Complicity or Abolition? The Death Penalty and International Support for Drug Enforcement, IHRA, 2010

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Complicity or Abolition?
The Death Penalty and International Support for Drug Enforcement
Rick Lines, Damon Barrett and Patrick Gallahue
© 2010 International Harm Reduction Association
ISBN 978-0-9566116-0-4

This report was produced by the Human Rights Programme of the International Harm
Reduction Association.

Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Aisling Reidy and Rebecca Schleifer from Human Rights Watch for their assistance
in the preparation of this report. We would also like to thank Professor William A. Schabas, Director of the Irish
Centre for Human Rights at the National University of Ireland, Galway, and Professor Manfred Nowak of the
Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Human Rights, University of Vienna, for their advice and support. Thanks also to
Gerry Stimson, Catherine Cook and Maria Phelan at IHRA for their comments and feedback.
Designed by Mark Joyce
Copy-edited by Jennifer Armstrong

Published by
International Harm Reduction Association
Unit 701, 50 Westminster Bridge Road
London SE1 7QY
United Kingdom
Telephone: +44 (0)207 953 7412
E-mail: info@ihra.net
Websites: www.ihra.net

www.ihrablog.net

About the International Harm Reduction Association
The International Harm Reduction Association (IHRA) is one of the leading international nongovernmental organisations promoting policies and practices that reduce the harms from all
psychoactive substances, harms which include not only the increased vulnerability to HIV and
hepatitis C infection among people who use drugs, but also the negative social, health, economic
and criminal impacts of illicit drugs, alcohol and tobacco on individuals, communities and society. A
key principle of IHRA’s approach is to support the engagement of people and communities affected
by drugs and alcohol around the world in policy-making processes, including the voices and
perspectives of people who use illicit drugs.
IHRA is an NGO in Special Consultative Status with the Economic and Social Council of the United
Nations.
This report was produced by IHRA’s Human Rights Programme.

Contents
Key Findings

Page 5

Key Recommendations

Page 5

1. Executive Summary

Page 6

2. The Death Penalty for Drug Offences Worldwide

Page 10

3. The Death Penalty for Drug Offences in International Human Rights Law

Page 13

4. Death Sentences, Executions and Drug Enforcement Projects

Page 16

5. Human Rights Obligations of Donors and International Organisations

Page 22

6. Towards a Human Rights-Compliant Approach to International
Drug Enforcement: Recommendations for Donors and
Implementing Agencies

Page 27

Appendix: Case Studies in Human Rights Risk

Page 30

KEY FINDINGS
»»

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the European Commission
and individual European governments are all actively involved in funding and/
or delivering technical assistance, legislative support and financial aid intended
to strengthen domestic drug enforcement activities in states that retain the death
penalty for drug offences.

»»

Such funding, training and capacity-building activities – if successful – result in
increased convictions of persons on drug charges and the potential for increased
death sentences and executions.

»»

Specific executions and death sentences can be linked to drug enforcement
activities funded by European governments and/or the European Commission and
implemented through UNODC.

»»

Donor states, the European Commission and UNODC may therefore be complicit
in executions for drug offences in violation of international human rights law and
contrary to their own abolitionist policies and UN General Assembly resolutions
calling for a moratorium on the death penalty for all offences.

»»

The risk of further human rights abuses connected to drug enforcement projects,
and the complicity of donors and implementing agencies in such abuses, is clear and
must be addressed.

KEY RECOMMENDATIONS
»»

In keeping with Resolution 2007/2274(INI) of the European Parliament, the European
Commission should develop guidelines governing international funding for countrylevel and regional drug enforcement activities to ensure such programmes do not
result in human rights violations, including the application of the death penalty.

»»

The abolition of the death penalty for drug-related offences, or at the very least
evidence of an ongoing and committed moratorium on executions, should be made
a pre-condition of financial assistance, technical assistance and capacity-building
and other support for drug enforcement.

»»

A formal and transparent process for conducting human rights impact assessments
as an element of project design, implementation and evaluation should be developed
and included as part of all drug enforcement activities.

»»

International guidelines on human rights and drug control should be developed to
guide national responses and the design and implementation of drug enforcement
projects.

1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
In May 2010 the International Harm Reduction Association (IHRA) published a survey of countries
retaining the death penalty for drug offences. The report identified thirty-two jurisdictions with
legislation prescribing capital punishment for certain categories of drug-related crime.1
The application of capital punishment is typically for drug trafficking, cultivation, manufacturing
and/or importing/exporting, but the definition of capital narcotics crimes is not limited to these
offences. Indeed, a comparison of domestic drug legislation among retentionist countries reveals a
huge disparity in the definition of a capital drug offence. The types of offence carrying a sentence
of death are broad and diverse and, in some countries, include possession of illicit drugs.
Although capital punishment is not prohibited under international law, its application is limited in
significant ways. Article 6(2) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states that
the penalty of death may only be applied to the ‘most serious crimes’. Over the past twenty-five
years United Nations (UN) human rights bodies have interpreted Article 6(2) in a manner that limits
the number and types of offence for which execution is allowable under international human
rights law.2
While many retentionist governments argue that drug offences fall under the umbrella of ‘most
serious crimes’, the UN Human Rights Committee and the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial,
summary or arbitrary executions have both stated that drug offences do not constitute ‘most
serious crimes’ and that executions for such offences are in violation of international human rights
law. This perspective is endorsed by the vast majority of states.
Although the responsibility for death sentences and executions for drug offences lies primarily
with retentionist governments themselves, there are ways in which abolitionist governments and
international organisations play a role in contributing to this practice.
For example, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the European Commission
and individual European governments are all actively involved in funding and/or delivering
technical assistance, legislative support and financial aid intended to strengthen domestic drug
enforcement in retentionist states. These activities are either specifically designed to assist in
increased drug seizures and arrests through the provision of funds and equipment or relate to
law enforcement training and prosecutorial capacity building. In countries that have legislation
allowing for the death penalty for drug offences, such funding, training and capacity-building
activities – if successful – result in increased convictions of persons on drug charges and therefore
potentially increase death sentences and executions. This situation raises the serious concern that
1 P Gallahue and R Lines (2010) The Death Penalty for Drug Offences: Global Overview 2010. London: IHRA.
2 See R Lines (2007) The Death Penalty for Drug Offences: A Violation of International Human Rights Law. London: IHRA.

through these activities, UNODC, the European Commission and individual European governments
risk complicity in acts that violate international human rights law, including the protections of the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Such activities also undermine the Council
of Europe’s commitment to abolition of the death penalty, the Charter of the United Nations and
UNODC’s stated opposition to the death penalty for drug offences.
The UN General Assembly has repeatedly stated that international co-operation against illicit
trafficking should be ‘carried out in full conformity with the purposes and principles of the Charter
of the United Nations and other principles of international law, and in particular with full respect
for … all human rights and fundamental freedoms’.3 Therefore, the human rights impact of the
activities and programmes of UN member states and UN agencies must be a central consideration
in the design and evaluation of their work. Projects and activities that may contribute to
violations of international human rights law should be avoided. The 2007 and 2008 UN General
Assembly resolutions calling for a worldwide moratorium on all executions further underline the
responsibility of member states and UN agencies to work to oppose the death penalty.4
Although these standards apply to all member states, this issue has particular resonance for
European countries. Protocol 6 to the European Convention on Human Rights commits all Council
of Europe member states to abolishing the death penalty.5 The European Union (EU) has also
specifically recognised the opportunities6 and dangers associated with external financial assistance
vis-à-vis human rights. A 2008 resolution adopted by the European Parliament:
Calls on the Council and the Commission to ensure, with a view to the planned 2009
ministerial meeting of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, that the funding
supplied to international agencies such as those of the United Nations to combat illegal
drugs is never used either directly or indirectly to support security bodies in countries
which commit serious and systematic violations of human rights or apply the death
penalty in drugs-related cases.7
UNODC has also explicitly asserted its opposition to capital punishment for drug offences, stating
in a 2010 report that ‘As an entity of the United Nations system, UNODC advocates the abolition
of the death penalty and calls upon Member States to follow international standards concerning

3 UNGA Res. 61/183 (13 March 2007) UN Doc. A/RES/61/183; UNGA Res. 60/178 (22 March 2006) UN Doc. A/RES/60/178; See also UNGA Res.
46/101 (16 December 1991) UN Doc. A/RES/46/101; UNGA Res. 47/98 (16 December 1992) UN Doc. A/RES/47/98; UNGA Res. 48/112 (11 March 1994)
UN Doc. A/RES/48/112; UNGA Res. 49/168 (24 February 1995) UN Doc. A/RES/49/168; UNGA Res. 50/148 (9 February 1996) UN Doc. A/RES/50/148;
UNGA Res. 51/64 (28 January 1997) UN Doc. A/RES/51/64; UNGA Res. 53/115 (1 February 1999) UN Doc. A/RES/53/115; UNGA Res. 54/132 (7 February 2000) UN Doc. A/RES/54/132; UNGA Res. 55/65 (26 January 2001) UN Doc. A/RES/55/65; UNGA Res. 56/124 (24 January 2002) UN Doc. A/
RES/56/124; UNGA Res. 58/141 (10 February 2003) UN Doc. A/RES/58/141; UNGA Res. 59/153 (8 February 2005) UN Doc. A/RES/59/153.
4 UNGA Res. 62/149 (26 February 2008) UN Doc. A/RES/62/149; UNGA Res. 63/168. (13 February 2009) UN Doc A/RES/63/168
5 Protocol No. 6 to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms concerning the abolition of the death
penalty as amended by Protocol No. 11, Strasbourg, 28 April 1983.
6 European Commission (2001) Communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament: The European Union’s
role in promoting human rights and democratisation in third countries, 8 May, COM(2001) 252 final, p. 8.
7 European Parliament (2008) European Parliament resolution on the Annual Report on Human Rights in the World 2007 and the European
Union’s policy on the matter (2007/2274(INI)), 8 May, P6_TA(2008)0193, para. 143, available at: www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/483aa6952.html
(last accessed 31 March 2010).

prohibition of the death penalty for offences of a drug-related or purely economic nature.’8 These
commitments make scrutiny of international assistance to drug enforcement activities in death
penalty states even more critical.
Many European governments and the European Commission provide earmarked grants to UNODC
for the purpose of supporting specific drug enforcement projects or activities.9 These targeted
grants enable individual donors to utilise UNODC’s international network of offices to implement
activities for which the countries themselves lack the necessary local infrastructure or expertise.
European governments and the European Commission collectively provided the vast majority
of these funds to UNODC in 2009.10 However, at least some of these projects have thus far been
implemented without the level of human rights assessment necessary to ensure that the activities
themselves do not inadvertently result in executions for drug offences. While in some cases, the
risk of human rights violations may be only theoretical, in others, such programmes have resulted
in the execution of identifiable individuals for drug offences.
The drug enforcement activities supported by European donors and UNODC in retentionist states
are not intended to increase the application of the death penalty. Rather, their objective is to
increase the capacity of domestic law enforcement agencies to fight trafficking and enforce drug
laws by, among other things, increasing the number of arrests and convictions for drug offences.
However, the fact that the application of the death penalty is not the intended outcome of such
activities does not exclude the donors or UNODC from responsibility for the human rights impact
of their activities. By providing practical assistance to law enforcement in retentionist countries, in
a context where those arrested could face the death penalty, and taking no safeguards against such
an outcome, the donors and UNODC risk being complicit in resulting human rights violations.
Retentionist governments will argue that the principle of state sovereignty allows them the scope
to establish their own national laws and penalties. And those that have not ratified the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights may likewise make the point that they are not bound by
the terms of the treaty. However, neither of these arguments negates the responsibilities of donor
states and of UNODC to take effective measures to ensure that they are not engaged in activities
that contravene international human rights law and EU and UN policy against capital punishment
in all circumstances.
Although the drug enforcement activities of donors in death penalty states raise human rights
concerns, they also create an opportunity for these actors to promote adherence and respect for
international human rights law and to limit the application of the death penalty worldwide. Donors
to and/or implementers of drug enforcement programmes in retentionist states can take proactive
8 UNODC (2010) Drug control, crime prevention and criminal justice: A human rights perspective. Note by the Executive Director (Commission on Narcotic Drugs, Fifty-third session, Vienna, 8–12 March), UN Doc. E/CN.7/2010/CRP.6*–E/CN.15/2010/CRP.1*.
9 D Bewley-Taylor and M Trace (2006) The Funding of the United Nations Office on Drugs & Crime; An Unfinished Jigsaw. Oxford: The Beckley
Foundation Drug Policy Programme.
10 List available at: www.unodc.org/unodc/en/donors/donorlist/index.html?ref=menuside (last accessed 25 March 2010).

measures to oppose the death penalty for drug offences through these activities. Actors such as
the European Commission, UNODC and individual European states – all of which are committed
in law and/or policy to the abolition of the death penalty – should use the influence of multilateral
and bilateral drug enforcement aid as a tool to promote human rights generally, and the abolition
of the death penalty for drug offences specifically. For example, European donors and UNODC can
influence retentionist governments by refusing to provide, or to act as a conduit for, funds for drug
enforcement activities unless the death penalty will not be an outcome of that assistance.
There are also a number of concrete actions that donors and international organisations can take
in order to ensure that, through their support for drug enforcement activities in retentionist states,
they are not inadvertently complicit with executions:
»»

»»

The abolition of the death penalty for drug-related offences, or at the very least
evidence of an ongoing and committed moratorium on executions, should be made
a pre-condition of financial assistance, technical assistance, capacity-building and
other support for drug enforcement.

»»

European donor states should develop and apply similar human rights guidelines to
bilateral funding agreements for drug enforcement activities and programmes.

»»

A formal and transparent process for conducting human rights impact assessments
as an element of project design, implementation and evaluation should be developed
and introduced as part of all drug enforcement activities.

»»

UNODC should – in conjunction with the Office of the High Commission for Human
Rights, non-governmental organisations, government representatives, international
experts and affected communities – develop guidelines on human rights and drug
control for use by international and bilateral donors, implementing agencies and
national governments.

»»

Donors should provide specific funding for the development of human rights capacity
within UNODC and for the development of international guidelines on human rights
and drug control.

2. THE DEATH PENALTY FOR DRUG OFFENCES
WORLDWIDE
At the end of 2009 at least thirty-two states had enacted legislation providing for capital
punishment for drug crimes, the majority of these being in the Middle East, North Africa and Asia
Pacific regions.11 A review of various sources shows that executions for drug offences have been
carried out in recent years in a number of countries including China,12 Indonesia,13 Iran,14 Kuwait,15
Malaysia,16 Pakistan,17 Saudi Arabia,18 Singapore,19 Thailand,20 Yemen21 and Viet Nam.22 Even in
countries that are not actively executing drug offenders, death sentences for drug-related crimes
continue to be pronounced.23
While in some of these countries the number of executions is small, in others drug offenders
constitute a significant proportion of total executions. For example:
»»

Iran: Some estimate that Iran has executed 10,000 drug traffickers since the revolution
of 1979.24 Iran has been known to execute more than 100 people a year for drugrelated activities: between 2007 and 2009 IHRA estimates Iran executed slightly less
than 400 people convicted of drug offences.25

»»

Malaysia: Thirty-six of the fifty-two executions carried out between July 2004 and July
2005 were for drug trafficking.26 In April 2005 the Internal Security Ministry reported
to the Malaysian Parliament that 229 people had been executed for drug trafficking
over the previous thirty years.27 IHRA has identified twenty-two death sentences for
drug offences in 2008 and another fifty in 2009 from media reports. 28

»»

Saudi Arabia: At least forty drug offenders were executed in 2007 and at least twentytwo in 2008.29

11 The IHRA Global Overview 2010 (Gallahue and Lines op. cit.) identifies: China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Viet Nam, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia,
Kuwait, Thailand, Pakistan, Egypt, Syria, Yemen, Bangladesh, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Cuba, Taiwan, Oman, United Arab Emirates,
Bahrain, India, Qatar, Gaza (Occupied Palestinian Territories), Myanmar, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Brunei-Darussalam, United States of America,
North Korea, Iraq, Sudan, Libya.
12 Amnesty International (2010) Death Penalty Report: China Must End Secrecy Surrounding Sentences and Executions, ACT 50/001/2010;
Radio Free Asia (31 March 2010) China casts veil over executions.
13 Human Rights Watch (2009) World Report 2009 – Indonesia, New York: HRW; New York Times (11 July 2008) Indonesia widens use of death
penalty.
14 Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Human Rights Department (n.d.) Overview executions 2009: Iran; Iran Human Rights (2010) Annual
report for 2009.
15 Agence France-Presse (21 May 2007) Kuwait hangs Pakistani drug runner.
16 Malaysiakini (13 April 2005) 229 executed for drugs in the past 30 years.
17 Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (n.d.) Summary: Death penalty (1 January 2007 – 31 December 2007): www.hrcp-web.org/
PDF/2007%20-%20Death%20Penalty.pdf (last accessed 26 March 2010).
18 Gallahue and Lines op. cit.
19 Amnesty International (2008) Amnesty International Report 2008 – Singapore, London: AI.
20 Amnesty International (26 August 2009) Thailand carries out first executions in six years.
21 Saba News (18 September 2008) Pakistani drugs trafficker, one Yemeni executed.
22 UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office (2009) Annual Report on Human Rights 2008. London: Foreign & Commonwealth Office; Amnesty
International (2008) Amnesty International Report 2008 – Viet Nam, London: AI.
23 Gallahue and Lines op. cit.
24 US Department of State (2010) 2010 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report. Volume I (2010 INCSR). Washington, DC: Department
of State. The bureau attributes these figures to Iranian government sources.
25 Gallahue and Lines op. cit.
26 CS Ling (26 March 2006) Debate over the death penalty heating up, New Straits Times.
27 Malaysiakini (13 April 2005) 229 executed for drugs in the past 30 years.
28 Gallahue and Lines op. cit.
29 Gallahue and Lines op. cit.

»»

Viet Nam: The Government of Viet Nam stated in a 2003 submission to the UN
Human Rights Committee that ‘over the last years, the death penalty has been mostly
given to persons engaged in drug trafficking’.30 A 2006 media report observed that
‘Around 100 people are executed by firing squad in Vietnam each year, mostly for
drug-related offences.’31 Furthermore, Amnesty International states that at least 201
people were known to have been sentenced to death between 2007 and 2009, at
least 109 of whom were for drug offences.32

»»

Singapore: Since 1991 more than 400 people have been executed, the majority for
drug offences.33 Between 1999 and 2003, 110 of the 138 people who were executed
were killed for drug offences.34 It is believed that Singapore has recently reduced the
number of executions but it retains a mandatory sentence of death for anyone found
guilty of importing, exporting or trafficking in more than 500 grams of cannabis, 200
grams of cannabis resin or 1,000 grams of cannabis mixture; and trafficking in more
than 30 grams of cocaine, 15 grams of heroin or 250 grams of methamphetamine.35

»»

China: Although China guards its execution figures as a state secret, Amnesty
International estimates the figure is in ‘the thousands’.36 Since the early 1990s China
has used the UN’s International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Drug Trafficking,
26 June, to conduct public executions of drug offenders. In 2001 over fifty people
were convicted and publicly executed for drug crimes at mass rallies, at least one of
which was broadcast on state television.37 In 2002 the day was marked by sixty-four
public executions in rallies across the country, the largest of which took place in
the south-western city of Chongqing, where twenty-four people were shot.38 A UN
human rights monitor reported ‘dozens’ of people being executed to mark the day
in 2004,39 and Amnesty International recorded fifty-five executions for drug offences
over a two-week period running up to 26 June 2005.40 In 2009 at least twenty people
were executed to mark the day.41

In May 2010 IHRA published an extensive international survey of state legislation and practice
vis-à-vis the death penalty for drug offences.42 IHRA’s report identified thirty-two jurisdictions that
prescribe the death penalty for drug-related activities and characterised six of them as being highly
30 Human Rights Committee (2003) Comments by the Government of Viet Nam on the concluding observations of the Human Rights Committee, 21 July, UN Doc. CCPR/CO/75/VNM/Add.2, para. 1.
31 Thanh Nien News (3 November 2006) Vietnam law commission wants death penalty for fewer crimes.
32 Amnesty International, communication with author (16 December 2009).
33 Amnesty International (2004) Singapore: The Death Penalty: A Hidden Toll of Executions. AI Index: ASA 36/001/2004.
34 Singapore Ministry of Home Affairs (30 January 2004) The Singapore government’s response to Amnesty International’s report Singapore:
The Death Penalty: A Hidden Toll of Executions.
35 Misuse of Drugs Act (Cap. 185, 2008 Rev. Ed.): http://statutes.agc.gov.sg/ (last accessed 29 March 2010); AI Singapore: The Death Penalty
op. cit. p. 13; D Johnson and F Zimring (2009) The Next Frontier: National Development, Political Change and the Death Penalty in Asia. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, p. 415; Additional information on thresholds: www.cnb.gov.sg (last accessed 20 January 2009).
36 Amnesty International (2010) Death Sentences and Executions in 2009. ACT 50/001/2010, p. 6.
37 Amnesty International (2002) The Death Penalty Worldwide: Developments in 2001. ACT 50/001/2002, p. 33.
38 Associated Press (27 June 2002) China executes 64 to mark UN anti-drug day.
39 Commission on Human Rights (2005) Extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions report of the Special Rapporteur, Philip Alston:
Addendum—Summary of cases transmitted to governments and replies received, 17 March, UN Doc. E/CN.4/2005/7/Add.1, para. 69.
40 Amnesty International (2007) Asia Pacific: Death sentences for drug-related crimes rise in region: Public statement, AI Index: ASA
01/004/2007 (Public), News Service 114, 26 June.
41 Agence France-Presse (25 June 2009) China marks anti-drug day with executions.
42 Gallahue and Lines op. cit.

committed to capital drug policies: China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Viet Nam, Singapore and Malaysia.
These are countries that execute drug offenders regularly and/or sentence high numbers of people
to death for drug-related crimes.
Other jurisdictions have demonstrated an ambivalence to the death penalty in general and to
capital drug laws specifically. IHRA categorised eight jurisdictions as having a low commitment to
their capital drug laws. These states may sentence people to death for drug offences and may carry
out executions of drug offenders, however, in practice, actual executions for drug-related activities
are rare.
Finally, IHRA identified fourteen jurisdictions as having a symbolic commitment to the death
penalty for drug offences. These are states that do not, and in some cases never have, executed a
person for a drug offence that did not cause the death of another person. Death penalty laws in
such states seem to serve as only a symbolic statement of a ‘tough’ approach to drugs, rather than
as a functioning criminal justice policy. In some cases these are states categorised as ‘abolitionist in
practice’, meaning that they have not executed anyone in more than a decade and ‘are believed to
have a policy or established practice of not carrying out executions’.43
In addition, at least four states were identified as having insufficient data. Some governments
unfortunately provide very little information on their policies and practices, and this can make
it difficult to ascertain the realities on the ground and to ensure compliance with relevant
international standards.

AI Death Sentences and Executions in 2009 op. cit. p. 29.

3. THE DEATH PENALTY FOR DRUG OFFENCES
IN INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS LAW
Under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the application of capital
punishment, while not prohibited, is restricted in important ways. One key restriction is found in
Article 6(2), which states that ‘In countries which have not abolished the death penalty, sentence
of death may be imposed only for the most serious crimes’. Executions for crimes that do not meet
this threshold are therefore considered to violate the Covenant. The definition of what does and
does not constitute a ‘most serious crime’ is therefore central to a consideration of whether the
execution of drug offenders is consistent with international human rights law under the Covenant.
Since the Covenant entered into force in 1976 the interpretation of ‘most serious crimes’ has been
refined and clarified by a number of UN human rights bodies in an effort to limit the number of
offences for which a death sentence can be pronounced. As early as 1982 the UN Human Rights
Committee – the expert body that monitors compliance with state obligations under the Covenant
and provides authoritative interpretations of its provisions – expressed the opinion that ‘the
expression “most serious crimes” must be read restrictively to mean that the death penalty should
be a quite exceptional measure’.44
In 1984 the Economic and Social Council of the UN (made up of fifty-four member states) adopted
the resolution ‘Safeguards guaranteeing protection of the rights of those facing the death penalty’,
which reaffirmed that ‘capital punishment may be imposed only for the most serious crimes’ and
further specified that the scope of capital offences ‘should not go beyond intentional crimes with
lethal or other extremely grave consequences’.45 This resolution was later adopted by the General
Assembly, the UN’s supreme policy-making body, which comprises every member state.46
The Human Rights Committee has indicated that the definition of ‘most serious crimes’ is limited
to those directly resulting in death. Its concluding observations (periodic examinations of country
compliance with the terms of the Covenant) stated for Iran in 1993 that ‘In light of the provision
of article 6 of the Covenant … the Committee considers the imposition of that penalty for crimes
of an economic nature … or for crimes that do not result in loss of life, as being contrary to the
Covenant’.47
The Human Rights Committee’s concluding observations have consistently criticised countries that
apply the death penalty to a large number of offences, noting the incompatibility of many of those
offences with Article 6 and calling for repeal in those cases. The committee has addressed these
44 Human Rights Committee (1982) General comment 6: The right to life (art. 6), 30 April, Compilation of General Comments and General
Recommendations Adopted by Human Rights Treaty Bodies. UN Doc. HRI/GEN/1/Rev, para. 7.
45 Economic and Social Council (1984) Safeguards guaranteeing protection of the rights of those facing the death penalty, ESC Res. 1984/50
annex 1984 UN ESCOR Supp (1) at 33, UN Doc. E/1984/84, para. 1.
46 UNGA Res. 39/118 (14 December 1984) UN Doc. A/RES/39/118.
47 Human Rights Committee (1993) Concluding observations: Iran, 29 July, UN Doc. CCPR/C/79/Add.25, para. 8.

criticisms to many states that apply capital punishment to drug offenders, including Egypt,48 India,49
Iran,50 Libya,51 Sri Lanka,52 Sudan,53 Syria,54 Viet Nam 55 and Thailand.56
On Sri Lanka in 1995 the committee specifically listed ‘drug-related offences’ among those that ‘do
not appear to be the most serious offences under article 6 of the Covenant’.57 On Kuwait in 2000 it
expressed ‘serious concern over the large number of offences for which the death penalty can be
imposed, including very vague categories of offences relating to internal and external security as
well as drug-related crimes’.58 On Thailand in 2005 it noted ‘with concern that the death penalty
is not restricted to the “most serious crimes” within the meaning of article 6, paragraph 2, and is
applicable to drug trafficking’.59 This definitive statement from the committee affirms that drug
offences do not satisfy the threshold for capital punishment under the Covenant, and are therefore
in violation of the protections in the treaty. On Sudan in 2007 the committee again listed ‘drug
trafficking’ among those ‘offences which cannot be characterized as the most serious’.60
The UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions has also strongly
stated that drug offences do not meet the threshold of ‘most serious crimes’.
… the death penalty should be eliminated for crimes such as economic crimes and drugrelated offences. In this regard, the Special Rapporteur wishes to express his concern
that certain countries, namely China, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Malaysia, Singapore,
Thailand and the United States of America, maintain in their national legislation the
option to impose the death penalty for economic and/or drug-related offences.61
The conclusion that drug-related offences fall outside the scope of ‘most serious crimes’ was
recently reaffirmed in the Special Rapporteur’s 2006 annual report.62 Indeed, the Special Rapporteur
has stated that in cases where the ‘international restrictions are not respected … the carrying out of
a death sentence may constitute a form of summary or arbitrary execution’.63
The view that the death penalty for drug offences violates international law is also shared by the

48 Human Rights Committee (2002) Concluding observations: Egypt, 28 November, UN Doc. CCPR/CO/76/EGY, para. 12.
49 Human Rights Committee (1997) Concluding observations: India, 30 July, UN Doc. CCPR/C/79/Add.81, para. 20.
50 Human Rights Committee (1993) Concluding observations: Iran op. cit. para. 8.
51 Human Rights Committee (2007) Concluding observations: Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, CCPR/C/LBY/CO/4, para. 13
52 Human Rights Committee (1995) Concluding observations: Sri Lanka, 26 July 1995, UN Doc. A/50/40, s. 5.
53 Human Rights Committee (1997) Concluding observations: Sudan, 5 November, UN Doc. CCPR/C/79/Add.85, para. 8.
54 Human Rights Committee (2001) Concluding observations: Syrian Arab Republic, 24 April, UN Doc. CCPR/CO/71/SYR, para. 8.
55 Human Rights Committee (2002) Concluding observations: Viet Nam, 26 July, UN Doc. CCPR/CO/75/VNM, para. 7.
56 Human Rights Committee (2005) Concluding observations: Thailand, 8 July, UN Doc. CCPR/CO/84/THA, para. 14.
57 Human Rights Committee (1995) Concluding observations: Sri Lanka op. cit. s. 4.
58 Human Rights Committee (2000) Concluding observations: Kuwait, 27 July, UN Doc. CCPR/CO/69/KWT, para. 13
59 Human Rights Committee (2005) Concluding observations: Thailand op. cit. para. 14.
60 Human Rights Committee (2007) Concluding observations: Sudan, 29 August, UN Doc. CCPR/C/SDN/CO/3, para. 19.
61 Commission on Human Rights (1996) Report by the Special Rapporteur, Mr Bacre Waly Ndiaye, submitted pursuant to Commission on Human Rights resolution 1996/74, 24 December, UN Doc. E/CN.4/1997/60, para. 91.
62 Human Rights Council (2007) Report of the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Philip Alston, 29 January,
UN Doc. A/HRC/4/20, paras. 51–3.
63 Commission on Human Rights (2003) Report of the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, 22 December, UN
Doc. E/CN.4/2004/7, para. 48.

UN Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment,
who noted in a 2009 report to the Human Rights Council that, in his view, ‘drug offences do not
meet the threshold of most serious crimes … Therefore, the imposition of the death penalty on
drug offenders amounts to a violation of the right to life.’64
From the perspective of the UN human rights system, there is little to support the suggestion that
drug offences meet the threshold of ‘most serious crimes’. In fact, the weight of opinion would
indicate that drug offences are not ‘most serious crimes’ as the term has been interpreted, and that
executions under such circumstances constitute human rights violations. Indeed, the international
political consensus overall is clearly in favour of the abolition of the death penalty for all offences,
as evidenced in two UN General Assembly resolutions calling for a worldwide moratorium on
executions.65
Besides violations of the right to life as enshrined in Article 6 of the Covenant, the death penalty
for drug offences raises additional human rights concerns in some countries. For example, in some
states drug trials are referred to specialised courts, raising concerns that death sentences have
been handed down through processes that do not meet fair trial norms.66 There are also concerns
related to legislation prescribing mandatory death sentences for certain drug-related crimes
in some countries. This practice has been criticised by the former UN Commission on Human
Rights,67 the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions,68 the UN
Human Rights Committee69 and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights,70 as well as in various
national courts.71 IHRA’s Global Overview 2010 identifies thirteen countries with such legislation in
force.72

64 Human Rights Council (2009) Report of the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment,
Manfred Nowak, 14 January, UN Doc. A/HRC/10/44, para. 66.
65 That consensus is disputed by some retentionist states, but often because the word ‘consensus’ has become confused with ‘unanimity’.
The consensus, evident in a large majority in favour of abolition, is clear.
66 For example Iran, where drug trials often take place in revolutionary courts (UK Home Office (2006) Country of origin information report
– Iran, 28 April, p. 23). The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has called on these tribunals to be abolished because of their failure to
provide adequate due process protections.
67 Commission on Human Rights (2005) Human Rights Resolution 2005/59, 20 April, para. 6.
68 Human Rights Council (2007) op. cit. para. 4; see also paras. 54–9.
69 Human Rights Committee (26 March 2002) Kennedy v. Trinidad and Tobago Communication 845/1998, CCPR/C/74/D/845/1998, para. 7.3;
Human Rights Committee (18 October 2000) Thompson v. Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Communication 806/1998, CCPR/C/70/D/806/1998,
para. 8; Human Rights Committee (1995) Lubuto v. Zambia Communication 390/1990.
70 Inter-American Court of Human Rights (21 June 2002) Hilaire, Constantine, Benjamin et al. v. Trinidad and Tobago Series C 94.
71 The Court of Appeal of the Bahamas (8 March 2006) Privy Council Appeal 44 of 2005 (1) Forrester Bowe (Junior) (2) Trono Davis v. The
Queen, para. 29(3); Supreme Court of Uganda (21 January 2009) Attorney General v. Susan Kigula and 417 Others 03 of 2006; Amnesty International (22 January 2009) Mandatory death penalty ruled unconstitutional in Uganda.
72 Gallahue and Lines op. cit.

4. DEATH SENTENCES, EXECUTIONS AND DRUG
ENFORCEMENT PROJECTS
Although the responsibility for death sentences and executions for drug offences lies primarily with
the retentionist governments themselves, there are ways in which abolitionist governments, as
well as international organisations such as UNODC and the European Commission, run the risk of
contributing to this practice.
Despite the human rights concerns identified regarding the application of the death penalty in
drug cases, both European donors and UNODC fund or engage in activities in death penalty
states with the intent or effect of enhancing the ability of those countries to detect, arrest and
prosecute drug offenders. For example, UNODC’s 2002–2003 strategy for the Asia Pacific Region
(China, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Viet Nam) identifies as outcomes the ‘establishment
of mechanisms to increase the number of successful prosecutions involving more than one
jurisdiction’ and ‘greater capacity of the judiciary to prosecute drug cases’; an ‘increase in the
number of successful prosecutions’ was an objectively verifiable indicator for these outcomes.73
In countries that prescribe the death penalty for drug offences, it is reasonable to suggest that an
increase in successful drug prosecutions will likely result in an increase in death sentences and
possibly even in executions. UNODC’s organisational strategy for 2008 to 2011 includes as one
of its desired outcomes: ‘Enhanced capacity to respond effectively utilizing special investigative
techniques in the detection, investigation and prosecution of crime, organized crime, corruption
and drug trafficking’.74
It should be noted that technical assistance to drug enforcement activities of member states forms
only one component of the multi-disciplinary approach pursued globally by UNODC. The mission
of the office as a whole is focused on the wider promotion of the rule of law and this is increasingly
reflected in the new generation of UNODC Regional Programmes. The current 2008-2011 strategy
refers to the development of ‘accessible and accountable domestic criminal justice systems in
accordance with international standards and norms’ and the most recent UNODC 2009-2012
regional programme for East Asia and the Pacific, ‘Challenges, Achievements and the Way Ahead’,
makes reference to international human rights standards in respect of other aspects of the criminal
justice system, such as the use of compulsory centres for drug users.
Nonetheless, many European governments and the European Commission do provide earmarked
grants to the UNODC for the purpose of supporting specific drug enforcement projects or
activities.75 These targeted grants enable individual donors to utilise UNODC’s international network

73 UNDCP East Asia Pacific Programme 2002–2003: www.unodc.org/pdf/east_asia_pacific_programme.pdf (last accessed 10 June 2010).
74 UNODC (2007) Strategy for the period 2008–2011 for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 9 February, UN Doc. E/CN.7/2007/14–E/
CN.15/2007/5, p. 6. The same strategy refers to the development of ‘accessible and accountable domestic criminal justice systems in accordance
with international standards and norms’ (emphasis added).
75 Bewley-Taylor and Trace op. cit.

of offices to implement activities for which the countries themselves lack the necessary local
infrastructure or expertise. These earmarked grants are known as ‘special purpose funds’ and form
the vast majority of UNODC’s annual budget.
According to UNODC, in 2009 ‘[m]ost of UNODC funding is tightly earmarked for special purposes
and programmes, while unearmarked funding for general-purposes is limited (less than 6 per cent
of total funding available to UNODC).’76 That year, three of the five largest donors to UNODC’s
special purpose fund contributors (for all UNODC activities, including rule of law, policy and
trend analysis, prevention, treatment and reintegration, and alternative development), were the
European Commission ($26.3 million77), Sweden ($13.7 million) and Germany ($12.6 million), all
of which are committed in law and policy to the abolition of the death penalty. In fact, fifteen of
the top twenty-one contributors to UNODC’s special purpose fund in 2009 were European states,
which, together with the European Commission, donated a total of more than $90 million of the
$204 million budget that year. Other major European donors included France ($3.2 million), the
United Kingdom ($5.7 million), Norway ($6.9 million), the Netherlands ($12.2 million) and Italy ($1.1
million).78
Among the programmatic areas into which states donate special purpose funds are drug
enforcement efforts, in some cases in areas of the world where such activities entail significant
human rights risk. By providing practical assistance to law enforcement in retentionist countries
where those arrested could face the death penalty, and taking no safeguards against that outcome
(or other human rights risks79), both the donor states and the international organisations involved
risk being complicit in resulting human rights violations. The fact that the violations in question are
not directly perpetrated by the donor states or international organisations themselves, and/or are
not the specific intended outcome of the activities, does not absolve these actors from their human
rights obligations or their programmes from scrutiny.
For example, the European Commission and the government of Austria jointly funded a UNODC
project entitled, ‘Strengthening Afghan-Iran Drug Border Control and Cross Border Cooperation’
from 2004 to 2008. The project was designed to ‘to facilitate the equipping of border control
posts along the international border between Afghanistan and Iran.’80 Under the project, ‘The
governments of Iran and Afghanistan… adopted a bilateral agreement for Iran to build 25 border
posts within the Afghan territory…[to] enhance the capacity of the Afghan Border Police to reduce
the flow of drugs at the Afghanistan/Iran border.’81 During the lifetime of the project, sixteen
Afghan children were arrested by Iranian border authorities, convicted of trafficking drugs across
the Afghanistan/Iranian border and sentenced to death by hanging.82
76 UNODC (2010) Note by the Secretariat: Financial situation of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 3 March, E/CN.7/2010/CRP.7, para. 8
77 All dollar figures represent US dollars.
78 List available at: www.unodc.org/unodc/en/donors/donorlist/index.html?ref=menuside (last accessed 25 March 2010).
79 Such as torture, arbitrary detention and corporal punishment, all of which and more have been documented in relation to counter-narcotics efforts.
80 UNODC Country Office for Afghanistan (2007) Afghanistan: Counter-narcotics law enforcement update 6, March, p. 1.
81 ibid. pp. 1–2.
82 BBC News (4 October 2007) Afghanistan: Paper fears child drug smugglers face hanging in Iran.

‘Integrated border control in the Islamic Republic of Iran’ was a multi-million dollar project
implemented by UNODC and funded by Belgium, Ireland, France and the UK. Running from 2007
to 2010 the project intensified controls along trafficking routes, which included increased security
equipment at airports, seaports, railway stations and checkpoints.83 In addition to interventions
such as the provision of training, sniffer dogs and equipment, the project established two pilot
border liaison offices in Dogharun, along the Iran/Afghanistan border, and Zahedan, capital of
the Sistan-Baluchistan province on the Iran/Pakistan border.84 Through data compiled and made
available by Iran Human Rights and cross-checked against other sources, IHRA identified twentyfour hangings in Zahedan for drug offences between 2007 and 2009.85 According to Iran Human
Rights, people are often executed where they are caught.86
Whether or not these arrests and subsequent death sentences were linked to the border control
posts funded through these projects, the examples clearly illustrate the human rights risks inherent
in drug enforcement activities in retentionist countries. They also provide clear examples of the
inherent risks when individual donor states or international organisations such as the European
Commission and UNODC support drug enforcement activities without proper human rights
oversight. However, at present, activities funded by European donors via UNODC are implemented
without an appropriate assessment of potential human rights risk or a monitoring and evaluation
process to identify human rights outcomes (whether positive or negative).
These projects are just two of many identified for this report that are funded by European
states and/or the European Commission, and many of which are implemented by UNODC (see
Appendix). In all cases, the projects have been implemented without the level of human rights
assessment necessary to ensure that the activities themselves do not inadvertently result in
executions for drug offences. While in some cases the risk of human rights violations may be
theoretical, in others the programmes have resulted in the execution of identifiable individuals for
drug offences. The following case studies illustrate how donors and implementing agencies may
be complicit in executions in violation of international human rights law.

83 UNODC (2005) Integrated border control in the I.R. of Iran: Project idea, October, AD/IRN/05/I50, copy on file with the authors.
84 UNODC (2009) Semi-annual project progress report, 31 July, IRNI50, copy on file with the authors.
85 Many of these incidents are posted on the website of Iran Human Rights: www.IranHR.net.
86 Communication with author (September 2009).

CASE STUDY 1
Project: Development of cross border law enforcement co-operation in East Asia (AD/RAS/99/D91)
Cost: $2.8 million
Donor: Japan
Duration: 1999–2007
Project D91’s primary objectives included ‘to improve cross border cooperation and drug enforcement
performance … and enhance capacity of law enforcement officers at border crossings and/or inland
checkpoints to … detect illicit drugs and suspect consignments of money and precursors concealed in
cargo, road vehicles, river craft and foot travellers’.87 The project created twenty-four (later expanded
to forty-four) border liaison offices (BLOs) located at various high-risk border areas.88 The BLOs served
as mechanisms for cross-border intelligence-sharing and worked jointly to ‘develop a system for
operational law enforcement cooperation along and across the borders’ of Cambodia, China, Laos,
Myanmar, Thailand and Viet Nam.89
UNODC’s input into the project was substantial. The agency initiated the establishment of the BLOs,
funded cross-border workshops and provided transportation, communications and basic office
equipment as well as technical assistance.90 UNODC has described the BLOs as a ‘considerable success’.91
Drugs have been seized and suspects arrested in each of the target countries following cross-border cooperation between the relevant enforcement agencies through the BLOs. Many of those arrested have
been handed back to their own country’s authorities to face trial.92
However, no consideration appears to have been given to the fate of those convicted as a result of
project activities and no safeguards were put in place to ensure that those arrested and prosecuted
as a result of the project would not face the death penalty. Two examples illustrate this. In 2001 Shan
Chaungh Mei was arrested for drug trafficking near Muse in Myanmar due to the co-operative efforts
of Chinese and Myanmar BLOs and with the support of UNODC (then known as the UN Drug Control
Programme, UNDCP). As a national of Myanmar he was tried on drug offences in that country, found
guilty and sentenced to death on 21 December 2001.93
Tan Xiaolin (also known as Tan Minglin94), one of the region’s most notorious traffickers, was arrested
in Myanmar following the collaboration between UNDCP’s regional office and the relevant BLOs.95 He
was handed over to the Chinese authorities, tried and sentenced to death for drug trafficking on 10 May
2004. He was executed in June of that year to commemorate the UN International Day Against Drug
Abuse and Illicit Drug Trafficking.96
87 UNODC (n.d.) Development of cross-border law enforcement cooperation in East Asia: www.unodc.org/eastasiaandpacific/en/
Projects/2003_12/Drug_Trafficking.html (last accessed 10 June 2010).
88 ibid. See also FR Dickins (2005) Terminal evaluation report: RAS/99/D91, p. 2, copy on file with the authors.
89 UNODC (2002) Border liaison offices in operation, UNDCP Regional Office for East Asia and the Pacific, internal doc. 17/2002, p. 2.
90 ibid. p. 4.
91 ibid. p. 5 (referring to the China/Myanmar BLOs).
92 See UNODC (2003) Phase II BLO study trip report: Project AD/RAS/99/D91, UNODC Regional Office for East Asia and the Pacific,
internal doc. 4/2003; Eastern Horizons (March 2002) Myanmar strengthens international cooperation and intensifies apprehension of
drug traffickers, p. 17.
93 UNODC (2002) Border liaison offices in operation op. cit. p. 6.
94 L Xinzhen (2004) Saying no to drugs, Beijing Review vol. 47, no. 26, 1 July, pp. 20–24.
95 UNODC (2002) Border liaison offices in operation op. cit. p. 7.
96 Noting execution in April 2004 of Tan Xiaolin, see KL Chin and SX Zhang (2007) The Chinese Connection: Cross border drug

CASE STUDY 2
Project: Memorandum of Understanding Agreement (China, Myanmar, Viet Nam, Cambodia, Lao
PDR, Thailand)
Cost: $26 million
Donors: United Kingdom, United States, European Commission, Sweden, Canada, Australia, Japan,
UNAIDS, MOU members
Duration: 1993–
The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) is a pact signed by six East Asian countries, all but one
of which – Cambodia – retain the death penalty for drug offences. It was initiated in 1993 with the
assistance of UNODC (then known as the UN Drug Control Programme, UNDCP) and the original
agreement was signed by the then Executive Director of UNDCP. The agreement has since expanded to
include HIV prevention, demand reduction, alternative development and judicial co-operation, but the
majority of funds (61%) and the focus of the agreement remain on law enforcement.
The major donors of the total $26 million budget for the various programmes are the United Kingdom
(24%), United States (24%), Japan (24%) and Australia (10%). Other donors include the European
Commission (3%), Sweden (3%), Canada (2%) and UNAIDS (5%). Most of the donor states and the
European Commission are abolitionist. UNODC provides ongoing technical assistance.97
This pact is often promoted by UNODC as a model of successful international co-operation against drug
trafficking and cultivation. Indeed, UNODC has produced a poster series on the history of the project’s
development and activities, which was displayed, among other places, at the Vienna International
Centre during the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs High Level Segment in 2009.
While there are many projects that come under the scope of the MOU, a centrepiece of the agreement
is the establishment of at least seventy border liaison offices (BLOs) throughout the region. The objective
of the BLOs is to ‘foster greater cross-border law enforcement cooperation … on drug traffickers to
enable fast and effective interventions by law enforcement officers on the other side of the border’.98
According to UNODC, between 1999 and 2005 the BLOs were active in more than 700 cases, ‘often
accompanied by huge seizures’. 99 One of the ‘larger successes’ of the project, as identified by UNODC,
was the arrest of Han Yongwan, a major regional drug trafficker, by Lao PDR authorities in September
2005 as part of a joint operation with China, Thailand and Myanmar under the MOU agreement and BLO
project. He was subsequently extradited to China, where he was executed on 26 June 2008 to mark the
UN’s International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Drug Trafficking.100
trafficking between Myanmar and China. US Department of Justice Doc. 218254 89. Noting execution in April 2004 of Tan Minglin, see
China Daily (25 June 2004) Dozens of drug dealers executed.
97 UNODC (n.d.) The M.O.U. Countries of S.E. Asia (poster series) at: www.unodc.org/documents/eastasiaandpacific//2009/03/cnd/
MOU_Poster_small.pdf (last accessed 4 June 2010).
98 ibid.
99 ibid.
100 ibid. Xinhua News Agency (19 January 2007) Court hears cross-border heroin trafficking case; Xinhua News Agency (27 June
2008) China executes six drug dealers.

The UNODC poster series promoting the MOU project and displayed at the UN building in Vienna in
March 2009 includes a photograph of Han Yongwan, hooded and handcuffed, posed among a group of
drug enforcement officials from Lao and Myanmar (see Figure 1).
Cross-border cooperation facilitated by MOU projects also led to arrests of Nyein Kyaw and Kyaw Hlaing
in October 2001 in Myanmar.101 Both were subsequently sentenced to death.102 These incidents followed
two similar cases in Myanmar. UNODC’s newsletter, Eastern Horizons, reported that Myanmar authorities
‘acting closely together with the Australian Federal Police’ arrested Twan Sin Htan and Aik Tun in April of
2001 ‘in connection with more than 350 kg of heroin seized in Fiji’.103 By 29 August of that year, both had
been sentenced to death.104

Figure 1: Part of UNODC poster series to promote the MOU project105

101 Eastern Horizons (March 2002) op. cit., p. 17.
102 New Light of Myanmar (7 January 2003) Cooperations with the world nations in Myanmar’s anti-narcotics drive, New Light of
Myanmar (8 January 2003) Drug trafficker gets death sentence.
103 Eastern Horizons (March 2002) op. cit. p. 17.
104 New Light of Myanmar (17 September 2001) Drug traffickers get death sentences.
105 UNODC (n.d.) The M.O.U. Countries of S.E. Asia (poster series) op. cit.

5. HUMAN RIGHTS OBLIGATIONS OF DONORS
AND INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATIONS
As explored above, executions for drug offences violate international human rights law. In the
context of international assistance for drug enforcement, this situation engages the human
rights obligations of both the donor countries and the international organisations through which
the activities are funded and/or implemented. These obligations are of particular resonance in
circumstances where such drug enforcement assistance is operationalised in retentionist states
and where proper and effective human rights safeguards are not put in place.
States have legal obligations under the various human rights treaties they have ratified, as well as
under customary international law. In the case of European countries, these include obligations
under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which all EU countries have ratified,
and Protocol 6 to the European Convention on Human Rights, which commits all Council of
Europe member states to abolishing the death penalty.106
These legal obligations are neither lessened nor negated in the context of drug control activities or
when the activities in question are conducted via international organisations rather than directly by
the individual states.107 In the case of European donor states, the European Court of Human Rights
emphasised these obligations in a 1999 judgment:
… where States establish international organisations in order to pursue or strengthen their
cooperation in certain fields of activities, and where they attribute to these organisations
certain competences and accord them immunities, there may be implications as to the
protection of fundamental rights. It would be incompatible with the purpose and object
of the [European] Convention [on Human Rights], however, if the Contracting States
were thereby absolved from their responsibility under the Convention in relation to the
field of activity covered by such attribution. It should be recalled that the Convention is
intended to guarantee not theoretical or illusory rights, but rights that are practical and
effective.108
As a consequence, according to Professor Andrew Clapham, ‘states cannot simply divest
themselves of … human rights obligations when they empower an international organization
to take decisions or act on their behalf’. 109 Donor states have a responsibility to ensure that the
activities in which they are engaged under the auspices of international organisations are human
106 Protocol No. 6 to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms concerning the abolition of the death
penalty as amended by Protocol No. 11, Strasbourg, 28 April 1983.
107 In this context it is important to note that international organisations such as the UN have legal personality. See, for example, International
Court of Justice (11 April 1949) Advisory opinion: Reparations for injuries suffered in the service of the United Nations, ICJ Reports 1949, p. 174;
and International Court of Justice (20 December 1980) Advisory opinion: Interpretation of the agreement of 25 March 1951 between the WHO
and Egypt, ICJ Reports 1980, p. 73.
108 Waite and Kennedy v Germany (Application 26083/94), European Court of Human Rights judgment of 18 February 1999, para. 67.
109 A Clapham (2006) Human Rights Obligations of Non-State Actors. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 108.

rights compliant:
International organizations are capable of violating international obligations with regard to
human rights; and where these organizations remain unaccountable for such violations,
states retain their international obligations to ensure respect for human rights. The acts
and omissions of international organizations may then give rise to both international
human rights violations by the organization and, in some circumstances, also for the
relevant states.110
This has been the position for three decades of the International Law Commission in relation to
peremptory norms of international law, including freedom from torture.111
However, as explored in the previous section and in the appendices to this report, there are
multiple instances in which international donors are supporting drug enforcement projects in
death penalty states that operate with little or no human rights oversight. In some cases, specific
executions can be traced to these projects.
These obligations are particularly compelling in the case of the European Union. A 2008 resolution
of the European Parliament specifically highlights concerns over the potential for European
complicity in human rights violations, including the application of the death penalty, as a result of
European-funded, UNODC-implemented, drug enforcement activities. The resolution:
Calls on the Council and the Commission to ensure … that the funding supplied to
international agencies such as those of the United Nations to combat illegal drugs is
never used either directly or indirectly to support security bodies in countries which
commit serious and systematic violations of human rights or apply the death penalty in
drug-related cases.112
It is not only individual states that have human rights obligations, they apply to international
organisations such as UNODC as well. The Charter of the United Nations sets out as a task and
responsibility for the UN the promotion of universal respect for, and observance of, human rights
and fundamental freedoms,113 and the Universal Declaration for Human Rights calls upon ‘every
organ of society’ to take ‘progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal
and effective recognition and observance’.114
110 ibid.
111 The ILC stated that ‘it is apparent that ... peremptory norms of international law apply to international organizations’ and that ‘it can hardly
be maintained that states can avoid compliance with peremptory norms by creating an organization’, ILC (1981) Yearbook of the International
Law Commission 1980 vol. II, no. 2, p. 56.
112 European Parliament (2008) European Parliament resolution on the Annual Report on Human Rights in the World 2007 and the European
Union’s policy on the matter (2007/2274(INI)), 8 May, P6_TA(2008)0193, para. 143, available at: www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/483aa6952.html
(last accessed 31 March 2010). This resolution also called for a document to be prepared that would ‘out in a comprehensive and detailed manner the best practices implemented by all European Union Member States on human rights and drug policies’. That document has yet to be
released.
113 United Nations Charter, Arts. 1(3) , 55 and 56.
114 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, preamble.

As a department of the UN Secretariat, a principal organ of the UN, established under the Charter,
it is inconceivable that UNODC is exempt from sharing these responsibilities.115 As noted by
one commentator, ‘It is self-evident that the [UN] is obliged to pursue and try to realize its own
purpose’.116 UNODC’s strategy for 2008 to 2011 states that its services in relation to technical
assistance and capacity building ‘must be consistent with, and indeed contribute to, the wider
efforts of the United Nations towards peace, security and development’. Human rights protection
and promotion as an aim of the UN is unfortunately omitted, although this would appear to be
an inadvertent rather than an intentional oversight as many ‘result areas’ in the strategy, including
HIV/AIDS prevention, prison reform and juvenile justice, are clearly human rights objectives.117 In
addition, UNODC’s core mandate includes work on the implementation and operationalisation of
the United Nations standards and norms in crime prevention and criminal justice. These include
the ‘Safeguards guaranteeing protection of the rights of those facing the death penalty’
In the specific case of the death penalty for drug offences, UNODC has explicitly and repeatedly
in recent years asserted its opposition to the practice. Most recently, in a 2010 report, the UNODC
Executive Director stated that ‘As an entity of the United Nations system, UNODC advocates the
abolition of the death penalty and calls upon Member States to follow international standards
concerning prohibition of the death penalty for offences of a drug-related or purely economic
nature.’118 It should be noted that this report was a strong statement of commitment to human
rights from UNODC and included a detailed section on practical measures to mainstream human
rights throughout the organisation.119 It was presented to both of UNODC’s governing bodies – the
Commission on Narcotic Drugs and the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice
– indicating a clear and high-level desire within the agency to improve UNODC’s human rights
capacity and performance. In addition to setting out the policy position of the office on human
rights issues as they relate to drug control, crime prevention and criminal justice, the paper also
included concrete proposals for the use of human rights impact assessments in project design
stages, and for the consideration of relevant human rights legislation and international obligations
in UNODC project documents.
The recognition that responsibility for securing human rights goes beyond states to non-state
actors, including private corporations and agencies, has given rise to a wide range of initiatives
aimed at clarifying and codifying the scope and content of that responsibility.120 UNODC itself
is one of six core UN agencies comprising an Inter-Agency Team that is part of the governance
115 See D Barrett and M Nowak (2009) The United Nations and drug policy: Towards a human rights based approach, in A Constantinides and
N Zaikos (eds.) The Diversity of International Law: Essays in Honour of Professor Kalliopi K. Koufa. Leiden/Boston, MA: Brill/Martinus Nijhoff, pp.
449–77: 470–72.
116 Z Stavrinides (1999) Human rights obligations under the United Nations Charter, International Journal of Human Rights vol. 3, no. 3, pp.
38–48: 40.
117 UNODC (2007) Strategy for the period 2008–2011 for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 9 February, UN Doc. E/
CN.7/2007/14–E/CN.15/2007/5, p. 3.
118 UNODC (2010) Drug control, crime prevention and criminal justice: A human rights perspective. Note by the Executive Director (Commission on Narcotic Drugs, Fifty-third session, Vienna, 8–12 March), UN Doc. E/CN.7/2010/CRP.6*–E/CN.15/2010/CRP.1*.
119 ibid. s. IV.
120 See, for example, the work of the UN Special Representative on business and human rights; OECD (2000) OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises. Paris: OECD; UN sub-commission norms on business and human rights (26 August 2003) UN Doc. E/CN.4/Sub.2/2003/12/
Rev.2.

framework of one such initiative: the ‘United Nations Global Compact on Human Rights, Labour,
the Environment and Anti-Corruption’ (the Global Compact). The Global Compact seeks to
encourage private sector companies to embrace and promote human rights, and to avoid
complicity with human rights abuses, within their ‘spheres of influence’.
The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) briefing paper on understanding
spheres of influence and complicity defines those ‘relationships with a broader range of actors over
whom it has the ability to exert influence with varying degrees with regard to human rights’ as
falling within a company’s sphere of influence.121 These actors can include joint venture partners,
host governments and governmental/intergovernmental policy-making bodies.122 Based upon
this definition, national governments and law enforcement agencies in receipt of support for drug
enforcement activities clearly fall within the sphere of influence of both UNODC and/or the original
donors.
Principle 2 of the Global Compact states that ‘Businesses should make sure that they are not
complicit in human rights abuses.’123 According to the OHCHR briefing paper:
A company is complicit in human rights abuses if it authorises, tolerates, or knowingly
ignores human rights abuses committed by an entity associated with it, or if the company
knowingly provides practical assistance or encouragement that has a substantial effect
on the perpetration of human rights abuses. The participation of the company need not
actually cause the abuse. Rather the company’s assistance or encouragement has to be
to a degree that without such participation, the abuses most probably would not have
occurred to the same extent or in the same way.124
As detailed above, both UNODC and international donors are involved in numerous activities that
are either intended, or have the objective result, of increasing the capacity of retentionist states
to detect and seize drug shipments and to arrest and successfully prosecute drug offenders.
In countries that maintain the death penalty for drug-related offences, increasing arrests and/
or successful prosecutions directly contribute to circumstances where increased executions are
a potential, and even a likely, outcome. Such an outcome would place these activities among
those described by the OHCHR as ones in which, without that international support, ‘the abuses
most probably would not have occurred to the same extent or in the same way’. Indeed, given
the probability of these activities increasing the number of executions in circumstances that
violate international human rights law, the donor states and international organisations involved
risk finding themselves in a position where they may be shown to have ‘tolerate[d] or knowingly
ignore[d] human rights abuses committed by an entity associated with [them]’ when they fail to
attach clear human rights guidelines and monitoring processes to their activities.
121 OHCHR (2004) The Global Compact and Human Rights: Understanding the Sphere of Influence and Complicity. Geneva: OHCHR, p. 9.
122 ibid.
123 ibid. p. 2.
124 ibid. p. 6 (emphasis in original).

The OHCHR briefing paper provides a useful table to assist in assessing the implications of
undertaking projects in countries that violate human rights in order to avoid possible complicity in
potential abuses (see Table 1). Using this table, it is clear that many activities designed to strengthen
drug enforcement mechanisms in death penalty states fall within the category of those that the
Office of the High Commissioner recommends be avoided.
Table 1: Assessing the implications of undertaking projects in countries that violate human
rights125

Deciding to do business
in states with poor human
rights records
25

Company
proximity
to human
rights
abuses

Government proximity to human rights
abuses
Actively
Possess insuficient
committing
resources for
abuses
addressing abuses

Activities
intersect with
abuses

Avoid

Proceed with Caution

Activities do
not intersect
with abuses

Proceed with
Caution

Private corporations and international organisations are of course different. One is governed
by individuals acting through partnership, directorship or as shareholders, whilst international
organisations operate subject to mandates provided by member states. The analogy, however,
is helpful. Based upon the principles and approach of the Global Compact, the fact that the
application of the death penalty is not the intended outcome of these internationally supported
programmes does not exclude the donor states or international organisations from responsibility
for the human rights impact of their activities. Indeed, if these actors fail to take proactive measures
to avoid human rights abuses that come as a result of their activities, they risk being complicit in
violations of international human rights law. As explained in the OHCHR briefing paper, ‘In most
cases, it is the silence or failure to act … that brings censure rather than … active involvement in the
violations’.126
125 ibid. p. 25 [Note 25 in Table 1 states: ‘See also Global Compact Business Guide to Conflict Impact Assessment and Risk Management in
Zones of Conflict; Deciding Whether to do Business in States with Bad Governments, The Confederation of Danish Industries, the Danish Centre
for Human Rights, The Industrialization Fund for Developing Countries, 2001; and Business and Human Rights — A geography of corporate risk,
ibid.’]
126 ibid. p. 3.

6. TOWARDS A HUMAN RIGHTS-COMPLIANT
APPROACH TO INTERNATIONAL DRUG
ENFORCEMENT: RECOMMENDATIONS FOR
DONORS AND IMPLEMENTING AGENCIES
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights guarantees for everyone the right to ‘an international
order in which the rights and freedoms set forth [in the Declaration] can be fully realized’.127 The
international drug control system and drug enforcement funding and capacity building have a
role to play in this regard. In order to achieve this, donors and international organisations must
acknowledge their human rights obligations in the context of international counter-narcotics
efforts.
This report is not intended to provide a comprehensive list of all the drug enforcement
programmes and activities that raise human concerns. Rather, it seeks to focus attention on an
important gap in current international assistance for drug enforcement and highlight the ways
in which such activities can contribute to human rights violations when proper oversight and
monitoring systems are not in place. Although this report focuses on European donors and
UNODC, its concerns and findings are applicable to other donor countries and organisations
involved in international aid and technical assistance to drug enforcement activities.
The death penalty for drug offences is a key indicator of the absence of human rights
considerations in drug control. The absence of safeguards to limit the application of the death
penalty as a result of funding, technical assistance and capacity building is therefore an indicator of
major human rights gaps and shortfalls in international and bilateral funding, implementation and
evaluation processes. These gaps and shortfalls must be addressed.

Recommended actions for European donor states and the European
Commission
The support of European donors, including the European Commission, for projects that have the
potential to increase executions risks contradicting the robust abolitionist stance of the EU and of
the Council of Europe. The proximity between the activities funded and human rights violations
should compel support for rigorous and transparent assessments of counter-narcotics funding and
the development of systems to avoid complicity in abuses. In particular:
»»

127

Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Art. 28.

»»

European donor states should develop and apply similar human rights guidelines to
bilateral funding agreements for drug enforcement.

»»

Donors should provide specific funding for the development of human rights capacity
within UNODC and for the development of international guidelines on human rights
and drug control (see below).

Recommended actions for UNODC
As the UN’s lead agency on drugs, UNODC is uniquely placed to advocate for an end to the death
penalty for drug offences internationally. Indeed, UNODC’s influence both at the international
and national levels is invaluable in promoting the abolitionist position of the UN and respect
for international human rights law. In recent years UNODC has become increasingly vocal in
its opposition to the death penalty, including in high level speeches by the Executive Director.
UNODC criminal justice technical support is increasingly focusing on addressing issues
surrounding abolition and in a recent example, the Executive Director indicated his concern
in March 2010 in writing to a Head of State following a statement that the country intended to
reintroduce capital punishment for drug-related offences. This is very welcome. However, a
number of steps need to be taken in order to further operationalise these policy statements.
»»

The abolition of the death penalty for drug-related offences, or at the very least
evidence of an ongoing and committed moratorium on executions, should be made
a pre-condition of technical assistance and capacity-building and other support for
drug enforcement. Assistance should be offered to develop human-rights-compliant
laws to support any drug enforcement assistance.

»»

A formal and transparent process for conducting human rights impact assessments128
as an element of project design, implementation and evaluation should be developed
and implemented as part of all drug enforcement activities. It should be noted that
UNODC has raised the possibility of developing such a tool in its recent report on
human rights to the Commission on Narcotic Drugs and the Commission on Crime
Prevention and Criminal Justice. This is to be applauded, and must be put into
action.129

128 For more on human rights impact assessment, see Report of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on the issue of human
rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises: Human rights impact assessments – resolving key methodological questions, UN Doc. A/HRC/4/74, 5 February 2007; International Business Leaders’ Forum, Global Compact and International Finance Corporation
(June 2007) Guide to human rights impact assessment and management, road testing draft; P Hunt and G MacNaughton (2006) Impact Assessments, Poverty and Human Rights: A Case Study Using the Right to the Highest Attainable Standard of Health. Paris: UNESCO.
129 UNODC (2010) Drug control, crime prevention and criminal justice op. cit. para. 59. According to the report: ‘UNODC will consider using,
where appropriate, the Human Rights Impact Assessment (HRIA) as a predictive tool for assessing the potential human rights impact of a policy
or programme, with the aim of informing decision makers and affected persons. By helping to identify the nature and extent of the potential
impact, the HRIA facilitates the adjustment of the proposed policy, mitigating the negative and maximizing the positive human rights impacts.
HRIA is a combined tool for risk assessment, civil society engagement and decision-making, geared towards ensuring, from the outset, that
human rights are at the centre of all policy and programmes. This is a relatively new and developing area and not without its difficulties, but one
which could be of significant value for UNODC as a mechanism to mainstream human rights and operationalize human rights commitments
and responsibilities. To this end, the HRIA includes a wide range of activities intended to identify and manage human rights risk and to evaluate
human rights impact, positive and negative, throughout the life of each project.’

»»

UNODC – working in conjunction with the OHCHR, non-governmental organisations,
government representatives, international experts and affected communities –
should develop guidelines on human rights and drug control for use by international
and bilateral donors, implementing agencies and national governments.130

130 The International Guidelines on HIV/AIDS and Human Rights serve as a useful model. See also Council of Europe (2002) Guidelines on
human rights and the fight against terrorism, adopted by the Committee of Ministers on 11 July 2002 at the 804th meeting of the ministers’
deputies; A preliminary framework draft of principles and guidelines concerning human rights and terrorism: working paper prepared by Kalliopi Koufa, Special Rapporteur on terrorism and human rights, UN Doc. E/CN.4/Sub.2/2004/40, 11 August 2004.

APPENDIX: CASE STUDIES IN HUMAN RIGHTS
RISK
Project: Interdiction and seizure capacity building with special emphasis on ATS and
precursors in Vietnam (AD/VIE/03/G55)
Cost: $736,800
Donor: United States
Duration: 2004–2007
Six Drug Interdiction Task Force Units (ITFUs) were established as the centrepiece of the 2003
UNODC project ‘Interdiction and seizure capacity building with special emphasis on ATS and
precursors’. In 2006 the ITFUs recorded thousands of arrests and drug seizures, including one
shipment of over 40 kilograms of heroin, the fourth largest seizure ever to be made on land in Viet
Nam.131
The immediate objective of the project was ‘to strengthen the law enforcement efforts related to
trafficking in drugs’. Among the key indicators adopted to measure the project’s success or failure
was ‘a progressive increase in the number of individuals arrested by the Interdiction Task Force
Units for trafficking in illicit drugs’.132 On this point, the project proved very successful. In Son La
province, for example, border police, aided by the ITFUs, recorded increased arrests and seizures
during the project’s three-year period. In total 2,395 arrests were made and 171,033 kilograms of
heroin were seized.133 According to the final evaluation report, ‘the seizures of drugs and the arrests
for drug offences by the ITFU’s have increased progressively under the project against national
levels’.134
In addition to the ITFUs, the project’s objective was accomplished with a study tour to Singapore
for high-level officers from the police, border army and customs.135 The project’s annual progress
report states that ‘The objectives of the study tour were to increase operational law enforcement
and legal cooperation between Singapore and Viet Nam on drug trafficking [and] expose
Vietnamese officials to the Singaporean approach in dealing with drug trafficking.’136 Singapore’s
‘approach’ to drugs includes the death penalty, as well as caning drug offenders.137

131 UNODC (2008) Annual Report 2007. Vienna: UNODC, p. 66.
132 See Terminal Evaluation Report, AD/VIE/03/G55, Interdiction and Seizure Capacity Building with Special Emphasis on ATS and Precursors,
October 2006, paras. 54 and 57. The full project document is on file with the authors.
133 ibid. Annex 4: Figures on drug seizures.
134 ibid. para. 60.
135 ibid. and UNODC (2007) Annual project progress report (for period: 01/01/2006 – 31/12/2006), Project: VIEG55, Region: East Asia and the
Pacific, copy on file with the authors.
136 UNODC (2007) Annual project progress report op. cit.
137 For Singapore’s recent defence of its practices, see M Teo (5 June 2010) Singapore’s policy keeps drugs at bay, The Guardian; and Permanent Mission of Singapore to the United Nations in Geneva (2009) Statement by Singapore during the interactive dialogue at the 10th session of
the Human Rights Council on 10 March 2009, in which the Government of Singapore declared, ‘we strongly disagree that States should refrain
from using the death penalty in relation to drug-related offences’ and rejected ‘the Special Rapporteur’s advocacy of a liberal treatment of drug
offenders’. Singapore also argued that corporal punishment was not a violation of international human rights law.

Vietnamese law provides that the death penalty may be imposed on those convicted of possessing,
trading or trafficking in 100 grams or more of heroin.138 However, Amnesty International reports
that in practice most people who are sentenced to death were caught in possession of more than
600 grams of heroin.139 Nevertheless, there was no assessment of this risk in the project’s approval
document and no effort was made to include safeguards to prevent human rights violations.
Indeed, they do not appear to have been considered a ‘project risk’ by UNODC and state ratification
of human rights treaties does not appear under ‘legal context’.140
According to the US State Department, which provided funding for the project, during the first six
months of 2006 forty-six death sentences were handed down in Viet Nam out of 6,205 convictions
for trafficking.141 This ratio of convictions to death sentences is consistent with UNODC’s data
from previous years. Between 1999 and 2004 UNODC reported that 55,828 people were tried for
trafficking in Viet Nam, 357 of whom received death sentences.142
Given the consistency with which the death sentence is passed on a percentage of all those
convicted of trafficking, it is reasonable to assume that some of the 2,395 people arrested in Son La
province under the UNODC interdiction project may have received death sentences. The likelihood
that those persons arrested, with the assistance of the ITFUs, in possession of over 40 kilograms
of heroin faced the death penalty is very high. Indeed, in September 2007, six defendants were
sentenced to death for trafficking only a fraction of that amount during the same time period.143
This case is of serious concern due to the fact that Viet Nam is actively carrying out executions for
drug offences.144 IHRA’s Global Overview 2010 categorises Viet Nam as a ‘high commitment’ state
due to its executions.145 In 2004 around half of known death sentences were for drug offences.146 In
one 2004 case reported by Amnesty International, ‘Nguyen Thi Ha, 48, was executed at Long Binh
execution ground in Ho Chi Minh City on 9 April in front of hundreds of spectators. She had been
sentenced to death for smuggling heroin.’147
In addition to the activities above, consultants from the US Drug Enforcement Administration and
the Australian Federal Police provided training in intelligence collection and sharing, methods
of concealment and surveillance techniques.148 These training sessions were conducted despite
138 The Socialist Republic of Viet Nam Penal Code (15/1999/QH10), accessible from: www.unodc.org/enl/browse_countries.jsp#v (last accessed 25 March 2010).
139 Amnesty International (2007) Death Sentences for Drug-Crimes in the Asia-Pacific. AI Index: ASA/01/-2/2007.
140 UNODC (n.d.) Interdiction and seizure capacity building with special emphasis on ATS and precursors: Project document, copy on file
with the authors.
141 Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement (2007) International Narcotics Control Strategy Report 2007. Volume I. Washington, DC: Department of State, p. 334.
142 UNODC Country Office Viet Nam (2005) Country Profile: Viet Nam. Hanoi: UNODC, p. 24.
143 Vietnam News Agency (7 September 2007) Drug traffickers get death penalty.
144 Between 1999 and 2003 at least 128 people were executed (for a range of offences). Capital punishment and implementation of the
safeguards guaranteeing protection of the rights of those facing the death penalty – Report of the Secretary General, 9 March 2005, UN Doc.
E/2005/3 14.
145 Gallahue and Lines op. cit.
146 Forty-four out of eighty-eight people. See Amnesty International (2005) Amnesty International Report 2005 – Viet Nam, London: AI.
147 ibid.
148 UNODC (n.d.) Interdiction and seizure capacity building with special emphasis on ATS and precursors: Project document, copy on file with
the authors.

the fact that several Australian citizens had been sentenced to death on drug trafficking charges
in Viet Nam in the preceding two years.149 At the time, the Australian government was facing
domestic criticism over its provision of information to a foreign government that enforced capital
punishment.150
Project: Development of cross border law enforcement co-operation in East Asia (AD/RAS/99/
D91)
Cost: $2.8 million
Donor: Japan
Duration: 1999–2007
See Case Study 1 in Section 4 above.
Project: Memorandum of Understanding Agreement (China, Myanmar, Viet Nam, Cambodia,
Lao PDR, Thailand)
Cost: $26 million
Donors: United Kingdom, United States, European Commission, Sweden, Canada, Australia,
Japan, UNAIDS, MOU members
Duration: 1993–
See Case Study 2 in Section 4 above.
Project: Integrated border control in the Islamic Republic of Iran (AD/IRN/05/I50)
Cost: $2,790,000
Donors: Belgium, France, Ireland, United Kingdom
Duration: 2007–2010
This project intensified controls along trafficking routes, which included increased security
equipment and training at airports, seaports, railway stations and checkpoints.151 It developed
information-sharing capacities, established two border liaison posts and furnished Iranian
authorities with sniffer dogs, body scanners and other equipment. The project dovetailed with
several other concurrent programmes launched over the past several years aimed at developing
the information-sharing and co-operative-planning abilities of Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan.152
According to the project’s 2008 annual report, Iranian police claimed that one single sniffer dog
helped seize 450 kilograms of drugs that year.153 The report adds that in ‘preliminary tests taken in
real operations’ three dogs detected a combined total of 63 kilograms of opium.154 An additional
149
150
151
152
153
154

These sentences were later commuted.
T Hyland (19 February 2006) AFP under fire over Vietnam drug arrest, Sydney Morning Herald.
UNODC (2005) Integrated border control in the I.R. of Iran: Project idea, October, AD/IRN/05/I50, copy on file with authors.
UNODC (April 2008) Green Paper: Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan border management cooperation in drug control: outline action plan.
UNODC (2009) 2008 Annual project progress report, IRNI50, copy on file with the authors.
ibid.

twenty drug-detecting dogs, which were trained in France, were delivered to the Iranian AntiNarcotics Police in late 2008.155 As part of this programme, body scanners were also installed at the
Khomeini and Kerman international airports to catch ‘swallowers’.156
Furthermore, the project established two pilot border liaison offices in Dogharun, along the Iran/
Afghanistan border, and Zahedan, capital of the Sistan-Baluchistan province on the Iran/Pakistan
border.157 Through data compiled and made available by Iran Human Rights and cross-checked
against other sources, IHRA identified twenty-four hangings in Zahedan for drug offences between
2007 and 2009.158 Iran Human Rights reports that people are often executed where they are
caught.159
The integrated border control project is just one programme providing equipment to the Iranian
authorities. UNODC documents show that the UK has spent significant sums on increasing Iran’s
counter-narcotics capacity, including $189,000 on motorcycles delivered to the provinces of
Khorasan, where twenty-five known hangings for drug offences took place between 2007 and
2009; Kerman, where fourteen people were known to have been hanged during the same period;
and Sistan-Baluchistan.160 These were provided along with X-ray body-scanners, night-vision
goggles, software programmes and mobile and satellite telephone communication intercepting
systems.161

Examples of other drug enforcement projects in death penalty states
»»

The European Commission and Austria jointly funded the UNODC project
‘Strengthening Afghan–Iran drug border control and cross border cooperation’,
which was designed ‘to facilitate the equipping of border control posts along the
international border between Afghanistan and Iran’.162 Under the project, ‘The
governments of Iran and Afghanistan have adopted a bilateral agreement for Iran to
build 25 border posts within the Afghan territory … [to] enhance the capacity of the
Afghan Border Police to reduce the flow of drugs at the Afghanistan/Iran border.’163
During the lifetime of this project, sixteen Afghan children were arrested by Iranian
border authorities, convicted of trafficking drugs across the Afghanistan/Iran border
and sentenced to death by hanging.164 Whether or not these arrests are linked to the
new border control posts funded through this project, this example clearly illustrates
the potential human rights abuses inherent in drug enforcement activities in the
region.

155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164

ibid.
UNODC (2009) Semi-annual project progress report, 31 July, IRNI50, copy on file with the authors.
ibid.
Many of these incidents are posted on the website of Iran Human Rights: www.IranHR.net.
Communication with author (September 2009).
UNODC Law Enforcement and Technical Assistance Database, copy on file with the authors.
ibid.
UNODC Country Office for Afghanistan (2007) Afghanistan: Counter-narcotics law enforcement update 6, March, p. 1.
ibid. pp. 1–2.
BBC News (4 October 2007) Afghanistan: Paper fears child drug smugglers face hanging in Iran.

»»

The government of Canada funds the $3.5 million ‘Pakistan border management
project’ launched in 2007. This project was modelled on the integrated border control
project in Iran described above, and is designed to scale up the capability of Pakistan’s
authorities at selected locations on its western borders.165 It follows two earlier
UNODC-supported programmes (identified as RAS/890 and PAK/99/D86), under
which the ‘number of arrests increased’.166 The goals of this project will be achieved
by promoting co-operation between law enforcement agencies in Pakistan, Iran
and Afghanistan through training and provision of equipment.167 Law enforcement
agencies in Pakistan are scheduled to receive X-ray machines for selected airports,
night-vision goggles and communications tools.168 Vehicles and computer equipment
have been supplied and authorities have agreed to develop three border liaison posts
at the Iran/Afghanistan, Iran/Pakistan and Pakistan/Afghanistan borders.169

»»

UNODC is helping to establish the Gulf Centre for Criminal Intelligence to serve as a
hub for law enforcement agencies from Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia
and the United Arab Emirates.170 The project is funded by a $4 million pledge from
Qatar. If successful, the establishment of this information and intelligence hub will
lead to more arrests and, as all of these countries maintain the death penalty for drug
offences, a very high risk of the increased application of capital punishment.

»»

The ‘Container control programme’ is widely viewed as a success story. It was initiated
in 2003 by the Executive Director of UNODC together with the Secretary General
of the World Customs Organization to increase security at seaports and prevent
illicit drugs from being smuggled in maritime shipping containers. The project
established inter-agency port control units, which employ analysts who are trained
to identify suspicious containers for additional scrutiny.171 The first pilot countries
to be incorporated into the project were Ecuador and Ghana,172 both of which are
abolitionist states.173 However, the project has since expanded to include Pakistan,
which maintains the death penalty for drug offences. What is perhaps even more
alarming is that, according to a 2009 progress report, the European Commission
has pledged funding for the programme’s activities in Iran,174 which is an enthusiastic
executioner of drug offenders.

»»

Sweden has funded a project entitled ‘Strengthening of Judicial and Prosecutorial
Drug Control Capacity in East Asia’ (1999-2004), with the aim of ‘strengthening the
judicial and prosecutorial capacity of Cambodia, China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and
Vietnam to administer national drug control legislation and support sub-regional

165 K Frost (2009) Mid-Term Evaluation Report, Pakistan Border Management Project, 13 February.
166 UNODC, PAKJ61 Project document, 26 July 2007, copy on file with the authors.
167 Frost op. cit.
168 UNODC, PAKJ61 op. cit.
169 UNODC (2008) 2008 Annual progress report, 31 December, PAKJ61, copy on file with the authors.
170 UNODC, QAT/J24 Project document, copy on file with the authors.
171 UNODC-WCO Container Control Programme (June 2009) Progress report, copy on file with the authors.
172 ibid.
173 Amnesty International (n.d.) Abolitionist and retentionist countries: www.amnesty.org/en/death-penalty/abolitionist-and-retentionistcountries (last accessed 11 June 2010).
174 UNODC-WCO Container Control Programme op. cit.

cooperation’.175 In most of these countries, the national drug legislation being
administered contains the death penalty for drugs. While this programme may have
had respect for human norms built into its course of work, is difficult to demonstrate
the impact of this in the short term with respect to capital punishment.176
»»

UNODC has sought to improve the interdiction capabilities of drug law enforcement
agencies in Yemen through training for judges and prosecutors and the supply of
surveillance and communications equipment to enforcement services.177

»»

The United Kingdom has provided over £3.6 million for drug enforcement activities
in Iran, mostly through UNODC, since 1998. This includes a ‘programme of assistance
to Iranian law enforcement authorities to tackle drug traffickers of heroin produced
in Afghanistan’.178 Iran actively executes people in public for drug offences and the
UK has stated that it is ‘extremely concerned about the use of the death penalty in
Iran’.179

175 Support to drug law enforcement in East Asia and the Pacific (AD/RAS/99/D82). See Office of the General Counsel, Asian Development Bank
(April 2004) Law and Policy Reform Bulletin, 2003, no. 64.
176 Amnesty International (26 August 2009) Thailand carries out first executions in six years.
177 UNODC (n.d.) Legal and drug law enforcement assistance to Yemen: www.unodc.org/egypt/en/past_projects.html (last accessed 12 June
2010).
178 UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office (n.d.) Major heroin producing and trafficking countries: http://tinyurl.com/26nsymz (last accessed 11
June 2010).
179 UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office (n.d.) FCO country profile: Iran: www.fco.gov.uk/en/travel-and-living-abroad/travel-advice-by-country/country-profile/middle-east-north-africa/iran/?profile=all (last accessed 11 June 2010).