Title

Chair: No comments

PP1

Mexico: During consultations on this draft resolution, we had expressed our concern with the reference to the 2030 Agenda. We know for the US, it is important to have adequate language. We suggest “recalling” to be substituted with “as was reiterated”, to take into account the US proposal that there’s a reference to the 2030 agenda below.

United States: We appreciate the proposed amendment but we cannot accept that so we’d ask to bracket it.

Peru: “Recalling” was agreed so I suggest returning to it. Bringin changes to agreed elements in the CoW is not ideal.

Mexico: As mentioned at the beginning, it was just a suggestion.

Pakistan: (…)

Peru: The comment by Pakistan is very relevant. When this issue emerged in informals, “recalling” was linked to SDGs. “reaffirming” relates to the principles, so we could move the word “recalling” to make sure it is directly linked to SDGs.

PP2

Russia: Our delegation wasn’t able to be present during the informal consultations. Can I turn to the sponsoring countries to understand the amendment to “should” (instead of “must”), as we’re talking about legally binding documents.

Peru: The proposal comes from the United States.

United States: It is a technical legal issue. The world drug problem is not limited to the parties to the Conventions. Our preference would’ve been to reaffirm the drug conventions to circumvent this issue. But if we say the world drug problem is to be agreed through the treaties, we cannot say “must” because we do not have universal adhering. So “should” instead of “must”.

PP3

Chair: We agree.

United States: We’re concerned about the implications about the paragraph “reaffirming” the commitments instead of reaffirming the Political Declaration. So, we’d like to drop the “the commitments”.

Iran: About this latest amendment, we believe we should stick to the existing language as being drafted regarding the commitments contained in the Political Declaration.

Peru: I understand completely the matters raised by the US. Many of these concerns have been reflected throughout the text. In this case, however, the previous paragraph and this one refers to elements approved in the past. The text has been adopted in the past. In the same vein, we ask for flexibility with regard to the adoption of the text as presented in the outset; so, we would like to keep “the commitments”.

United States: Is the intent to send a signal that we are not committed to reaffirming the entirety of the documents? The following paragraph reaffirms the “outcome document” of the UNGASS. We don’t understand the difference and would like clarity.

Peru: Indeed, this is our intention; reaffirming the commitments is perhaps a different way to reaffirm the document as a whole; that’s how we would like for this to be understood. We hope this addressed the US concerns.

Chair: With this clarification, can we agree on this paragraph as agreed in informals? It is approved.

PP4

Pakistan: We are happy to reaffirm the outcome document, but we suggest to use the language of 60/1 in this paragraph.

Peru: This paragraph is taken from the relevant resolution. It’s agreed language used in previous resolutions.

United States: Looking now at these paragraphs together, it seems that what is missing is that we have just had a Ministerial Declaration last week, recognising that these documents are a single body of commitments. I wonder if the resolution could reflect this and, thus, avoid referring to each one individually. Perhaps Pakistan can propose language.

Pakistan: Very valid point. My suggestion is to use the language of the Ministerial Declaration. I don’t recall the full text but we can request that the Secretariat pulls the language from the Ministerial Declaration.

Chair: We will send you the text for your perusal.

Pakistan: I will propose language.

PP5

Chair: Can we agree on this paragraph? Yes. Then approved and we move to the next one.

PP6

Chair: Is there any comment on PP6? Can we approve this preambular paragraph? This paragraph is approved, is there any comment on PP7? Can we agree on this preambular paragraph? Yes, it is approved. Are there any comments on PP8? Can we agree on this preambular paragraph? This paragraph is also approved. Now we move to PP9, is there any comment? Can we agree on this preambular paragraph? This paragraph is approved. Moving to the next paragraph, PP10, is there any comment? Is there any delegation wishing to take the floor on this paragraph? Can we agree on this paragraph?

Russia: In the 6th line we’d like to have “mandate” rather than “work”

Chair: Thank you, is there any other comment on PP10? Can we approve the paragraph as amended? Thank you now we move to PP11, Is there any comment on this paragraph?

Canada: I’d like to propose “in favour of minimising the adverse public health and social consequences of drug abuse

Peru: The language has enjoyed consensus in the past – our preference would be to keep the agreed upon language that didn’t have a problem passing last year.

Uruguay: (…) we would prefer not making this reference that is included on the screen and support what was said by Canada

Pakistan: we would like to stick to the original text on societies.

France: We cannot accept societies as plural, and that is the ministerial declaration itself, which should be adopted

Germany: This paragraph is agreed language in past years, and I think we keep the language used last year and avoid the pluralised societies.

Russia: (…) missed – agreed with France.

Peru: We agree with Germany, this is a technical resolution that is based on agreed language to avoid these debates – we call on other MS to adopt to text as it was in the past, we want to avoid politicisation. Political comments were made last week – now we are trying to make resolutions. This is why we have included agreed language. We’d prefer to retain the language.

Canada: This is a political debate. We’ve already had it and found a solution – we used this language last week because we also had a paragraph on human rights. We have spent a lot of time talking about this – my proposal is to include paragraph from ministerial declaration – new PP following this one  – ‘Reiterating our commitment to respecting, protecting and promoting all human rights, fundamental freedoms and inherent dignity of all individuals and the rule of law in the development and implementation of drug policies’ – with this amendment we are happy with preceding paragraph. We encourage you to support this

PP6 and new proposed PP

Thailand: We support the other two cosponsors. This draft resolution is technical in nature, so we would like to focus on agreed language we’ve used in past years. We can agree on the French delegation’s suggestion of “society free of drug abuse”.

Pakistan: In principle, we don’t have a difficulty with language on human rights. But we do have difficulties with this approach. This is not helping us avoid a political discussion, but the opposite. If the room is willing to bring in elements from a totally different document with several other elements, then I believe my delegation would need more time to see what other additional elements we would have to add to this text for balance.

France: As stated by several colleagues, we have spent many hours discussing the Ministerial Declaration, which enjoys a balanced obtained by delegates. So, we support the delegation of Canada. If we retain the mention of a society free of drug abuse, my delegation believes it is important to, in parallel, reflect the promotion of human rights and fundamental freedoms as proposed by Canada. In the same vein, my initial proposal was to delete the reference / choice in favour as originally drafted. In the Ministerial Declaration, the word “society” was in the singular. So, in case it hasn’t been clear, we would be in favour of striking a balance. We would, thus, retain the reference in singular to “society”, but a slight change to respect the text of the Ministerial Declaration. Instead of “in favour”, “to promote a society free of drug abuse”. We’d be in line with the relevant PP in the Ministerial Declaration.

Iran: We call upon other delegations to stick to existing language of the resolution. We’re flexible to look into the French proposal in writing.

Peru: We’re in favour of some points by Pakistan. We have no problem with the Canadian suggestion. We like it and would like to see it reflected in all resolutions. The only element that causes trouble is that it gives rise to issues that do not belong to a fundamentally technical resolution. We seek to promote AD. All matters related to drugs are interrelated. But we’d like to make progress with this paragraphs. We don’t want to politicise a technical resolution that’s becoming something different.

Germany: We salute the spirit of compromise of my colleague from France; we’d support it. We thank our colleague from Canada to make sure our text is balanced. In terms of background, we see your point and we wouldn’t have agreed to a text that is not balanced to human rights. The new PP is already in there in terms of human rights. We wouldn’t like to repeat language at the beginning and end of the Preamble, unless our colleagues feel it’s necessary.

Singapore: This language has been agreed in previous resolutions. The balanced nature of the Ministerial Declaration has already been confirmed in PP1. Therefore, we agree to be flexible as France has suggested. Including “society free from drug abuse”, whilst striking a balance with the text of the Ministerial Declaration.

Mexico: We wish to support the proposal of Canada and France. Namely to include the second paragraph with agreed language coming from the Ministerial Declaration. We take note of the need to balance on this matter. PP1 includes references to human rights, but we don’t want to lose the focus of the resolution, which is why we should use this language to strike a balance.

United States: We’re struggling with the way the “society free of drugs” was inserted here. We have never related this to AD. After “challenges”: “that can promote a society free of drug abuse, and that I is one of the key components…”

Colombia: We support the suggestions by Peru and Germany. Reference needs to be made to human rights. But placing it in the way it has been placed means we forget we’ve included it in PP1. The latest proposal by the US could, in our view, respond to these issues and we support it.

Peru: I’d like to put forward a solution. The paragraph proposed by Canada is contained in PP1. So we suggest not to repeat. But rather add, after “society free of drug abuse”, the following: “in order to help ensure that all people can live in health, dignity, and peace, with security and prosperity.”

Spain: We support the proposal of Canada. To resolve this, we have opted for an unintelligible paragraph. We refer to the “promotion of a society free of drug abuse”. We would go back to what was said initially; let’s not include elements of a society free of drug abuse that has nothing to do with AD. It deactivates the necessitate to include a paragraph on human rights, which was agreed on the Ministerial Declaration.

Peru: I don’t want to repeat what I’ve already said but “a society free of drug abuse” doesn’t make the human rights paragraph necessary. That’s already in PP1. All ideas of this paragraph are in PP1. Textually. Deleting society free of drug abuse would give rise to an issue regarding the balance of the Ministerial Declaration. I hope my proposal strikes a balance and solves this deadlock.

Chair: Can we agree on PP6 as it was amended by some delegations

Uruguay: This is a technical not a political issue and nobody has told me why we need to include societies free of drug abuse as a technical issue (…) what is the technical argument for its inclusion?

Canada: Societies free of drug abuse is clearly grandiose and is not really needed and the simplest solution would be deletion- from “that” on third line please delete until “prosperity” on line 7.

Chair: Thank you Canada, onto Peru.

Peru: I believe these two paragraphs will need further consultation which we can go into tomorrow

Iran: This paragraph has been moved so far away from the main concept of the resolution and think we need more time. Regarding the 5th line – “to help ensure” to “ensuring” please.

Chair: Meeting is adjourned for tomorrow – in due time we will deal with the outstanding resolutions

Peru I just want to clarify we will begin tomorrow with this resolution to finalise it?

Chair: first we will deal with L5 draft resolution and then we will move onto L6, thank you.