Abstract:
The International Narcotics Control Board (INCB or The Board) has been criticised for being one of the most secretive bodies in the UN system. It holds its meetings behind closed doors. No minutes are taken. There is no opportunity for NGOs or civil society organisations to observe or make submissions.
INCB has claimed that it is ‘unique in international relations’ and has used this allegedly ‘unique’ status to justify its exclusion civil society from its deliberations and to explain why its meetings are closed.
However, far from being unique, INCB is instead an early example of the ‘independent committee of experts’ model that has been adopted and developed within the UN human rights system, and regional human rights systems, over the past four decades. It is a common model that continues to be used today.
This report compares INCB’s structure, legal status, mandate, activities and working methods against those of the UN human rights treaty bodies. While INCB does differ in certain ways from the other independent quasi-judicial bodies in the UN human rights system, this is an inevitable result of differences in the aims and objectives of the drug conventions and the human rights conventions the various committees are mandated to oversee. These differences are procedural rather than structural or legal, and are far outweighed by the similarities. The basic model, far from being unique to INCB, is in fact identical.
INCB’s ‘uniqueness’ stems not from its mandate, its activities or its legal status, but instead from the working methods the Board has itself adopted, methods that are out of step with those of similarly constituted UN bodies that have chosen to operate via open and inclusive processes. Therefore, INCB’s claim to ‘unique’ status is untrue, as is its contention that civil society must, by mandate or other official barrier, be excluded from its deliberation
Citation: Damon Barrett. 'Unique in International Relations? A comparison of the International Narcotics Control Board and the UN Human Rights Treaty Bodies' (IHRA 2008)