‘Treatment in Liberty’ Human Rights and Compulsory Detention for Drug Use

Rick Lines,Giada Girelli,Julie Hannah

doi:10.1093/hrlr/ngab022

Abstract

Abstract This is the first detailed examination of compulsory detention for ‘drug treatment’ through the lens of a rapidly evolving international legal framework. It is estimated that as many as half a million people worldwide are detained for the purpose of ‘drug treatment’, many held for months or years at a time without being charged criminally or being able to challenge the legality of their detention. This is therefore a key issue sitting at the intersection of human rights, drug policy and medical ethics. The article explores arbitrary detention and involuntary committal on medical grounds within international human rights law, as well as the historical-legal evolution of drug ‘treatment’ as the term is understood within international drug control law. It assesses whether drug use or drug dependency constitute a reasonable limitation of the right to liberty, and concludes that this type of detention represents a violation of international law.

Highlights

In June 2020, a group of thirteen United Nations agencies—including the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the World Health Organization, the UN© The Author(s) [2021]
When Is Involuntary Detention and Treatment for Drug Use Legal? Under international human rights law, the involuntary detention and compulsory treatment of an individual is a matter of significant debate, and the norms in this area have been evolving rapidly since the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2006.73 The first question is whether there are medical grounds to support the use of detention for the purpose of drug treatment
Compulsory drug detention is an issue that engages multiple areas of human rights law—including the right to liberty, the right to health, the right to consent to treatment and the prohibition of inhuman and degrading treatment—as well as obligations in international drug control law to suppress use of illicit drugs and provide treatment to people who are drug users

Summary

INTRODUCTION

In June 2020, a group of thirteen United Nations agencies—including the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the World Health Organization, the UN. At the foundation of this divergence lie important discussions around paternalism, colonialism and medical power for social control, which fall outside of the scope of this paper.[20] this article highlights the significance of this fragmentation as it reflects an expansion of the normative space within which to consider the legitimacy of detention It builds upon the most recent work of United Nations human rights mechanisms on the specific question of detention based on mental health grounds and offers an original analysis of this work in the context of detention for the purposes of drug treatment. Any reasons provided by the State must be credible and based on evidence in order to be ‘regarded as free from arbitrariness’.66

DOES DRUG USE CONSTITUTE A REASONABLE LIMITATION ON THE RIGHT TO LIBERTY?

Is Drug Use or Drug Dependency Governed by Different Standards of Consent?

CONCLUSION