Drug Control and International Law

The book provides for an extensive legal analysis of the international drug control system in the light of growing challenges and criticism that this system faces. It provides an in-depth and positivist insight into drug control's present legal framework.

Daniel Wisehart is an associate at Wach + Meckes LLP, Munich. He has previously worked as a researcher at the Universität Potsdam and the Universität Freiburg and clerked for the European Court of Human Rights.

Acknowledgments List of abbreviations 1 Introduction 1.1 International drug control after UNGASS 2016: more of the same or towards a fundamental turning point? 1.2 Objectives and methodology of this book 2 The sources and actors of the international drug control system 2.1 The primary sources of the international drug control system 2.2 The institutions of the international drug control system and a typology of their secondary instruments 2.3 Conclusion 3 The emergence of the international drug control system 3.1 Towards one coherent obligation to confine drugs to medical and scientific purposes 3.2 A constant expansion of the international drug control system 3.3 The international drug control system as a prime example of the law of cooperation 3.4 Conclusion 4 The objective of the international drug control system: limitation of drugs to medical and scientific purposes 4.1 The need to understand the limitation of drugs to medical and scientific purposes 4.2 The meaning of the limitation of all drug-related activities to medical and scientific purposes 4.3 Exceptions to the limitation of drugs to medical and scientific purposes within the international drug control system 4.4 Options to deviate from the limitation of drugs to medical and scientific purposes in the international drug control system 4.5 Does international human rights law conflict with the limitation of drugs to medical and scientific purposes? 4.6 Conclusion 5 The material scope of the international drug control system 5.1 Substances limited to medical and scientific purposes 5.2 Modification of the scope of application of the international drug control system (scheduling) 5.3 Prospects for exempting cannabis and the coca leaf from drug control's scope of application 5.4 The challenge of regulating uncertainty: the rise of new psychoactive substances and the international drug control system 5.5 Conclusion 6 Challenges to the implementation of the international drug control system 6.1 Control of the licit supply chain: achieving a balance between limiting and ensuring an adequate availability of drug supply? 6.2 Suppression of illicit supply: the UN Drug Conventions as a punitive and sanction-oriented system of control? 6.3 Demand-reduction obligations providing for a human- and health-oriented treatment of drug users? 6.4 Fairness and the premise of the international drug control system to limit drugs to medical and scientific purposes by relying on a control of drug supply 6.5 Conclusion 7 Concluding remarks and outlook Bibliography Index