In this report on the rights of indigenous peoples in Bolivia, the Special Rapporteur notes that Bolivia’s ‘zero coca’ policy in the 1990s ‘led to social clashes and the militarization of some areas of [coca] cultivation’ (paragraph 58). The new Bolivian government’s policy promotes a limited legal coca market and is developing eradication policies in cooperation with coca-grower unions. In paragraph 57, the Special Rapporteur notes that the 1988 UN Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances ‘recognizes that measures to eliminate illicit crops “shall respect fundamental human rights and shall take due account of traditional licit uses, where there is historic evidence of such use”’.
Citation: Rodolfo Stavenhagen. 'Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous peoples -Mission to Bolivia-' (A/HRC/11/11) 18 February 2009