Towards shared responsibility? The United States, Latin America and the drug trade

In 1998, the member states of the United Nations committed to the objective of achieving by 2008 “significant and measurable results in the field of demand reduction” and to make “real progress in eliminating or reducing significantly crops of opium poppy, coca and cannabis”. One of the central principles underpinning those joint efforts and the commitment of the international community was shared responsibility, the moral obligation that countries with high levels of drug consumption (consumer countries) should assist countries with high levels of drug production (the traditional supplier or producer countries)

Addressing the elephant in the room: filling the policy vacuum of the international counter-narcotics strategy in Afghanistan

This year’s Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND), the United Nations central policy-making body on drug related matters, dedicated a special round-table session to the principle of common or shared responsibility. It tries to revitalise the principle that basically refers to the joint responsibility of producer, transit and consumer countries to tackle the drug problem. While this classification is no longer clear-cut , Afghanistan could still be regarded as a case where the traditional understanding of the concept applies. While there are also more and more drug addicts in the country, it remains the principle supplier country of more than 90 percent of the world’s opium and heroin

The death of Osama bin Laden and what it means for the Afghan people

The death of Osama bin Laden might be a big blow for the Al Qaeda network and its ideological affiliates around the world, but for ordinary Afghans it may convey a rather different message. His death may symbolically put an end to an era of international military presence in the country that was sparked by the 9/11 attacks in 2001. In lectures I give on Afghanistan I sometimes show a slide with photos of the 19 hijackers of the 9/11 planes and ask students how many of those actually were Afghan. Although some students know the answer, there are many that cannot believe that there were zero Afghans involved in the direct planning and carrying out of these terrorist attacks. Nevertheless, these non-Afghans provided the casus belli that toppled the Taliban regime and subsequently caused a decade of death and suffering for the Afghan people