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Indigenous People in International Law and in Context with the International Drug Conventions

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Indigenous People in International Law and in Context with the International Drug Conventions DIPLOMARBEIT Titel der Diplomarbeit „The Coca-leaf: Miracle Good or Social Menace?“ Cultural and identity rights of Andean Indigenous People in International Law and in context with the international drug conventions Band 1 von 5 Bänden Verfasserin Angela Heitzeneder angestrebter akademischer Grad Magistra (Mag.) Wien, 2010 Studienkennzahl lt. Studienblatt: A 057 390 Studienrichtung lt. Studienblatt: Internationale Entwicklung Betreuer: ao. Univ.- Prof. Dr. iur. René Kuppe Acknowledgements In the academic field I would like to express my thanks to ao.Univ.-Prof. Dr. iur. René Kuppe for his supportive thesis supervision, his insightful suggestions and advice and his unrelenting expert support of my research. Furthermore, my thanks go to the staff members from the Latin American and the Caribbean Unit (LACU), Division for Operations (DO), United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) for their continuous support, which enabled me to get access to various very important sources and provided this thesis with paramount information. I would also like to thank Pien Metaal, from the Transnational Institute (TNI) in Amsterdam, Coletta A. Youngers, from the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), Thomas Pietschmann from UNODC and Robert Lessmann, for their time and cooperation. The expert interviews with them have been one of the core elements for my research and data collection and gave me practical insight, broadened my horizon and provided the thesis with the day-to-day expert experience, which is highly relevant especially for my topic. Additionally, I would like to pronounce special thanks also to the Vice Ministry of Social Defence and Controlled Substances in Bolivia, for supplying me with fundamental data I would have not been able to access without their cooperation. In the personal realm I would like to thank my parents, Martina and Josef Heitzeneder for their great support, without which neither my studies nor my thesis would have been possible; and all my relatives and friends, in particular Elisabeth Keimelmayr and Charles O. Uboh, who gave special encouragement and continuous advice to this work. 1 Abstract I came up with the topic for my thesis during my Internship at the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in Vienna, as I became aware of the challenges Indigenous People face every day in claiming their human rights in their respective countries, concerning their tradition and culture, especially when it comes to cultural, religious and traditional elements, like the coca-leaf, which are alien to the industrialized western world. I will discuss the ongoing efforts of Groups and Associations of Indigenous People to erase the coca leaf from the list of prohibited substances in the Report of the Commission of Enquiry on the Coca Leaf in 1950, claiming their right of traditional use of the “hoja de coca” for religious and cultural habits, as an essential economic good, paramount for their economic survival and minimum standard of living. They thus claim to be violated in their specific human rights through the international oppression of the coca leaf. As a basis for discussion, the relevant International Treaties and Conventions on Narcotic Drugs1 on the one hand, and on the Rights of Indigenous People2, on the other hand, will be analyzed and related to each other. Discrepancies and inconsistencies with regard to the oppression of the coca-leaf and the claimed guarantee of human rights and liberties will be revealed and put into the context of the topic. I further more intend to give a thorough description of the history of the coca-leaf in indigenous societies, of its traditional ways of use and its meaning to the Andean world view. Additionally, I will intend to analyze its positive and negative effects on the human body, relying on scientific as well as genuinely indigenous information on the leaf. A paramount goal is, to strongly distinguish the coca-leaf from its derivate “cocaine”, for which the leaf itself has been depreciated and fought against now for decades. In my thesis, I will try to study the possible economic capacity underlying a decriminalisation of the coca-leaf and its legal derivates (i.e. mate de coca, coca tea), which would open the international markets to this special agrarian Andean product and thus give the Indigenous and campesino communities a new opportunity of self-development for themselves and consequently for their region and their countries. 1 The Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs 1961, The Convention on Psychotropic Substances 1971 and the United Nations Convention against the Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances, 1988 and other regional Conventions and Treaties. 2 The United Nations Covenant on Social, Economic and Cultural Rights, The Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007) and the ILO Convention 167, as well as regional Treaties. 2 The two Andean countries Bolivia and Peru are among the major coca leaf producers in the world and have a highly dense population on Indigenous People. Recently, there have been important changes in the political order and perception of the coca leaf and Traditional Rights of Indigenous People in Bolivia (with Evo Morales representing a popular figure in the fight for appropriate legal recognition of the traditional use of the coca plant in the Andean society). The aim of my thesis will be to show, that serious human rights violations on Indigenous People have been committed throughout or in the name of the War on Drugs and that the rights of the Indigenous People, mainly their economic and cultural rights, are still being violated in a variety of elements, relating to their traditional use of the coca leaf, their way of subsistence economy, as well as in the context of such basic rights like the right to food and adequate standard of living. 3 Table of Contents 1.Introduction………………………………………………………………………………....11 2. Methodology ........................................................................................................................ 15 2.1. Methods for Gathering Data.......................................................................................... 15 2.1.1. Critical Literature Research.................................................................................... 16 2.1.2. In depth Expert Interviews ..................................................................................... 17 LA HOJA DE COCA............................................................................................................... 21 3. The history of a divine plant and its relevance in Andean indigenous communities........... 21 3.1. Botanical definition of coca: ......................................................................................... 21 3.2. Genesis of Mama Coca.................................................................................................. 22 3.2.1. Mythology and origin:............................................................................................ 22 3.2.2. Coca in the Colonial Period ................................................................................... 26 3.2.3. The discovery of Cocaine – A brief historiography............................................... 30 3.3. Forms of Traditional Coca Use ..................................................................................... 34 3.3.1. Social aspects of coca............................................................................................. 37 3.3.2. Coca chewing ......................................................................................................... 39 3.3.3. Coca in traditional healing rituals and ceremonies ................................................ 43 3.4. Nutritional and therapeutic properties of the coca leaf ................................................. 45 3.5. Studies on the Nutritional Value of the Coca Leaf ....................................................... 49 PART II.................................................................................................................................... 54 THE INTERNATIONAL LEGAL CONTEXT....................................................................... 54 “Drug Legislation” ................................................................................................................... 54 4. International Law on coca and its derivates ......................................................................... 54 4.1. The UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs............................................................. 59 4.2. The UN Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances ............................................................................................................................ 70 4.3. Official requests from the Bolivian government concerning the conventions.............. 79 4.4. On the possibility of reforming the UN drug control system – lack of flexibility? ...... 82 “Indigenous People”................................................................................................................. 88 5. The rights of Indigenous People in International Law under special focus of the human rights dimension ....................................................................................................................... 88 5.1. Preliminary considerations on the UN Human Rights System and its principles......... 89 5.2. Brief historiography: Indigenous People becoming subjects of International Law .....
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