INTERNATIONAL NARCOTICS CONTROL BOARD CONCLUDES SIXTY-FOURTH SESSION, VIENNA, 18-29 MAY
Press Release
SOC/NAR/782
INTERNATIONAL NARCOTICS CONTROL BOARD CONCLUDES SIXTY-FOURTH SESSION, VIENNA, 18-29 MAY
19980529 Agrees to Focus 1998 Annual Report on Assessing Past, Present and Future of International Drug Regulatory Control(Reissued as received.)
VIENNA, 29 May (UN Information Service) -- Assessing the history, the achievements and the future challenges of the international drug control regulatory system will be the key topic of the 1998 annual report of the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) according to an agreement reached by the Board members at their sixty-fourth session which concluded its work here today.
Apart from agreeing on the structure of their annual report and the main issues to be covered by the opening chapter, the Board also reviewed the world drug situation. Established in 1968 as an independent and quasi-judicial organ of the United Nations, the 13-member INCB is mandated to monitor the compliance of governments with the following three main drug control treaties: the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances and the 1988 United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances.
The Board endeavours to ensure that adequate supplies of drugs are available for medical and scientific uses and that leakages from licit sources to illicit traffic do not occur. At the same time, it seeks to identify weaknesses in national and international control of drugs. As part of its task, it prepares an annual report on the worldwide drug situation.
During the current two-week session the Board took a detailed and confidential look at how governments had been living up to their obligations under those three treaties. The Board also decided to take strong action against those governments that have been identified as consistently not honouring those obligations.
The Board also made confidential country-level drug control situation assessments as it reviewed the missions it conducted since its last session in November 1997. Those missions included visits to: Belize, Côte d'Ivoire, Gabon, Israel and the Palestinian Autonomous Areas, Myanmar, Russian Federation, Suriname, Thailand and the United Kingdom.
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The two-week closed session, as the last major international drug-control related event prior to the upcoming special session of the General Assembly on the world drug problem, to be held from 8 to 10 June, also served as a venue for the Board to finalize all the preparations for that event.
At the opening meeting of the session, the Board re-elected Dr. Hamid Ghodse, of Iran, as its President. Also elected were Dil Jan Khan, of Pakistan, First Vice-President; Dr. Alfredo Pemjean, of Chile, Second Vice-President and Chairman of the Standing Committee on Estimates; Mohamed Mansour, of Egypt, Chairman of the Committee on Finance and Administration; and Oskar Schroeder, of Germany, as Rapporteur.
Membership
Members of the INCB, elected by the Economic and Social Council, are: Edouard Babayan, of the Russian Federation; C. Chakrabarty, of India; Dr. Nelia P. Cortes-Maramba, of the Philippines; Jacques Franquet, of France; Dr. Ghodse, of Iran; Mr. Khan, of Pakistan; G. Lourenco Martins, of Portugal; Mr. Mansour, of Egypt; Herbert S. Okun, of the United States; Dr. Pemjean of Chile; Mr. Schroeder, of Germany; and Elba Torres Graterol, of Venezuela. The thirteenth seat is currently vacant.
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