 Very good morning everyone. Seems like Nana just said it seems like everybody had too much Porta wine last night, but hopefully you're Awake to listen to these beautiful speakers we had we have today. So thank you for being here To join our second plenary session of the conference. My name is Ajang Lara Sati and I work at LBHM It's a community legal aid Institute. We provide free legal aid services For people who use drugs people facing the debt penalty and other marginalized groups and we're based in Jakarta, Indonesia It is my honor to chair this session titled drugs and beyond upholding human rights an Issue that is very dear to my heart and I believe it is also dear near heart Ten years ago when I first started my work on drug policy in Indonesia Drug policy was hardly seen as a human rights issue Vice versa human rights activists and communities were so allergic to the word drugs and drug policy. I know that Indonesia is behind in almost everything but this situation the Misconnection between human rights and drug policy is also true in many other parts of the world But today it is virtually impossible to speak about drug policy without speaking about the rights of people who use drugs The rights of people who are affected by this failing drug policy as We all have heard from many amazing speakers in the past one and a half day Drugs has become more and more visible as a human rights issue We have been exposed to many flagrant human rights abuses conducted in the name of the drug war in Many parts of the world thousands of people are put in jail for non violent drug offenses Hundreds of people were tortured killed and arrested for drug offenses and countless are put in a forced Treatment in this session. We will hear from four speakers All are leading experts and activists who have been pushing for justice and upholding human rights against the backdrop of the drug war and I will introduce our first speaker Which is Mr. Rodrigo Uprimny Jepes Mr. Uprimny is a Colombian lawyer currently the director of drug policy at the Center for the study of law Justice and society also called the Hustizia He is a professor at the National University of Colombia He was a deputy justice for the Colombian constitutional court. He has written many articles on human rights constitutional law drug trafficking and drug policy Many of his articles I quoted on my thesis He is also currently one of the members of the committee on economic social and cultural rights So without further ado, I invite Mr. Uprimny Thank you again Good morning to everyone. First. I want to thank Ham Reduction International for this invitation. It's really an honor for me being here and I want to make it very small caveat I'm not speaking here officially on behalf of the committee on economic social and cultural rights Even if I think that most of the members of the committee share my position, but I'm speaking here on my personal capacity What I'm going to deal in this very short presentation is the about the potential of human rights law To achieve more human and democratic Drug policies, I think we have here a huge potential But an exploited potential because as Alian said, there has been a kind of separation between human rights law and drug policy for that I will develop some Theses some in order to make it more clear so if you want to put that like a The title of a picture in a cinema It would be five places and a final message The first thesis is a very well known and is a political one And it's about the the very negative impact of drug policy in human rights The thesis is very well known here, but it's not known outside conference like this one So it's worth Rating it and it's that drug policy, especially those policies based on a very punitive Interpretation of drug convention have been one of the most important drivers of massing human right violation all over the world Either because the drug policies in itself violates the rights for instance by establishing that penalty for nonviolent criminal offenses related to drugs Either because in the wake of drug policies Gross human rights violation are made like the extra extra judicial killings in Philippines Or either because the indirect effects of prohibition for instance in Latin American Because of the creation of an illicit economy that fools Mafias that have been threatened Our democratic states all over the two or three Previous decades, so it's a very well known thesis, but I think it's important to reiterate The second one is related with what our chair and have just said I Said that one of the reasons why drug policy has full human right violation all over the world is because they have been a strong separation between Human rights law and discussions on drug policy and discussion on drug convention Until very recently if you were in a human rights venue on a human rights discussion You wouldn't speak about drug policy And on the other side if you if you were speaking about drug policy, you wouldn't speak about human rights I called that in a metaphorical way a kind of Berlin wall between Geneva and Vienna In Vienna you discussed drug policy in the Cindi and in Geneva You have all the treaty bodies the human right treaty bodies and in Geneva You wouldn't speak about drug policy and in Vienna You wouldn't speak about human rights at that and that and that has gone for for a lot of years That's a very pessimistic view The more optimistic view and that's my third thesis is that as Bob Dylan would say Times they are changing This world has been in a sense destroyed Now you have more connections not strong connections But more connections between drug policy and human rights law These connections are going in the two sides on on the first side on the on the first side Those who discuss and have responsibilities in relation to to drug policies are accepting that they have to fulfill human rights The the most important document in that respect I would say was the Ungas document two years ago Three years ago that that's really said that clearly that the drug policy should be developed within the framework of human rights So now it's accepted at least in theory that when when you have to develop a drug policy You have to made it in the framework of human rights respecting human rights That's the deciding which a drug policies has Beginning to accept that human rights is relevant for drug policy But the second one and I would say is the more interesting maybe not the most important But the more interesting is that treat a human rights treaty bodies and human rights Bodies has been more and more involved in drug policy in the last I would say five to ten years It's a very recent development, and I would make some some Examples the first example was a report made by the office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights Two or three years ago before the Human Rights Council about the negative impacts of drug policy in human in the full in the enjoyment of Human rights and the reforms that would were necessary to be achieved in order to making compliance with human rights With the different drug policies. That was a very important report the second is that most treaty bodies as you know three bit the bodies are The comedies in the in the framework of the United Nations that has the responsibility to monitor the Implementation of different human rights treaties in my case I made part of the committee on economic social and cultural rights that has the duty to a Monitor the the implementation by states of the government on economic social and cultural rights those committees has been more and more involved in When when when they study the reports of states or where they Or when they make other statements to take into account drug policy as a factor that is very Important in in in some violations of human of human rights That that has been the case of our committee But that has been also the case of the Human Rights Committee in relation to the penalty of the committee against torture that says that in certain cases for instance The withdrawal of of opiate substitution treatments is a kind of torture, etc So many treaty bodies has been involved in dealing with issues of Drug policy as a human rights issue and that's very Important so so that's that's our my third point that that that more and more There's a there's a kind of of breach between human rights law and drug policy With that I entered the the four point that it would be the the focus of of my last Minutes in this presentation is that that has a lot of potential What I would defend is that this this kind of if you want of effort of Trying to bring into drug policy Human rights considerations and bringing to the human rights world the issue of drug policy has a lot of potential to justify or to to fight for more human Drug policy and let me put the two examples that were discussed Yesterday in in some parts of the of the debates that we've dealt in the committee in our committee I can speak about that because these are official now official documents And this has to do with the revision that the committee made of of to the con of two of the countries that has more serious human rights Violation associated with drug policy and I would say that's Philippines and Russia and and we have to study the cases of Philippines and Russia and In our concluding observation the concluding observation are the if you want to the The statements of fact and the recommendation that the committees makes when they revise the situation of a state and in the concluding observations of in relation to to Philippines in 2016 the committee expressed its its condemnation of its concern about The the the declaration made by hand-ranking officials in relation in the context of the so-called war on drugs That was seen as encouraging and legitimizing violence Against drugs use it including extra judicial killings and the committee Rate rates that there was evidence that extra judicial killings were increased have increased in all those Years and the committee also was concerned about the criminalization of the possession and use of drugs that blocks Person in need of treating from receiving such treating such treatment and the shortest of treatment centers That provide evidence-based health service such as such as opiate substitution therapists and with this Concern then the committee make the recommendation For the state to stop any extra judicial killings and to investigate this extra judicial killings in order to bring into justice those responsible of that and the committee recommended Recommends the state to reconsider the criminalization of possession and use of drugs and adopt a right to health approach to drug abuse and Unhumb reduction strategies such as re-injects sense programs and increase the availability of treatment service That are evidence-based and respectful of the rights of drug users So that's an example. We have other examples in the examination of the committee Of other cases. I cannot speak about the case of Russia because of limits of time But it's very similar that means that the things that were considered some years ago only as political discussions For important political discussion now. They are also besides being political discussion They are also human rights issues that can be Discussed before human rights treaty bodies and that's my invitation to to bring to the world of human rights all this Discussion about drug policy because if they have been a separation in in the official Spears About about drug policy discussion and human rights I would say that in the world of in the civil society world They have been the same separation those who they'll deal with issues of drug policy usually don't use human rights mechanism in order to Convey the message that drug policies have to change and all those who are involved in Human rights organization usually don't deal about the issues of drug policy Though so we need to to make that bridge because that bridge has a lot of potential But with that I enter with my with my last point and and that's the limits of these strategies I recommend strongly to to create this bridge and to use through the Human rights law for drug policy discussion, but we have to accept that that has limits that that the need to reform drug policy is is essentially a political discussion a citizen discussion in which which In which we have to be involved, but in that in that discussion a Human rights law can play a very important but limited role a very important but limited role And in that sense I think what and that's the message of of me as a Colombian I think that one of the most important Links that we have to make is to put in contact the different persons that suffer about this irrational Drug policy that is prohibition that usually are not in contact We are here in a harm reduction Conference and in that harm reduction conference. I'm sure that there are not Many persons that come from South countries that are involved in the other side a negative and an effects of prohibition for instance as a Person who who are involved in illicit in in in cultivation of illicit crops Like coca growers And I think that as as we have also a separation between human rights policy human rights law and drug policy We have a separation about the discussion about harm reduction strategy in relation to people who use drugs and The need to have a kind of harm reduction strategy In relation to other people affected by drug policy In Colombia the people who are most suffering now about the implication of drug policy as are those people who Who who are pushing for a reform of drug policy in relation for instance to illicit cultivation in relation that we need more alternative development programs than IRL spraying or forced eradication. These are people that now are being killed in Colombia by people who Want to defend again a kind of war on drugs or want to defend the existence of these illicit crops So my last message is we have to create a kind of solidarity between all the different Weak actors in in relation in the whole chain of drug policy And let me finish with with with a personal example Some 25 years ago when I began to reflect on drug policy I I was already against prohibition, but only because of Colombia I was in a country that was destroyed In in in part because of drug violence and I said I said in a sense I don't care about people who use drugs But we need to change this policy because if not our countries are going to be destroyed and I was invited to a conference in In Paris and I met their people who were concerned about the effects of drug prohibition In relation with people who use drugs and they say to me I don't care about if legalization is going to To Have bad influence on Latin American countries because you are going to lose a lot of Narco dollars, but we need to change this policy because of people who use drugs and I said we have a strong misunderstanding here We are both in agreement that the effects of none the most vulnerable Persons of drug policy are on both sides, but we still have to make a bridge between these both sides Between the impacts on the south of drug policies and in the impact on drug policies on people who use drugs. Thank you