Benjamin has worked in harm reduction and drug policy reform across 2 continents for close to 20 years. He is the Co-founder and Deputy Director of the International Drug Law Advocacy & Resource Center (IDLARC) and serves on the Executive of the New York NGO Committee on Drugs (NYNGOC).

Background: Over the last few years there have been several major breakthroughs for harm reduction at the United Nations through a series of non-binding resolutions and declarations. And while these advances should be celebrated, and the civil society actors that were instrumental in achieving these historic wins applauded, the elephant in the room remains. The only legally binding international law on drugs is still centered around enforcement and prohibition-based “war on drugs” provisions.

Methods: Drawing on these recent harm reduction wins and historical precedents from a range of diverse social justice movements, we will critically examine options for codifying and expanding on these ‘soft law’ wins into legally binding ‘hard law’.

Results: Harm reduction and human rights-based provisions contained in pre-existing but non-binding UN resolutions and declarations could be the foundation for codifying into legally binding international law via the implementation of a supplementary treaty, thereby opening the door for more expansive reform. It will be argued that a supplementary treaty is an achievable plan to address the deficiencies of the international drug control regime, and modernize and update it by incorporating many of the recent harm reduction wins already agreed upon by UN member states while building on these provisions with the end goal of achieving a global drug treaty system robustly centered on public health and human rights.

Conclusion: Adoption of a new international drug law treaty to codify harm reduction into international law could be possible utilizing the recent historic wins in ‘soft law’. Moreover a supplementary treaty building on these provisions may be necessary for countries to remain committed to harm reduction and human rights-based approaches to drugs