 Next, it's my great pleasure to introduce you all to Paul Hunt, Paul studied law. He's lived and undertaken human rights work in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and New Zealand. For more than a decade, Paul served as an independent human rights expert for the United Nations, reporting to the UN General Assembly and the Human Rights Council. His focus was on healthcare and health protection. In between 2011 and 2013, he was a senior human rights advisor to the World Health Organization Assistant Director General. Paul was appointed New Zealand's Chief Human Rights Commissioner in 2019, and last year he was awarded the Anne Dysart Distinguished Service Award by the Civil Society Organization Multicultural in New Zealand. Now, above and beyond all of that, Paul Hunt holds a very special place in the heart of the harm reduction movement. Way back in 2008, when he addressed the conference in Barcelona, he articulated something that we all had in our minds and we couldn't quite put our finger on. This concept of parallel universes, the idea that states go forward and forget that they can say one thing in Vienna, one thing in Geneva, and that drug control is completely incompatible with human rights. And by articulating that, I feel like Paul has really set the vision for the movement and the work that we've done over the past 15 years has really broken down those barriers, really broken down those parallel universes as we work to connect Geneva and Vienna. So it's my great pleasure to introduce Paul and ask him what he thinks the human rights movement today. Thank you, Naomi. I too acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which we are meeting. The Wurundjeri people of the Kulan Nation, and they've looked after this land for tens of thousands of years. And we are all indebted to them. I pay my respects to their elders past and present and to the Aboriginal elders of other communities who may be here today. Teno Koto, Teno Koto, Teno Koto Katoa, Tolofa Lava, Salam Aleykum, Shalom, Namaste, and good afternoon everybody. I want to thank Harm Reduction International for inviting me to join you. And I want to thank everyone who made it possible, who advised me, who made my participation possible. Colleagues in Harm Reduction International, not least Naomi, but there are many others. If I could just mention the conference directors Maddie and Louisa. Also old friends like Arjun. And there's also the Harm Reduction Victoria who I know have worked incredibly hard with many others on this enterprise. So forgive me for not mentioning everybody. I know these events take a huge amount of work from many people. Thank you all. I also want to thank my colleagues in the New Zealand Human Rights Commission who made my participation possible. Camzin Jordan, Delia Nolan, and others. And a special thank you to Callum Stewart, a doctoral candidate here at the University of Melbourne for his very helpful remarks. And I acknowledge my August panelists. I also wish to underscore the incredible work that every one of you are engaged in. All the work that you're doing to advance harm reduction, to reduce the risks associated with drug use, your saving lives, your reducing avoidable suffering. Your calling is inspirational and your achievements are wonderful. As Naomi mentioned 15 years ago at your conference in Barcelona when serving as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on health rights. I tried to convey that drug use laws and policies are human rights issues. And people who use drugs are routinely subject to multiple human rights violations. I explained that most states have signed up to the human rights to health care and the human right to health protection. This means they have legally binding, legally binding international obligations to do everything they reasonably can to roll out harm reduction. And states also have legally binding international obligations to do everything they reasonably can to build an effective integrated responsive health system encompassing health care and the underlying determinants of health. This health system must be responsive to the needs of disadvantaged individuals and communities, including people who use drugs. I applaud those of you who presently deploy human rights in your work. I know it's not easy to do. And for those of you who don't yet use human rights in your work, I implore you to learn a little about human rights including to the right to health care and the right to health protection as enshrined in binding international human rights law and also binding in some national legal systems such as in South Africa. As I said in Barcelona, human rights do not provide magic solutions to really complex issues because there are no magic solutions, but human rights have a constructive contribution to make in numerous ways big and small. So I urge you to do what you can to integrate human rights into your inspiring work. Fifteen years on, I want to make some brief remarks about colonization. Colonization and human rights in relation to harm reduction. Colonization over the last 500 years is the biggest heist in history. Colonization remains the major issue of our time, especially in settler colonies like Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia. Colonization shapes our constitutions, our politics, our land ownership, our economics, our well-being, our way of thinking, and much, much more. Those of us who are non-indigenous are not responsible for the conduct of our predecessors. In my opinion, there is no place for ancestral guilt in our societies, but we have responsibilities to grasp what happened. To recognize our continuing privilege and to do all we can to put things right. A number of people has written about decolonizing drug policy and decolonizing harm reduction, and some of the authors are in this hall, so I speak with some trepidation on these topics. And if I get it wrong, I apologize. Like everyone else, I'm here to learn. Some practitioner authors have explored how drug control has upheld colonial power structures in some countries. They've demonstrated the racist and xenophobic impact of drug control. They've proposed ways to move beyond oppressive systems and structures. Another author argues there is a need to decolonize harm reduction alongside decolonizing drug policies. Today, it's widely recognized that intergenerational trauma arising from colonization, such as violence, theft of land, discrimination, this contributes to damaging drug use among Indigenous peoples. There's a policy brief that some of you will know. A policy brief called Indigenous Harm Reduction equals reducing the harms of colonialism. And it says this, Indigenous harm reduction is a way of life embedded within traditional knowledge systems that see the spiritual world, the natural world, and humanity as interrelated. And the policy brief continues, Indigenous harm reduction must go beyond addressing substance use and interrogate the neocolonial systems and structures that shape and constrain the lives of Indigenous peoples. As Rowiri Evans from Aotearoa put it, Indigenous harm reduction means reducing the harms of colonialism. These are immense issues. Some of you may know the seminal brilliant article called Decolonization is not a metaphor. The authors explained that decolonization is not a metaphor for other things we want to do to improve our societies. They continue like this. They say decolonization is not a philanthropic process of helping the at-risk and alleviating suffering. Decolonization is not a generic term for struggle against oppressive conditions and outcomes. The broad umbrella of social justice may have room for all of these efforts, but they say by contrast decolonization specifically requires the repatriation of Indigenous land and life. Decolonization is not a substitute for social justice. The authors conclude, decolonization offers a different perspective to human rights-based approaches to justice and unsettling perspective rather than a complementary one. And the authors try to soften that by explaining this. They say we don't intend to discourage those who have dedicated lives and careers to teaching themselves and others to be critically conscious of racism and sexism and homophobia and classism and xenophobia and settler colonialism. So the authors, the authors don't pull their punches and neither should they because they continue like this. They say we are asking the reader to consider how the pursuit of social justice can also be diversions, can also be distractions which conceal the need to give up land, power or privilege. So colleagues, as a privileged non-Indigenous life-long human rights worker, do I think that human rights have a decolonial role to play or are human rights diversions? Are they distractions? In my opinion, today's prevailing understanding of human rights has great merit. But it also reflects a truncated view of humanity. I think we need to refresh human rights. And if we do that, human rights can become a tool that contributes to decolonization. We must embrace both human rights, which tend to be individualistic, and also embrace Indigenous rights, which tend to have a collective orientation. I'm not saying that human and Indigenous rights alone can achieve decolonization. I'm saying they can probably help us get there. But what are the features of human rights that need refreshing? What are these features of human rights that need reclaiming? Importantly, some of these features are already emergent. One is this. We need to widen the values that are embodied in human rights. Values such as stewardship, kaitiakitanga, respect, manakitanga, the values of community, of belonging, of responsibility, of well-being, dignity, fairness, equality and equity, freedom and safety. Another feature is this. We have to insist upon the wide spectrum of human rights that includes civil rights and political rights and workers' rights and social rights and cultural rights and Indigenous peoples' rights and the right to a healthy environment and discrimination and equality and equity. And it's this wide spectrum which includes the right to health care, the right to health protection, the right to a decent home, all of which are so important in relation to harm reduction. A third feature is this. We need to recognize that individuals not only have human rights entitlements, they also have human rights responsibilities to each other, to communities and to the environment Papatou Nuku. Fourth, powerful companies have to understand that they have human rights responsibilities too, as repeatedly confirmed by the United Nations Human Rights Council. Fifth, we need to build harmonious relationships within and between communities because human rights are not only about I and me, they are also about we and us. Sixth, we have to learn better how to strike fair and reasonable balances between competing human rights. Seventh, we have to develop new, non-adversarial, non-judicial forms of human rights accountability. Eighth, we must recognize inter-generationality. That is recognition of past, present and future generations, which is so important in the context of colonization and also climate change. And ninth, we need to respect epistemologies, epistemologies that encompass indigenous understandings of knowledge. And ten, we need a process of truth-telling, a process of reconciliation, a process of justice, and that might possibly contribute to decolonial constitutional transformation. I leave others to explore indigenous rights and there will be other occasions to explore the relationship between human rights and indigenous rights. But it's really important to grasp that non-indigenous people have nothing to fear and they have much to gain from human rights and indigenous rights. And in Barcelona, I encouraged you to embrace a human rights approach to your work. And today, I say we must tackle decolonization, by which I mean the repatriation of indigenous land, life and authority. The most effective form of indigenous harm reduction is decolonization. So today, I encourage you to refresh human rights, as I've sought to indicate, and embrace a human and indigenous rights approach to your life-enhancing work. I doubt this approach alone will realize decolonization, but it'll probably help us get there. And I hope to see you in 15 years' time. Inshallah. You heard it here first. See you in 15 years' time.