional, interregional and international cooperation on development-oriented, balanced drug control policy addressing socioeconomic issues,
L10 Australian resolution – recognizing the needs of vulnerable populations in addressing the world drug problem,
L11 Canadian and Uruguay resolution – removing stigma as a barrier to the availability and delivery of health, care and social services for people who use drugs,
L12-14 draft resolution on budget.
Any revised resolution submitted must be clearly marked with tracked changes.
Chair: The conference management services have removed the provision of the night session. Upon approval, draft resolutions will be submitted to the committee for approval
Resolution L2: Protecting children from the illicit drug threat
Russian Federation: The Russian Federation has not yet begun to negotiate the actual wording of the text. They requested this resolution be discussed at a later time.
Resolution L4:
Pakistan: Informal consultations have begun. Three contextual consultations have already been conducted. Pakistan do not bring any changes to the draft resolution itself, but instead to the title. They suggest that the words ‘illicit drug use’ are deleted and keep ‘Drug abuse’.
Ecuador: Thank you. We would like to thank Pakistan for presenting this very useful draft resolution. Our suggestion is if this resolution could be implemented in as wide a scope of settings – could we suggest the whole ‘educational sector’ in the title rather than ‘educational settings’ as it would be broader and include Sunday schools. We support Iran’s suggestion.
Belgium: We also thank Pakistan for this resolution. The title should also include ‘scientific evidence based’. We are not convinced that sector is broader than settings.
France: Thank you. We would prefer maintaining the original title in ‘prevent illicit drug use’ rather than ‘drug abuse’. We believe we need to prevent all types of drug use, not just drug abuse.
Egypt: Good afternoon and thank you. We are not sure of the French proposal at this point; drug use can be in medical settings. If you use their suggestion, you could prevent the medical use of drugs in schools, which is not appropriate. We agree that ‘education settings’ has a wider scope than sector, not the other way around. We prefer to go back the ‘settings’ in the title. We have no problem with ‘evidence-based’ in the title, but believe it is redundant.
Canada: Canada offers its support to the changes suggested by Belgium. With regard to the title, Canada would prefer to add ‘Problematic Drug Use’ as it is more encompassing.
Indonesia: Indonesia would like to retain the original language and support the scientific evidence based. They would like to retain the word ‘setting’ instead of ‘sector’
Nigeria: The addition to the title made by Iran does not cause any harm. Therefore, Nigeria support the suggestions made by Iran. They would like to retain the word ‘settings’ in the title. Nigeria suggested the creation of a paragraph that would capture the scientific evidence-based elements.
Chair: The Chair suggested that we come back to the title and focus on the body of the resolution to begin with.
Pakistan: Urges colleagues not to introduce controversial additions to the body of the context that have not yet been agreed upon.
Chair: The proposal to go to the body of the text is appreciated. Please express yourself on that now. I assume we can move to the body.
Guatemala: Thank you. We have no problem with the procedure but we do not want Ecuador or Egypts suggestions to have a line through it. We have no problem going back to informals. If we are going to use new language is needs to have been agreed upon.
Chair: Thank you. We will review this when we get back to the title
Pakistan: Thank you. PP1 is mature enough to be chaired; in informals the USA requested to keep in brackets, so if there is no concern we’d like to clear the paragraph.
USA: Thank you. We did request that all text in resolutions to be kept in brackets for when all states were represented here. We have no objection to this paragraph, but it’s important to make the point that informals are informal and that any member state has the right to put forth their suggestions.
Chair: Can we adopt PP1?
Brazil: I propose a small substitution – instead of ‘threat’ can we use ‘challenge’ – it’s the word used in the UNGASS Outcome Document.
Ecuador: Agreed with keeping the language as it stands. However, in regard to ‘young people’ they would like to include children and adolescence.
Pakistan: Requests that this language is simple and understandable.
Iraq: This is one of the most important resolution to combat drugs. The terminology of ‘children’ should be changed to ‘juvenile’ as it includes everyone from 9 years old to 17 years old.
Egypt: Believe that it is better to widen the scope at this point and would prefer to keep’ young people’. Egypt would also prefer to keep the word ‘threat’.
Pakistan: Would like to remind delegations that this is a common phrase. In its national capacity there are no obligations to keeping the word threat.
Chair: Suggested we go back to the original language following recommendations from the floor. There were no objections.
Brazil: Thank you. We would like to insist on substituting the word ‘threat’ with ‘challenge’ in the entire paragraph – this is what we agreed in the Outcome Document. We would at least like ‘serious threat’ if we can not use ‘challenge’. Is this in the whole paragraph or just the beginning?
Chair: In the entire paragraph not just at the beginning.
Norway: We believe the word is ok here. We think that ‘young people’ covers people up to the age of 25. We support keeping the text as it is.
Chair: Brazil?
Brazil: We still insist
Egypt: Why would we not consider this as a threat to the public health of young people?
Indonesia: We don’t have any problem with this paragraph as it is. The world drug problem poses a serious threat to public health and we have this language from the UNGASS Outcome Doc and 2009 Political Declaration
Brazil: We prefer challenge as we see threat as an inconsistent use of language.
Chair: Asked the floor if we can accept the word ‘challenge’ instead of ‘threat’
Egypt: We insist of keeping the word threat as the world challenge has not connotations.
Pakistan: ‘Threat’ is not an unusual word and it was used in the UNGASS document.
Azerbaijan: Propose the wording ‘threat to humanity and public safety’.
Pakistan: Request that the representatives from the US and Colombia do not have any objections.
USA: Do not have any objections to the draft of this particular paragraph.
Colombia: Thanks Pakistan for the resolution that they have been working on. There are reservations on the balance of the language of this resolution.
Chair: Approves the paragraph.
Pakistan: This resolution will pass through the usual process and the name of the country was only bracketed for transparency.
Chair: Gives the floor to Azerbaijan.
Azerbaijan: Asks the secretary to delete all the previous amendments that could be confusing.
Colombia: Considers that this paragraph be removed from this resolution. We insist on deleting this paragraph as it does not add anything to combating the world drug problem.
Azerbaijan: Propose the wording ‘threat to humanity and public safety’.
Switzerland: We agree with Azerbaijan.
Chair: Gives the floor to the Russian Federation
Russian Federation: Russian Federation would like to move this paragraph as this has already been agreed on in the 2016 Outcome Doc
Jordan: Thank you. We want to express Jordan’s appreciation and support this resolution as it is in line with Jordanian drug policy.
Palestine: Thank you. This has serious ideas and is supported by my delegation. We support the current text of this paragraph as it is in line with Outcome Doc and don’t believe it will lead to a more balanced document. We prefer the original title
Canada: We suggest a friendly bis paragraph to take on other UN language. We would like to add in as an alternative to PP2 ‘Reiterating our commitment to respecting, protecting and promoting all human rights, fundamental freedoms and the inherent dignity of all individuals and the rule of law in the development and implementation of drug policies’. Source of this is UNGASS Op Recommendation 4. To replace the preambular paragraph above starting with ‘reaffirming’.
Malaysia: Thank you. We are in line with Russia and Palestine – needs to be in line with supply reduction, demand reduction and international cooperation in line with Political Declaration 2009. We believe we don’t need to add in Canada’s paragraph even though it’s in line with the 2016 Outcome Doc.
Azerbaijan: Reference to international law is always relevant to the world drug problem. In favour of keeping the paragraph as it is and will only keep Canada’s replacement is the paragraph is added to the original.
USA: Supports Canadas suggestions and suggests that we keep the changes and discuss it during informals.
Spain: We understand Colombia’s suggestion to balance the text and look at pp2.
Colombia: This delegation would like to contribute to the text, bearing in mind the UNGASS document. Requests that instead of this paragraph we insert the operational paragraph 1 of the demand reduction and related measures.
Canada: Supports the alternative paragraph but suggests that the preamble be included in some way in the document.
Chair: Asks Colombia to point out the paragraph they were referring to earlier. Asks the floor for any further comments on the amendments made by Colombia and Canada.
Pakistan: The original language was introduced after the negotiations of UNGASS. The alternative language that we are suggesting will be taking us in a different direction. Suggests that we keep the preamble paragraph in brackets and move on. We can then see how to move forward:
Palestine: The alternative worded suggested from Pakistan is far removed from the original meaning. We are talking about Human Rights and nothing is better than making reference to the legal pillars to which all states agree. We reaffirm our position and would like to retain the original language.
Iran: Alternative paragraph pp3 does not have reference to the world drug problem.
Chair: Suggest that we move onto the next paragraph.
Pakistan: During informal consultations it was suggested that we should use the agreed language from the UNGASS document.
Chair: There have been no objections. The paragraph is agreed.
Pakistan: Would like to replace the word ‘use’ with ‘abuse’.
USA: Asks that we go back to the previous paragraph. Would like to consult with Washington. Suggests that we bracket pp4 alt for now.
Norway: Would like to retain the delete paragraph (pp4bis).
Uruguay: Thanks. It’s very important for us in this issue – we need a reference to Agenda 2030. We want to keep PP4bis due to its link to the SDGs
Pakistan: My understanding is not that we’ve moved to PP4bis. We support PP4alt – but once a paragraph is cleared we usually respect that and move on – we respect the US but would like to move on.
USA: Sorry – I was referring to PP4bis – that is the paragraph I’d like bracketed.
Chair: Therefore PP4alt is not under bracketing. Gavelled.
Iran: We can’t go along with PP4bis because of its scope
Canada: We welcome the suggestion of PP4bis and its mention of the SDGs. Given this resolution is about education and young people, we suggest a new PP4bis referencing SDG targets 3.5 and 4.1:
‘Bearing in mind, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, including target 3.5 which concerns the strengthening of the prevention and treatment of substance abuse, including the harmful use of alcohol and target 4.1 to ensure that all girls and boys complete free equitable and quality primary secondary education leading to effective learning outcomes.’
This is in light of the previous CND resolution 59/5, and building out the SDG component a bit more.
Chair: Gives the floor to Brazil
Brazil: Supports the agenda for the 2030 resolution and supports Norway’s comments.
Canada: confirms that it would be new paragraph but merging them in some way.
Spain: There is a clear link to the SDG and drugs, because the world drug problem is important but should be directly related to drugs. This new proposal included alcohol; which in some cases is more dangerous than some drugs. We need to focus on the SDG which are of the clear competence of the CND. The delegation advocates and supports the SDG, insofar as they are within the remit of the CND.
Brazil: Supports the proposals made by Norway. By including alcohol, you are going beyond the specific role of the CND, but it is not too far beyond.
USA: Aligns itself with Spain and agree that we do not need to reference targets to alcohol. We can re3move the brackets from pp4bis but note that the language proposed by Canada is not accepted.
Pakistan: Agrees in principle with the comments made by Spain. We need to keep it focused and look at the resolution within an educational setting. Suggest that we consider keeping the original language.
Norway: Sees merit in the new paragraphs proposed by Canada. From this delegation it is important to work on this and merge the two paragraphs.
Uruguay: Would like to be flexible and adapt to the proposal made by Norway and Canada. It is important to address the 2030 resolutions but emphasise that we are flexible in this matter.
Canada: Argues that the resolution preamble paragraph 5 need to be included again.
France: agree with the Spanish analysis. It is a good initiative to refer the SDG goals, but remain within the commission goals.
Colombia: This delegation supports Norway’s original proposal, but also thinks that Canadas proposal has its merits. The difficulty lies in the language of 3.5. One option is to refer to goal 3.5 or to the other is the have a caveat that would put it in inverted commas.
Iran: Refuses to go along with pp4bis. They have requested more time to receive instruction from the capital.
Chair: There have been proposals for merging and bracketing the two paragraphs
Pakistan: I request that we move on. We are not renegotiating 60/1.
Chair: So we’ll bracket them and move on to the next
Pakistan: We agree
Iraq: Are we dealing with recalling resolutions? I have an intervention concerning the term ‘youth’ PP5 – some countries do not have laws on minors – I wish to set the age group ‘For the statistical consistency – between the ages of 15-24’ in the beginning of the res we say young people, here we say youth – for consistency, we’d like to stick with ‘children’ and ‘youth’ as they are important terms for law enforcement issues.
Pakistan: This is not our task to set the age group. The relevant UN agencies can do this.
USA: Grammatical issue – not ‘drug abuse of children’, should be ‘drug abuse by children’
Iraq: We have to stay consistent and with language here. We’re talking about education, and in my country we say ‘juvenile’. To define terminology is very important to my country.
Pakistan: We do not mean to question the need for consistency. What we suggest is that we do not insert age brackets.
Chair: So with this we adopt this paragraph PP5?
Canada: Can we suggest we bracket the issue of ‘drug use’/’drug abuse’ – this should be done after the title is finalised, and then be consistent throughout the document.
Pakistan: We don’t have difficulty with Canada’s suggestion – but I suggest we clear the text [text left bracketed]
Spain: PP6 – I understand that this paragraph is also pending on the use of ‘illicit drug use’/’drug abuse’
Nigeria: Need to work with children and youth – I don’t understand the use of the term ‘multiple settings’
Pakistan: It’s not just that we work with children in school settings, it includes family, peer and community settings. Educational settings are not the only settings in which we need to work with children
Chair: There are no other requests from the floor, so this paragraph will be brackets.
Pakistan: It is the understanding that the phrase ‘illicit drug use’ be bracketed. This resolution is not about out of school children. This delegation puts forward that they are willing to discuss this in informals.
Uruguay: Propose ‘The need to take effective and practical primary and prevention measures, in particular children and youth, from drug use initiation by providing them with accurate information about the risks of drug abuse, by promoting skills and opportunities to choose healthy lifestyles and develop healthy parenting and ensuring equal access to education and vocational training’. This is agreed language from the Outcome document.
Norway: Supports the new text from Uruguay. The background says that we have already said that children are the most valuable asset. We need to find a way to include the children that do not have the opportunity to attend school. Are happy to work with Pakistan on this matter.
Nigeria: Believe the proposal from Norway fits into this particular aspect. We are ready to work with any delegation that think that this language needs to be included in this resolution. We don’t believe that all these amendments need to be included at present.
USA: We value education and it is the responsibility of states to provide free education, but it is not within the purview of the CND. In some countries the exercise of the parental right to home-school children is not allowed; we should not be getting into this debate currently.
Canada: We would like to add an additional paragraph to pp6bis. ‘Stressing the need to take effective and practical measures to prevent progression to severe drug use disorders through appropriately targeted early interventions from people at risk of such progression’.
Tunisia: My delegation considers the importance of this resolution in relevance with children and education. There are a series of institutions involved in the protection of children. We are grateful on all the proposals but don’t think we should embark on these issues.
Spain: We support the proposal made by Uruguay (PP6quat) as it really states the whole ABC on protecting children from drug abuse. In regards to the other proposal, we agree with the USA
Norway: Singapore wanted to delete ‘quality’ and leave ‘primary education’. I thought the US wanted to delete PP6ter but maybe we should discuss this in informals.
Palestine: In light of the proposals made for PP6 they all deal with the right to education, something we firmly support. In regards to the policies we adopt. But we prefer Uruguays text PP6quat as that is the most balanced and is more in line with the aims and goals of this resolution.
Pakistan: I request we move on. Several of the new paragraphs introduced for PP6 are surprising as they weren’t introduced in informals.
Chair: Next paragraph (PP7)
Pakistan: I believe we just need to bracket the phrase drug use/abuse for consistency
Canada: We would prefer to use language on health and wellbeing as suggested in preamble paragraph, rather than ‘healthy and safe development’.
Chair: Asks Pakistan for any comments.
Pakistan: Supports the amendments suggested by Canada. It is our understanding that we will deal with the issue of drug use and abuse.
Chair: With this understanding we can move onto the next paragraph. The floor is given to Pakistan.
Pakistan: We would like to hear the concerns from delegations regarding this paragraph.
Egypt: To retain our position on this matter we would like to keep the original wording as it was clear and to the point.
Singapore: We believe the original formulation is acceptable and covers all activities within a school setting.
Russian Federation: We would like to join Singapore and Egypt and maintain the original wording.
Tunisia: Put forward their support for the delegations who propose that we keep the initial text.
Palestine: Support the original language.
UK: Early intervention should be specifically mentioned as part of the prevention program.
Malaysia: We would like to maintain the original text of this paragraph.
Nigeria: We support the proposal of the Iranian colleagues. We also see the merit in what they UK delegation has said, but we propose that we work together to come up with language that covers early intervention.
USA: We support the language of the UK. The language of the education setting allows intervention to be taken when required. Question the meaning of ‘primary prevention’.
Russian Federation: The representative did not participate in the informal resolution but recalls that the language is from the outcome document.
Egypt: Can we go back to previous paragraph PP8. We believe we need to stay as general as possible. If the UK want to stress one of the programs, maybe they could suggest a new paragraph.
UK: We wanted to mention it here as it relative to the stage in which you intervene. We don’t think it would add much value to add a whole new para but interested to hear from other delegations.
Chair: OK we’ll bracket that paragraph PP8.
Pakistan: Ok with Iran proposal to change ‘Recalling’ to ‘Noting’ We accept this and recommend that we move on.
Next para: We agree with Norway and Iran with this paragraph PP9 and with PP10
Chair: Ok we agree on this and move on (gavelled PP10)
Pakistan: We believe we accept this para and move on (PP11)
Pakistan: There are no difficulties in the additions by Iran and Canada. We urge colleagues to revisit the additions.
Canada: The language around domestic legal principles and drug use can be revisited when we discuss the title.
Pakistan: Request that we retain the original word ‘urges’
Egypt: Requests that we look at the paragraph in a new document.
Chair: This request could be a bit challenging.
Spain: This paragraph at the bringing needs some clarification. Referring to domestic legal principles once would be sufficient. We need to clean this text up.
Pakistan: The original language was simple, but for some delegations we needed repeat the laws at a national and federal level. We suggest that all of the edits are deleted and retain the original language – saving the phrases drug use and abuse.
Chair: Gives the floor to Pakistan.
Pakistan: We agree that the points raised by Turkey should be implemented.
USA: Would like to question the first line of the paragraph that reference the national context. The delegation asks for an explanation on this matter.
Pakistan: This amendment came from Iran.
Egypt: From our understanding, the proposal from Iran meant that all programmes need to be context sensitive and adapted to the national and social context.
Chair: Gives the floor to Iran.
Iran: This explanation accommodates the language used in this addition.
Chair: Gives the floor to the USA.
USA: Thanks, the delegations or the explanations. Asks the floor to address the language within their national context.
Canada: Are happy to work on that language. The delegation would like to consult with their capital and get back to the floor.
Spain: In principle we were concerned with this proliferation of national context etc, but we agree with US proposal. It shouldn’t be necessary if we have national regulations – anything should cover national regulations and we shouldn’t need to reference to it all the time.
Tunisia: Thank Iran for its proposal and amendment. We believe it’s really important to preserve national context and would like to keep the original language.
Iran: We don’t have legal principles in all countries. We prefer to keep ‘as appropriate in national context’ and believe we need this caveat to accommodate for different legal systems.
UK: We are not familiar with the term ‘within the national context’ I find it difficult to understand the added value of this addition. In text one of the UK’s proposals has been dropped (OP1) the term ‘resilience’ we want to make sure it’s still in there, and we haven’t heard any objections
Chair: We need to bracket this and move on.
Canada: This delegation would like to phrase it as appropriate in the context of national law.
Brazil: Suggests that there are too many caveats in this paragraph.
Pakistan: Believe that the expression ‘consistent with relevant national laws’ express the concerns that were raised. There is no objection to the addition of the word ‘resilience’.
Iran: We need to come back to the issue of drug use and abuse. Concerning the proposal of consistence with national law; Iran suggested that we have both national law and the context to promote.
Nigeria: This delegations concern has been addressed in part by Iran. However, we suggest that the word ‘law’ be bracketed and come back to at the end of the day.
Chair: Requests that this sentence be bracketed and that we move on.
Pakistan: We have no objections to the suggestions made by Canada during the informals. In our national capacity we cannot go along. WE request that we retain the additional last two lines and move on from this issue.
Canada: We would like something that mentions ‘consistent with national law’. In reference to the Canadian delegation, federal law does not have jurisdiction.
Pakistan: We have no concerns in regard to this matter.
USA: We have the same constitutional concerns of Canada, and so would like to retain the amendments made by Canada.
Egypt: We’re flexible on the language but the idea needs to be there that programs should be tailor made. We’re open to different proposals but we need that in the text.
Canada: It is a strong concern for our government if the reference to national law is left out. Age appropriate and gender sensitive drug prevention curricula is no longer there, it has been deleted with the clean up of the paragraph, could we ask why it is not there.
Pakistan: OP2 – we have no objection to this. We suggest in the last line it should be ‘as appropriate and in accordance with national law and priorities.
US: We have a proposal to clean up the paragraph: add in: ‘age appropriate drug prevention curricula’, add in ‘promote policies to’, delete ‘at the national level’, add ‘advancing’ drug prevention, then delete the rest of the para
Iran: We agree with Canada but need time to get back to you about the US’s proposal
UK: We’d like to reintroduce some language that has been dropped since informals. Second line: ‘promote policies and tools that target relative age and risk groups in multiple settings, and to integrate them’ and this would mean that we could delete age appropriate in line 2.
Canada: We support the amendment made by US. To go back to original intervention, I didn’t hear any objections to age and gender sensitive, could we retain gender in there.
Chair: Reminds the floor of the time constraints and gives the floor to Egypt.
Egypt: We do not understand the context of the changes made and would like to bracket it for the time being. Suggests that, to make things move a little faster, we go back to the original text.
Chair: gives the floor to the Russian Federation.
Russian Federation: We support the comments made by Egypt and prefer to return to the original text.
Iran: We accept the comments from Egypt and the Russian federation and accept that the original language is clear.
USA: Suggests that the proposals made by the UK include ‘high risk groups’. We cannot accept the original language because of constitutional restrictions.
Indonesia: We agree that we should keep the original language as it is.
Russia: We do not accept the addition of ‘high risk’.
UK: The concept of risk groups is well known and was recognised in the UNGASS Outcome document in paragraph 1c. We would not accept going back to the original language at this stage.
Chair: Informs the floor that the time is up for discussions and gives the floor to Pakistan.
Pakistan: Proposes that we have one full reading of the text. We suggest that we resume this in the morning and then take it to informals at 11.00am.
Chair: Gives the floor to the secretariat.
Info on informals tomorrow – L7 (Norway) 10-13pm in M3, L6 (USA) 10-12 in M6, L4 (Pakistan) 11-13 in M7, L10 (Australia) 1-15 in MOE03, L11 (Canada) 1530-1700 in M5). We will post this info webpage for member states. Also EU coordination 8.30-9.30, 2-3 in M2; extended bureau meeting 1315-14 in M0E07