UN Geneva - Multimedia Newsroom : HRC Press conference: Special Rapporteur on the right to health

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us at this press conference by Doctor Jeleng **** King, who is the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health.

Doctor **** King is a medical doctor with expertise advocating for universal health access, HIV care, youth friendly services and family planning.

We'll begin, as usual, with opening remarks by the senior and then open the floor for questions.

With that, I give the flow to the Special Rapporteur.

Thank you very much, dear colleagues, for joining this press conference at a time where it's a great honour for me to have presented my 4th thematic report to the Human Rights Council, which focuses on drug use, harm reduction and the right to health.

And I want to particularly thank all of the stakeholders for the contributions that have been received in the drafting of this report.

Greatly appreciated indeed.

And while the hour is already late, with nothing else left to say or do with the mandate given to me by this Council on the Right to Health, I continue to share in the collective rage and fury as we watch day after day, horrific genocidal acts unfolding and documented in real time.

And in this moment, I continue to bear witness to many people around the world who, to another crushing weight of imperialism and colonial oppression, know neither peace nor respite.

And I reiterate my call.

And I remain optimistic that the world leaders will summon all the necessary political, economic and diplomatic force to bring an end to all wars around the world, and specifically an urgent ceasefire so desperately needed in the occupied Palestinian territory.

Now, focusing back on the report on drugs, we know that drugs have been a part of human history for thousands of years, whether for medical healing, for religious and cultural ceremonies, or as a commodity for pleasure.

And it is crucial to distinguish between drug use and drug use disorders.

And drug use is not a medical condition.

And the majority of people who use drugs do not have a dependency problem and do not require medical treatment or intervention.

Drug use disorders, on the other hand, including drug dependency, are a medical condition and thus required dignified, appropriate quality support and treatment.

Together, the social, political, commercial, and legal determinants of health can recreate and reinforce health disparities.

With that in mind, I focus on how the availability, accessibility, acceptability and quality of care is therefore affected by punitive approaches to drug use.

I explore how drug control compounds and disproportionately affect certain rights and individuals and call on all of us to continue to examine the underlying power structures that perpetuate systems of disadvantage that have outlived formal colonialism, that continue to shape the underlying dynamics of both drug use and how Member States address it.

Focusing a bit on states obligations under the right to health, states have an obligation to respect, protect and fulfil human rights.

In the context of drug use, the obligation to respect requires that states not engage in any conduct that can result in drug use related morbidity or mentality.

This includes refraining from marketing unsafe drugs or from applying coercive medical treatments, as well as, of course, for the treatment of mental illness.

The obligation to protect requires states to, among other actions, adopt legislation or take other measures ensuring equal access to healthcare and health related services provided by third parties.

As well.

It's important that states remember their their obligation to protect and ensure that scientific knowledge and technologies and their applications, including evidence based interventions to prevent and treat drug dependence in addition to related diseases, are available and accessible without discrimination both in law and in practise.

And states have an obligation to implement evidence based interventions to minimise adverse health outcomes, risks and harms associated with drug use.

The obligation on states to fulfil requires them, for instance, to promote the right to health by undertaking actions that create, maintain and restore health of the population.

This obligation includes fostering the recognition of factors favouring positive health results, such as research and the provision of information that ensures that healthcare providers are trained to recognise and respond with culturally acceptable services to very specific needs of marginalised groups and those who remain vulnerable.

And while these obligations may be realised progressively due to resource constraints, we must divest from the war on drugs because it is effectively a war on people.

And divesting from a war on drugs will allow us to have the innovation and the space to creatively forge a way forward where we place the dignity of people at the centre of our responses and reinvest all of those important resources and underlying determinants of health.

It's also important to understand the power asymmetries of major corporations and their influence on policy making in Mary.

In many jurisdictions around the world, decriminalisation of drug use is the removal of criminal penalties for drug offences and it is a way of reducing negative health impacts of punitive drug policies on the right to health.

And we have evidence from jurisdictions that have taken a decriminalisation approach demonstrating that adopting less punitive policies do not result in increase in drug use or drug related harms or any other crimes.

Divesting from the ill advised war on drugs frees up these resources to also reinvest in public health that is grounded in human rights, that supports and is based on the best available scientific evidence and also understands how supporting healthcare workers is important to realising the right to health now.

Harm reduction as an approach is part of what is available to us in terms of policy tools.

It includes a wide range of policies but also programmes and practises that are aimed at minimising negative health but also social and legal impacts associated with drug use and drug laws and policies.

Harm reduction measures work best when they are available to people in their context and their circumstances and it is important that they are modified and tailored to the intersecting needs of those particular individuals.

They may in the In the report I've highlighted numerous examples, non exhaustive lists of what harm reduction practical measures have been and I've also provided examples of good practises coming from a number of member states.

Some of these measures include needle and syringe programmes, drug checking, overdose prevention and reversal, housing and employment and education, as well as of course, focusing on underlying determinants of health, operate agonist therapy as well as drug consumption rooms and supervised injection facilities.

It is important that at the domestic and international levels to note that funding for harm reduction is inadequate and it's actually shrinking.

And so we ought to think about what a harm reduction approach within a human rights framework looks like that needs to be sustainable but also structural, because that will require not just a paradigm shift but much resourcing.

And in closing, I just want to also draw your attention to the conclusions and recommendations contained in my report, which are 4 pages long.

These are designed to give Member States at various levels of their own processes, nationally on policy level, on legislative reform, on funding and resourcing, on clinical care, in underlying determinants of health and in health systems.

There are various measures which can be taken on that are compassionate, that are rights based, that are evidence based, that would lead us to a harm reduction process in relation to drug use and drug use disorders.

There is no space for discrimination, for stigmatisation or criminalization.

People who use drugs, in particular those who have been historically marginalised and criminalised, should be meaningfully involved in the development and design of drug laws and policies, including the harm reduction policies and services that are designed to help them.

And on an international level, we ought to be looking urgently at revising the international legal framework on drug control to best align with international human rights norms and standards, with harm reduction approaches and the personalization of the right to health approach in which services are available, acceptable, affordable, accessible and of quality.

And this means that even at domestic level, we have to all of us centre the dignity of people, respect their autonomy and also provide them with information to make informed decision.

And those should be free from conflict of interest, especially from the Pharmaceutical industry in what we've termed commercial determinants of health.

Ending criminalization, stigmatisation and discrimination as they present structural barriers to accessing services and establishing therapeutic relationships leads to poorer health outcomes as people may fear legal consequences.

So we must end criminalization and stigmatisation and discrimination in order to improve trust, to improve dialogue, to improve creativity and innovation in this moment.

That's very urgent for your paradigm shift, but really structural changes in how we approach drug use and how we understand who are drug users.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Doctor Chilling.

The Special Rapporteur will now take questions.

As usual, we'll begin with questions from the room and then move on to anyone joining us online.

Please state your name and your organisation before asking a question.

There are no questions in the room.

Anybody online with a question for the special rapporteur?

There don't seem to be any questions.

Doctor Tilling, would you like to say anything else, just add anything or would you like to take questions on any other subject?

If there are any questions on something outside of the Special rapporteur's report, she is willing to take questions.

Otherwise, we'll I'll hand the floor back to her for concluding remarks.

Thank you.

So thank you very much and I want to end, I think on the basis of the principles of human rights that guide my work and my approach to the right to health mandate.

It is very important to_the principles of substantive equality non, discrimination transparency, as it enables accountability and for office bearers to explain where things have gone wrong as often things do go wrong transparency.

Is also important so that rights holders know the processes available for them to seek redress meaningful.

And consequential participation of civil society, but also people who are most affected by drug use and these policies is very, very important.

And I WANT to urgently call on all UN MEMBER States To ratify the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, while paying attention to immediate interventions in the longer term.

The social transformation required so as to recognise the right of everyone to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.

The right to health remains one of our most transformative solution orientated right as it not only looks at access to health facilities but also looks at underlying determinants of health.

And we know without health we cannot realise any of our other rights.

And in the context of drug use, when we constantly put people in conflict with the law, it means they may be incarcerated, they may end up with a criminal record, which may impede their access to education, to housing, to food security, to many other state offered support, but also to travel.

And we know, especially when you're talking about children and families, that there is a risk there that families may be separated and there may be issues of custody, especially with young people and the youth.

We don't want to get them in a space where they are in conflict with the law because we don't understand how to best support them.

It's important to understand how to support them when they transition from being childhood into teenagehood and into adulthood.

And the one way of doing that is to absolutely approach this from a compassionate, evidence based and rights based approach.

And in closing, I do want to say that I hope that all of the UN agencies, all of the different treaty bodies, and all of us involved in this important work of drug use and drug controls, that we can really put the global advocacy and all of the **** level statements of intent into action once and for all.

To move from a war on drugs to uphold the right of dignity and to truly ensure that the realisation of the right of everyone to the **** sustainable standard of health does not leave behind people who are drug users.

And with that, I would like to say thank you very much.

And again, reiterating the call for an immediate ceasefire and to a call to end all wars around the world.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Doctor Laying, and thank you all for joining us at this press conference and for taking an interest in the work of the Special Rapporteur.

We will now close this press conference.

Thanks again and everybody have a good afternoon.

HRC Press conference: Special Rapporteur on the right to health - 26 June 2024