On this edition of Century of Lies: Human Rights Violations in the Drug War.
The global drug war has become a pretext for systematic human rights violations and state violence, including extrajudicial executions, torture, arbitrary detention, and crimes against humanity. The NGO No Peace Without Justice held a panel discussion recently entitled “Accountability for Human Rights Violations committed in the name of the ‘War on Drugs’,” as a side event at the Sixtieth Session of the UN’s Human Rights Council. The event examined accountability mechanisms by linking the ongoing ICC prosecution of former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte with recent U.S. military strikes on ostensibly civilian vessels in the Caribbean, and explored how international law can protect both direct victims and the populations in whose name such violence occurs.
We hear portions of that discussion including remarks by Niccolò Figà Talamanca, Secretary-General of No Peace Without Justice; Gilbert Andres, lawyer for victims of Duterte's war on drugs and Executive Director of the Center for International Law; and Dave Borden, Executive Director of StopTheDrugWar.org and DRCNet Foundation.
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