Since the 1980s, there has been a major push in rhetoric and institution-building, emphasizing the centrality of attacking the financial lifeblood of drug trafficking networks and organised economic crimes. Much progress has been made in legislation and the creation of financial intelligence units. However, there are volumes of commentary and legal analysis, but almost nowhere in the world is there any systematic analysis of law enforcement or criminal justice inputs or outputs, let alone of outcomes in terms of reduced crimes of any kind or reduced harms arising from the ‘organised’ nature of crime.
Since the 1980s, there has been a major push in rhetoric and institution-building, emphasizing the centrality of attacking the financial lifeblood of drug trafficking networks and organised economic crimes. Much progress has been made in legislation and the creation of financial intelligence units. However, there are volumes of commentary and legal analysis, but almost nowhere in the world is there any systematic analysis of law enforcement or criminal justice inputs or outputs, let alone of outcomes in terms of reduced crimes of any kind or reduced harms arising from the ‘organised’ nature of crime.
On 11 July 2013, the New Zealand Parliament passed the Psychoactive Substances Act. The legislation enacted a new legal framework for the testing, manufacture, sale, and regulation of psychoactive products with the responsibility on manufacturers to prove a product 'low risk before it could be sold.' The expectation is that the adoption of new modern drug policies will ensure that the drugs people do take are safe, and that help can be accessed easily for those who need it. If the New Zealand approach is successful, other countries might follow lead, or even improve on what has been have done so far.
TNI’s Drugs and Democracy programme has been working since 1995 to push for evidence-based reform of drug policy. working simultaneously at national levels and in relation to the global legal framework, TNI starts by looking at the human rights of all actors in the illegal drugs market, and advocates an approach based on harm reduction.
For years TNI has focused on ‘investment protection’ regimes that give corporations the right to sue states for actions that hit their profits, even where the measures are taken to defend public interests in poor countries
On 26 June 2013, TNI and Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) hosted a public debate in Brussels about economic governance in Europe with the title Competitiveness vs. democracy?
Transnational corporations have an unbalanced influence on global and domestic politics, and are dangerous to democracy. Ignore them at your own peril.
The U.S. Justice Department’s new guidance on federal marijuana enforcement priorities clears the way for Colorado and Washington state to pursue the legalized, regulatory approaches to marijuana that voters approved by wide margins in November 2012 ballot initiatives. This is a welcome step that provides an enormous opportunity for learning about how to improve our drug policies, according to the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA).
The US, Saudis and Qatar who seek to take sides in fuelling sectarianism and violence in the Middle East, should remember how a similar discourse of preventative war and promotion of sectarian forces in Europe led to World War I.
One of the world's leading political thinkers and human rights activists, Susan George, will speak out against the growing influence of "illegitimate corporate power" in a keynote address at the University of Sydney this Thursday 29 August.
The Colombian government believes people should just say no to growing coca: those that do not, risk aerial spraying of their illicit crop with powerful pesticides, or manual destruction by work teams hired by private firms and supported by the security forces.
Does anyone really believe that a military strike on an alleged chemical weapons factory would help the Syrian people, would save any lives, would help bring an end to this horrific civil war?
The threat of a reckless, dangerous, and illegal US or US-led assault on Syria is looking closer than ever. However any attack will not protect civilians—it will mean taking sides once again in a bloody, complicated civil war.
On the 3-4th of September in St. Petersburg a counter-summit, a large-scale international event that aims to be an alternative to the September G20 Summit and to develop new principles of economic and social policy that are not based on the "Washington Consensus" will be held.
L'écologiste, dans son numéro estival, propose un dossier sur l'agriculture biologique et montre qu'il est possible de manger bio, avec une agriculture qui fasse vivre les paysans.
