Distinguishing organized crime from terrorism to protect human rights

The activities of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, Ben Saul, in 2025 are summarized in supplementary information.¹ In addition to his report to the Human Rights Council proposing a model definition of terrorism (A/HRC/61/52), recent reports have addressed artificial intelligence, facial recognition, the global terrorism data deficit, the ninth review of the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy, principles on detainee returns in the Syrian Arab Republic, and trends in communications to Governments from 2010 to 2025.² In preparing the present report, 64 submissions were received³ and four regional consultations were held.

1. See https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/issues/terrorism/sr/reports/srct-report-defining-terrorism-respect-protect-annex1.pdf. ↩
2. See https://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/sr-terrorism/resources. ↩
3. See https://www.ohchr.org/en/calls-for-input/2026/call-inputs-counter-terrorism-law-organized-crime-and-human-rights. ↩

States have long expressed concern about the nexus between (genuinely) terrorist groups and organized crime, including in the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy and the reviews thereof,⁴ Security Council resolutions⁵ and international guidance.⁶ There is also a vast literature.⁷ In 2003, the Security Council listed the leader of one criminal group, the India-based “D-Company”, for association with Al-Qaida.⁸ The present report largely does not consider the nexus between organized crime and genuine terrorism, which has been addressed over many years. It focuses instead on a recent trend in a few States towards legally classifying organized criminal groups, particularly drug cartels and gangs, as “terrorist”. Concerns about conflating organized crime and terrorism, and unnecessarily and disproportionately applying counter-terrorism measures, have been expressed by States, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights,⁹ special procedures mandate holders¹⁰ and in many submissions to the present report.

4. General Assembly resolutions 60/288, para. 6, and 80/286, preamble and para. 65. ↩
5. Security Council resolutions 2195 (2014) and 2482 (2019). ↩
6. S/2020/754; The Hague Good Practices on the Nexus between Transnational Organized Crime and Terrorism (adopted by the Global Counter-Terrorism Forum, in 2018); United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI), The Nexus between Transnational Organized Crime and Terrorism in Latin America (2024). ↩
7. Maria Omelicheva and Lawrence Markowitz, “Rethinking intersections of crime and terrorism: insights from political economies of violence”, International Studies Review, vol. 23, No. 4 (December 2021). ↩
8. See https://main.un.org/securitycouncil/en/sanctions/1267/aq_sanctions_list/summaries/ individual/dawood-ibrahim-kaskar. ↩
9. A/80/380, para. 31. ↩
10. See communications USA 14/2025, USA 25/2025, USA 30/2025, ECU 2/2026, GTM 5/2026, ARG 5/2026 and HND 2/2026. All communications mentioned in the present report are available from https://spcommreports.ohchr.org/Tmsearch/TMDocuments. See also https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/issues/health/2026-06-26-sr-health-stm-drug-abuse.pdf. ↩

At least nine States have legally designated certain organized criminal groups as terrorist organizations;¹¹ parliaments in two States have politically declared such groups as terrorist;¹² and there are proposals in two States to so designate groups.¹³ Most binding measures have been adopted by States in the Americas, focused on 37 drug crime-related cartels and gangs (see the supplementary information).¹⁴ A few other groups listed in the Americas, such as two Haitian gangs and an India-based gang, are mainly engaged in other crimes. El Salvador was among the earliest States to list groups, in 2015, followed by Ecuador in 2024, while most listings have occurred since 2025 subsequent to designations by the United States of America.

11. Argentina, Canada, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nigeria, Paraguay, the United States of America. ↩
12. Costa Rica, Peru. ↩
13. Honduras since 2024 and Brazil since 2025. ↩
14. See https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/thematic-reports/a81227-distinguishing-organized-crime-terrorism-protect-human-rights. ↩

There are few examples of designations outside the Americas. In 2021, the Federal High Court of Nigeria declared as “acts of terrorism” the activities of Yan Bindiga, Yan Ta’adda and similar bandit groups,¹⁵ given the scale and severity of the violence and the threat to national security and public order. The Government then proscribed them¹⁶ and in in 2025 reiterated its intention to pursue a militarized approach against such terrorism.¹⁷

15. Suit No. FHC/ABJ/CS/1370/2021, 25 November 2021. ↩
16. Terrorism (Prevention) Proscription Order Notice, 2021. ↩
17. See https://pmnewsnigeria.com/2025/12/22/fg-officially-declares-kidnappers-bandits-armed-groups-as-terrorists/. See also submission from Spaces for Change. ↩

Pakistan has used counter-terrorism laws and powers, as well as an Anti-Terrorism Court, to prosecute offences of criminal syndicates or groups (including the People’s Aman Committee and Lyari gang factions in Karachi), such as targeted killings, kidnapping for ransom, extortion (bhatta) and armed gang violence. The Anti-Terrorism (Amendment) Act, 2025 enables preventive detention not only for suspected terrorism but also for suspected kidnapping, extortion and targeted killing.¹⁸ Counter-terrorism detention orders have also reportedly been misused in drug cases in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

18. See communication PAK 12/2025. ↩

The contemporary reclassification of organized crime in the Americas is a new manifestation of the trend, since the early 1980s, of securitizing drug control, including through states of emergency, military deployments and foreign intervention, newly coupled with a more expansive approach to the use of force to counter terrorism since 11 September 2001. United States-led securitization has had a strong transnational aspect since the Reagan administration, including cooperative initiatives such as Plan Colombia from 1999 and the Mérida Initiative in Mexico from 2008. There have also been unlawful uses of force, interventions and violations of sovereignty, such as the invasion of Panama in 1989¹⁹ and the transboundary abduction of the President of Panama to face drug charges; the abduction of a Mexican doctor in 1990, also on drug offences;²⁰ and allegations of covert action.

19. See General Assembly resolution 44/240. ↩
20. United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, United States v. Alvarez-Machain, 504 655 (1992). ↩

The political label “narco-terrorism” emerged in Peru in 1983 to describe terrorist-type tactics against the State by drug trafficking groups with links to Shining Path. It was subsequently used in relation to the Medellín cartel in Colombia and the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) in the 1980s and 1990s, and to cartels in Mexico from the early 2000s, increasingly also to describe violence against the public. The term aimed to delegitimize groups and justify exceptional responses. Past cycles of securitization did not, however, tend to legally frame organized crime as “terrorism”, which adds new tools and brings human rights risks beyond even the abuses of the “war on drugs”.

The recent trend towards reclassifying organized crime as terrorism has been driven by legitimate concerns that drug- and gang-related violence seriously threaten life and health, prosperity and development, and State authority and national security, in some cases even exceeding the impacts of terrorism. Globally, the supply of illicit drugs is at record highs, enhancing the profitability and capacities of criminal groups and resulting in serious crimes and harms to public health. In the United States, there were almost 68,000 deaths from drug overdoses in 2025.²¹ The Government of the United States has pressured States in the Americas to align with its “narco-terrorism” narrative, including threats of illegal tariffs and unlawful military intervention.

21. See https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/drug-overdose-data.htm. ↩

Further, terrorist designations appeal because they trigger additional legal powers and tools, beyond ordinary criminal and organized crime laws. The international imperative to counter terrorism pressures other States to cooperate. Politically, terrorist labelling prioritizes the threat across Government, has greater stigmatizing and deterrent effects, and responds to a popular desire for public safety. The next section demonstrates that, despite the severity of some violence, it is generally inappropriate to reclassify organized crime as terrorism.

While serious violence is a core feature of terrorism, it is not inherent in organized crime, most of which can be committed without violence. Some criminal groups have, however, engaged in extreme violence. Organized crime caused almost as many deaths as armed conflict from 2015 to 2021 – with about 100,000 victims annually for each category – and many more than terrorism.²² Latin America and the Caribbean has 8 per cent of world population but has experienced a third of the world’s annual homicides, most of which are linked to organized crime.²³ In Mexico, the majority of the 463,000 homicides from 2006 to 2025²⁴ and of the roughly 130,000 disappearances since 2006 were linked to drug cartels and gangs. Criminal groups have resorted to terror tactics such as killings, executions, beheadings, massacres and attacks; torture and mutilation; the desecration of bodies; kidnapping, illegal detention and enforced disappearance; human trafficking and forced recruitment; and sexual and gender-based violence. Military weaponry and tactics, including explosives and drones, have been used. Large-scale displacement of people has occurred, as in Haiti, with over 1.4 million people displaced and 5.7 million people facing food insecurity in 2025/2026.²⁵

22. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Global Study on Homicide 2023 (2023), pp. 19 and 20. ↩
23. International Monetary Fund (IMF), Violent Crime and Insecurity in Latin America and the Caribbean: A Macroeconomic Perspective (2024). ↩
24. See https://data.unodc.org/countryprofile; see also https://www.cfr.org/backgrounders/mexicos-long-war-drugs-crime-and-cartels. ↩
25. A/HRC/61/74. ↩

The scale of violence is not, however, a sufficient indicator of terrorism, just as other forms of violence are not necessarily terrorism, whether genocide or crimes against humanity, armed conflicts, public emergencies or mass shootings. Most States have not treated organized crime as terrorism. Italy typifies the mainstream, with heavy mafia violence, including attacks on State institutions, combated through organized crime laws. The question is whether organized criminal violence can nonetheless sometimes satisfy other essential definitional elements of terrorism.

Many definitions of terrorism require that a perpetrator intend their act to provoke terror in (or intimidate) the public or a part of it, or compel a Government to do or to refrain from doing something.²⁶ Criminal groups who use violence (for instance, internally or against competitors) often do so clandestinely to avoid detection, and thus avoid performative or anti-Government violence or claiming attacks, to ensure their profits continue.²⁷ Nonetheless, some groups have used heavy violence to terrorize or intimidate the population, or coerce a Government. In the Americas, some drug cartel and gang violence has had a wider communicative purpose beyond the immediate victims, such as to intimidate or extort criminal competitors, businesses, State officials, law enforcement authorities (including prosecutors and judges), informants, journalists or activists and populations in areas where a group exerts control (including at checkpoints). The instrumental purpose of violence may be evident in the pattern of attacks, its extreme nature (such as torture, executions or the targeting of family members), or its public character (such as through indiscriminate attacks on public places, public executions or the filming of executions, and the public display and mutilation of bodies). Sexual and gender-based violence has also been used to spread fear, subjugate and punish populations, as in Haiti.²⁸

26. General Assembly resolution 49/60, annex, para. 3; International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism (adopted in 1999); Security Council resolution 1566 (2004); A/HRC/61/52. ↩
27. Bettina Weisser, “Transnational organized crime and terrorism” in International Law and Transnational Organized Crime, Pierre Hauck and Sven Peterke, eds., (2016). ↩
28. A/HRC/61/74. ↩

Criminal groups can also seek to violently coerce a Government. Attacks on politicians and officials may aim to deter others from suppressing organized crime; obtain the release of prisoners; interfere in elections or the appointment of officials; change policies or laws; extort officials; or induce corruption. Gangs in Africa, Asia and the Americas have also used violence to influence elections.²⁹

29. See https://acleddata.com/methodology/gang-violence. ↩

Accordingly, if the definition of terrorism is limited to serious violence intended to intimidate a population or compel a Government, the activities of some criminal groups could legally qualify as “terrorism”. Indeed, intense criminal violence could be more dangerous than sporadic terrorism. However, organized crime normally lacks an additional element that is essential to terrorism: a political or ideological purpose, as the next section explains.

Treating organized crime as terrorism is generally inconsistent with international best practice standards, which differentiate profit-motivated organized crime from terrorism. The United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (Organized Crime Convention), adopted in 2000, has 194 States Parties. Article 2 (a) of the Convention defines an organized criminal group as a group “acting … with the aim of committing one or more serious crimes … in order to obtain … a financial or other material benefit”. States intended this profit-motive to exclude terrorism,³⁰ including groups with “non-material” goals such as “political or social motives”.³¹ Proposals to list “terrorist acts” as instances of organized crime were rejected. The General Assembly, in paragraph 7 of resolution 55/25 through which it adopted the Convention, recommended that the Convention’s provisions be considered in the drafting of the United Nations comprehensive convention on international terrorism, implying that the two crimes should be differentiated.

30. A/AC.254/5, 19 (United States). ↩
31. See the Legislative Guide for the Implementation of the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, available at https://www.unodc.org/documents/treaties/ Legislative_Guide_2017/Legislative_Guide_E.pdf, p. 10. ↩

Nonetheless, as discussions of the crime-terror nexus illustrate, a political or ideological terrorist group may concurrently qualify as an organized criminal group under the Organized Crime Convention (which does not require an exclusive profit motive), where it engages in profit-driven crimes, including to fund terrorism. Prosecuting terrorists under organized crime laws can provide specific legal tools and facilitate legal cooperation. It is less obvious, however, that organized crime can or should conversely qualify as terrorism.

Over a quarter century since the Organized Crime Convention was adopted, no binding international instrument has defined terrorism. The most authoritative, consensus-based guidance remains the Declaration on Measures to Eliminate International Terrorism, adopted by the General Assembly in 1994, which describes terrorism as criminal acts for “political purposes”.³² That element has considerable support and is at the core of the Special Rapporteur’s model definition of terrorism, presented in 2026.³³ It differentiates terrorism from private violence, including organized crime, fairly labels terrorism so as to ensure proportionate legal responses and optimizes respect for legality and human rights. Taking this approach, an organized criminal group that is foremost motivated by profit – even if, to that end, its violence intimidates a population or compels a Government – will not qualify as terrorist. Most criminal groups fall within this category.

32. General Assembly resolution 49/60, annex, para. 3. ↩
33. A/HRC/61/52. ↩

A number of States have sought to justify listing criminal groups as terrorist by highlighting their perceived “political” characteristics. In 2015, the Supreme Court of El Salvador found that certain criminal groups sought to usurp powers that belong to State sovereignty, including territorial control and the monopoly on the use of force, which was evident in their control over movement and businesses, imposing “taxes”, influencing elections and inhibiting the work of law enforcement and officials.³⁴ United States law requires “politically motivated violence” and in designating groups the Government claims that cartels “[i]n certain portions of Mexico … function as quasi-governmental entities, controlling nearly all aspects of society”.³⁵ The definition of terrorism in Canada requires a political, religious or ideological element,³⁶ and in listing eight groups, Canada expressly identifies a political element for only two of them. It asserts that the Cártel de Sinaloa uses violence “to expand its territory and establish political control in its areas of operation”; and that La Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) has “evolved … into a criminal-economic-military-political power”.³⁷

34. Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice of El Salvador, 22-2007/42-2007/89-2007/96-2007, 24 August 2015, 40–42. A 2025 bill in Brazil has similarly focused on imposing “dominance” over areas or communities. ↩
35. See https://2009-2017.state.gov/documents/organization/65464.pdf and https://www.whitehouse.gov/ presidential-actions/2025/01/designating-cartels-and-other-organizations-as-foreign-terrorist-organizations-and-specially-designated-global-terrorists/. ↩
36. Criminal Code of Canada, section 83.01. ↩
37. See https://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/cnt/ntnl-scrt/cntr-trrrsm/lstd-ntts/crrnt-lstd-ntts-en.aspx# 2025-02-20-1. ↩

Certainly, various groups have violently or coercively affected political processes, as described in paragraphs 12, 13 and 18 above. Wider political ecosystems have been undermined by attacks on journalists and civil society actors. Some cartels and gangs have further exercised degrees of coercive “control” over territory and populations, such as through the rudimentary enforcement of “rules” and public order, dispute resolution, regulation of movement and illicit taxation. Basic services and jobs have been provided in some cases. Some groups have even acquired a margin of local legitimacy for such activities, where State institutions are weak.

However, the involvement of criminal groups in activities that affect politics or have political characteristics, or the exercise of quasi-administrative authority, does not mean that such groups should be regarded as thereby pursuing a political purpose under international standards. Cartels and gangs typically undermine political processes, or “control” territory or populations, in order to instrumentally secure their economic activities and profits from State interference or private competition.³⁸ They do not aim to exercise and monopolize public power as governmental authorities.³⁹ Brazil refrained from listing certain groups as terrorist precisely because they lacked political or ideological aims as required by national law.

38. Brian J. Phillips and Alexander Schiele, “Dogs and cats living together? Explaining the crime-terror nexus”, Terrorism and Political Violence, vol. 36, No. 5, pp. 699 and 700. ↩
39. Consider the different meanings of “political”. See, for example, https://www.ohchr.org/sites/ default/files/documents/issues/terrorism/sr/reports/srct-report-defining-terrorism-respect-protect-annex2.pdf, paras. 3 and 4. ↩

The literature on criminal governance demonstrates that cartels and gangs generally do not seek to form alternative governments to supplant State authority (in contrast to “rebel governance”), but seek to shape social, economic and political interactions in communities and territories precisely within the context of State authority – often in collaboration with corrupt elites.⁴⁰ While discussions of the crime-terror nexus suggest that some terrorist and criminal groups can (uncommonly) “transform” over time, transformations from profit-driven groups into genuinely political actors appear to be the rarest; transitions usually happen in the other direction, when political actors become profit-driven, as in the cases of the Abu Sayyaf Group in the Philippines and factions of FARC in Colombia.

40. Lucia Dammert and Carolina Sampó, “What do we know about organized crime in Latin America and the Caribbean?”, United Nations Development Programme Latin America and the Caribbean Working Paper Series No. 46 (2025), pp. 6 and 7. See also submission from Elementa DDHH. ↩

Technically, certain definitions of organized crime and terrorism are not mutually exclusive and address mixed purposes. National terrorism definitions differ in whether a political or ideological purpose must be the sole, predominant, substantial, or merely one of any purposes.⁴¹ Best practice international standards recommend that a political purpose be the dominant or at least the substantial purpose.⁴² Additionally, even if acts by some members of a criminal group have a political purpose and could qualify as terrorism, that does not mean that the whole group should be deemed as having a political purpose and designated as terrorist. Best practice standards on designations recommend that the terrorist (i.e. the political/ ideological) purpose must be the group’s substantial purpose,⁴³ thereby requiring an assessment of the relative importance of profit versus politics. Another possible approach would be to adopt a clause excluding groups that act primarily or predominantly for profit.

41. See https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/issues/terrorism/sr/reports/srct-report-defining-terrorism-respect-protect-annex2.pdf, para. 11. ↩
42. Ibid., see also A/HRC/61/52, para. 68. ↩
43. A/80/284, para. 23. ↩

Separately, some criminal groups have sporadically used violence for religious purposes, alongside profit-oriented aims. Some definitions of terrorism include the option of a religious purpose (which is largely assimilable to an “ideological” purpose).⁴⁴ For example, Haitian gangs reportedly executed people in voodoo “sacrifices” in 2025,⁴⁵ while gangs in the “Israel Complex” of favelas in Rio de Janeiro impose putatively evangelical rule. It is a factual question whether such acts have a genuinely religious or ideological purpose, or simply mask and seek to legitimize violent criminal control for profit. The former “Knights Templar” cartel in Mexico, for instance, misused Christian beliefs and symbolism to justify extreme violence in order to advance criminal activities.

44. A/HRC/61/52. ↩
45. A/HRC/61/74, para. 12. ↩

Terrorism is qualitatively different from organized crime because of its ulterior, instrumental political or ideological goal. Most submissions, including by some States, and much of the scholarship supports such a distinction, while very few States have supported legally conflating organized crime with terrorism. Each type of crime requires customized legal frameworks, to ensure that inappropriate powers and tools are not misapplied and misused when they are not necessary and proportionate responses. As discussed in section E below, criminal violence can be effectively combated by strengthening the legal frameworks and tools for suppressing organized crime and addressing the conditions conducive to it. The following sections first illustrate how a shift to counter-terrorism labelling frequently leads to human rights violations and risks, and further caution against such a shift.

The recent “narco-terrorism” discourse has already been accompanied by serious and escalating violations of international law. Foremost is the illegal use of military force. The supplementary information documents the United States’ militarized response to alleged “narco-terrorism” in the Americas since September 2025. As of July 2026, it has reportedly killed at least 221 individuals in 66 military strikes on vessels on the high seas allegedly trafficking drugs towards the United States.⁴⁶ Such killings amount to serial extrajudicial killings in violation of the right to life. They were not justified in national self-defence, in the absence of any armed attack on the United States; they were not authorized under international humanitarian law, absent any armed conflict; the international law of the sea provided no basis; and there was no evidence of any imminent threat to life justifying personal self-defence or defence of others. The attacks on individuals and vessels at sea may comprise treaty offences against maritime safety. The organized policy of multiple murders may further involve a systematic attack on a civilian population, constituting crimes against humanity. All perpetrators, including military and civilian leaders, must be investigated and held accountable in line with international law. Other States must refrain from aiding or assisting in the commission of these violations, including by refusing to share intelligence or make military assets available.

46. See https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/10/29/us/us-caribbean-pacific-boat-strikes.html. ↩

In addition, the supplementary information analyses the United States’ aggression in January 2026 against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, in part to counter alleged “narco-terrorism” by Venezuelan leaders, which further violated Venezuelan sovereignty, the right to life, the right to liberty and the prohibition on transboundary abduction. A 2026 blockade of unilaterally sanctioned oil tankers constituted further illegal force against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, while the United States has also illegally threatened force against Colombia, Cuba and Mexico to combat “narco-terrorism”. United States military cooperation with Governments in the Americas has raised further concerns, including participation in possibly unlawful military attacks in Ecuador in May 2026 and in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in June 2026, followed by a lack of accountability and remedies. The regional “Shield of the Americas” initiative promotes further militarized responses without explicit attention to human rights, accountability or the conditions conducive to criminal violence, risking further violations across the region.

The designation of criminal groups as terrorist has helped to justify other securitized measures by other States in the Americas in violation of international law. In 2024, Ecuador declared a non-international armed conflict against 22 organized crime groups designated as “terrorist organisations”,⁴⁷ with “shoot to kill” powers, which is not consistent with international humanitarian law in the absence of any armed conflict, and threatens the right to life.⁴⁸ Further, the successive extensions and normalization of states of exception in Ecuador since 2024 have involved excessive authority to use military force and allegations of extrajudicial killings, torture, mass arbitrary detention in inhumane conditions, and unjustified restrictions on civil and political rights, with disproportionate impacts on vulnerable groups.⁴⁹ New criminal, intelligence and security laws have raised further concerns.⁵⁰ Decree No. 424 (2026) widens authority in Ecuador to “neutralize” threats to security, while enabling impunity through pardons for the military, police and associated civilians, and potentially through unspecified military arrangements and immunities concerning other States, in violation of the duty to ensure accountability and effective remedies for violations. Accountability mechanisms and civil society organizations have also been systematically undermined.

47. Executive Decree No. 111 (2024). ↩
48. See communications ECU 2/2026, ECU 4/2026. ↩
49. See communications ECU 7/2025, ECU 8/2025, ECU 2/2026 and ECU 4/2026; see also CCPR/C/ECU/CO/7, and CAT/C/ECU/CO/8, para. 12. See also Alianza por los Derechos Humanos Ecuador, “Report: statement on the current situation regarding human rights, collectives and nature: Ecuador, 2024–2026” (2026). ↩
50. See communication ECU 2/2026. ↩

Concerns have been raised at the unjustified repeated extensions of a state of exception in El Salvador since 2022, as well as amendments to laws on terrorism, organized crime, detention and criminal procedure.⁵¹ These measures have resulted in at least 7,000 documented violations, including the excessive use of force, arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, torture and ill-treatment, prison overcrowding in inhumane conditions, the deaths of over 500 people in custody, illegal searches, violations of due process and judicial protection, infringements of civil and political rights, and attacks on human rights defenders, journalists and civil society. Securitized responses have also eroded juvenile justice and child rights. Alleged violations have rarely been investigated.

51. Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, “Report: State of Emergency and Human Rights in El Salvador” (2024); see also communications SLV 1/2024, SLV 2/2023, SLV 4/2022, SLV 2/2022. See also submission from Amnesty International, Cristosal and Rights and Security International. ↩

A law adopted in Guatemala in 2025 that designates maras (gangs) as “transnational organized criminal and terrorist groups” has raised concerns about legality, due process in terrorist listings and detention conditions.⁵² The related state of exception in Guatemala has further infringed human rights, including a draconian “state of siege” in response to terrorism, sedition or rebellion.⁵³ In Honduras, a 2026 amendment to the definition of “terrorist association” in article 587 of the Penal Code aimed to enable maras and pandillas to be treated as terrorist.⁵⁴ The decree also reaffirmed the Military Police of Public Order’s role in civilian policing. The reforms augmented the continuous unjustified state of exception until early 2026 in response to organized crime since 2022, which has suspended rights and expanded police and military powers. Alleged violations have included unlawful killings and deaths in custody, enforced disappearances, arbitrary detention, torture and ill-treatment, arbitrary searches, and violations of privacy and of the freedoms of movement, peaceful assembly and association, and of due process.⁵⁵

52. Decree No. 11-2025; see also communication GTM 5/2026. ↩
53. See communication GTM 2/2022. ↩
54. Decree No. 84-2026; see also communication HND 2/2026. ↩
55. A/HRC/58/23; A/HRC/61/19. ↩

While Brazil has not yet designated criminal groups as terrorist, local authorities in Rio de Janeiro have labelled drug traffickers as “narco-terrorists”. Violations during a police “mega-operation” against the Comando Vermelho in Rio de Janeiro in October 2025 involved at least 132 deaths and possible extrajudicial executions, and reflected a pattern of police violence.⁵⁶ The rhetoric of “narco-terrorism” also emerged in Argentina after murders in Rosario in March 2024, with a proposal to deploy the military.⁵⁷ A 2025 law in Argentina, authorizing exceptional criminal investigative powers and increasing penalties, was justified as a response to narco-terrorism.⁵⁸ In Colombia, the 2026 President-elect has pledged to capture or kill 10 drug leaders within 90 days, kill criminals “like rats and cockroaches”, build mega-prisons, legalize civilian gun ownership, end negotiations with armed groups in favour of a militarized response and withdraw from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the United Nations.

56. See https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-10-29/death-toll-from-rio-de-janeiro-police-operation-rises-to-more-than-120.html. ↩
57. Submission from Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales, Asociación Civil. ↩
58. Ibid. See also Law 27,786 on Criminal Organizations. ↩

Suppressing violent organized crime requires States to effectively protect human rights, including the rights to life, security of person, liberty and health, socioeconomic rights and the right to development. There is a legitimate role for necessary and proportionate exceptional measures, including temporary and accountable emergency powers, military assistance to civilian policing and military operations in rare cases where a group is engaged in armed conflict under international humanitarian law, as long as such measures are combined with a balanced strategy involving criminal justice and measures to address the conditions conducive to organized crime and violence. International security operations may also be exceptionally justified, such as the Gang Suppression Force in Haiti.⁵⁹

59. See Security Council resolution 2793 (2025). ↩

Nonetheless, decades of overly securitized responses in Latin America – “war on drugs” alongside counter-insurgency against “internal enemies” – have often proven ineffective in suppressing violence, crime and the trafficking of drugs, and have tended to exacerbate these harms.⁶⁰ They have also involved serious human rights violations, particularly against low-level suspects from marginalized groups, creating grievances that have alienated communities from cooperating with authorities. Militarization can fuel arms races that make criminal groups more violent. Kingpin strategies have fragmented cartels into competing and often more violent groups. By heightening the risks to cartels, militarization can raise the price of drugs and increase cartel profits, capabilities and corruption. Militaries tend not to be trained for policing, including the graduated use of force, and are often subject to weaker oversight. Militarization can also create vested political and economic interests, in turn stimulating corruption and threatening democratic civilian control and civil society.⁶¹ It diverts resources away from criminal justice and from addressing the conditions conducive to crime, including socioeconomic marginalization and weak governance. Cross-border uses of force can jeopardize international security and constructive inter-State legal cooperation.

60. Richard Vogler and Shahrzad Fouladvand, “The Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances 1988 and the Global War on Drugs”, in International Law and Transnational Organized Crime, Pierre Hauck and Sven Peterke, eds. (2016), p. 107. ↩
61. Submissions from Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales, Asociación Civil and Elementa DDHH. ↩

Some militarized strategies, such as Plan Colombia from 2000 to 2015, had mixed results, temporarily disrupting cocaine networks but having “balloon effects” that shifted production to other States and splintered groups, thereby increasing violence, forced displacement and human rights violations, while failing to sufficiently expand State authority and provide sustainable alternative livelihoods. In Mexico, the 2006 anti-cartel strategy fragmented criminal groups and similarly escalated violence and human rights abuses.

The fusion of the war on drugs and the “war on terror” inevitably compounds the risks to human rights, civil society and democratic governance that are evident in each of these securitized discourses. It also transplants a United States-led, global counter-terrorism paradigm into Latin America,⁶² where it was historically less relevant. The latest “war on narco-terrorism” has already repeated the errors of the war on drugs and the war on terror, violating human rights while failing to reduce violent organized crime. For example, the United States military attacks on the high seas appear not to have reduced the flow of drugs overall, particularly fentanyl, while having balloon effects elsewhere.

62. Submission from the Study Centre on the Internationalization of Punitive Power. ↩

Applying necessary and proportionate counter-terrorism measures to organized crime does not inevitably violate human rights. In practice, however, counter-terrorism measures heighten the risks of violations because laws are often not human rights-compliant, authorities too often abuse powers, and oversight and accountability mechanisms are inadequate. The populist logic of securitization tends towards excesses. Recent measures have produced violations and present acute risks of further violations. Terrorist designations that trigger counter-terrorism measures may be based on vague and overbroad criteria, low evidentiary thresholds, a failure to consider less invasive alternatives, and involve subjective political and policy discretions, with a lack of due process and judicial safeguards, all contrary to international standards.⁶³ They may then trigger unnecessary and disproportionate administrative restrictions. In the United States, for instance, designation as a foreign terrorist organization enables the freezing of assets, the imposition of travel bans and deportations, and prosecution for “material support” for terrorism, with cascading human rights impacts.

63. See international best practices outlined in A/80/284, paras. 17–39. ↩

The designation by the United States of certain criminal groups as terrorist organizations was a precursor to abusively activating the Alien Enemies Act to summarily expel hundreds of alleged gang members to El Salvador. This practice appeared to constitute prohibited refoulement to serious human rights violations, while chain refoulement from El Salvador to the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela also occurred. It also appeared to violate due process (including the rights to legal representation and family visits); the prohibitions on arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance, and torture and other ill-treatment; family and children’s rights;⁶⁴ and the right to effective remedy and judicial safeguards.

64. See communications USA 14/2025, USA 25/2025, SLV 1/2025, SLV 6/2025. ↩

More generally, the labelling of a group or individual as terrorist and related inclusion in travel watch lists heighten the risks of overbroad status-based denial of entry and visas, residence permits and refugee status, as well as arbitrary expulsion, without individualized assessment in a fair process on a sufficiently high standard of proof. It may further involve risks of restricted or expedited procedures, refoulement and exceptional military detention in inadequate detention conditions.⁶⁵ The risks are acute where overbroad preparatory terrorism offences target innocent activities or associations, including victims of coercion and those in areas controlled by criminal groups.

65. See submission from Asylum Research and Global Assistance. ↩

Terrorist financing measures, coupled with vague and overbroad preparatory terrorism offences (including financing and support of terrorism), present particular risks to human rights in the context of organized crime. The financial restrictions flowing from United States terrorism designations, for example, tend to induce de-risking (including financial institutions withdrawing from areas, terminating services or excluding groups of customers) and overcompliance by financial institutions, leading to interference with legitimate transactions and activities of civil society organizations and of human rights, humanitarian, charitable, religious and business organizations, as well as unjustified financial exclusion that deepens inequalities. United States designations also influence the adoption of similar restrictions by foreign financial institutions and authorities, due to the central role of the United States in the global financial system and exposure to secondary sanctions, which further impede business, investment, trade and development.

Thus far, the United States has only sparingly charged cartel members with “material support” for terrorism offences. Nonetheless, this overbroad offence can capture innocent associations, and coerced interactions, with listed groups, thereby deterring legitimate activities. Individuals, including businesspeople, living in areas controlled by criminal groups may be forced to pay extortion or protection money, ransoms, “taxes” or tolls; may transact with criminal monopolies over basic services (such as food, energy or Internet access); and may work in otherwise legitimate businesses that are controlled by criminal groups. Asylum-seekers may pay smugglers who are connected to cartels. Humanitarian, development, human rights protection, conflict resolution and peacebuilding actors may all legitimately engage with criminal groups.⁶⁶ The material support offence does not require that the person knowingly, causally and substantially contributed to terrorist harms, and other than for medicines or religious materials, there are no exemptions in relation to humanitarian activities, protection, peacemaking, basic needs, legal services or family associations.

66. See submission by Charity and Security Network. ↩

In 2026, the President of the United States, in Executive Order 14406, called for enhanced customer identification and due diligence by financial institutions, particularly concerning unauthorized migrants, and highlighted low-value cross-border funds transfers as a risk for the financing of terrorism or organized crime. The blanket and stigmatizing application of the measures to unauthorized migrants appears to be inconsistent with the risk-based, proportionate approach to terrorist financing required by human rights law and recommended by Financial Action Task Force standards, and is likely to lead to discriminatory de-risking and overcompliance by financial actors.⁶⁷ The Executive Order could potentially impede financial services to migrants, particularly undocumented migrants, and to non-profit and humanitarian organizations that move funds across borders, and could obstruct remittances by millions of Latin Americans, which support families and advance socioeconomic rights and development.

67. See https://charityandsecurity.org/analysis/trumps-executive-order-targets-customer-identification-cross-border-transfers-and-financial-access-for-non-work-authorized-populations/. ↩

The conflation of organized crime and terrorism may also have other adverse effects. First, it may aggravate the disproportionate criminalization of vulnerable groups that are already affected by drug suppression efforts, including: poor, remote and border communities; racialized and Indigenous Peoples, and people of African descent,⁶⁸ including those involved in land, resource, environmental and social protest; mothers who engage in economic crime to meet household needs or due to patriarchal demands, and whose incrimination perpetuates gender inequalities, impacts health and reproductive rights, affects families and children, and exposes women to violence in prison;⁶⁹ children and youth involved in gangs, whose stigmatization as “terrorists” could have lifelong negative impacts on their development and opportunities; and homeless people.

68. Submission from Regional Human Rights Advisory Foundation (INREDH). ↩
69. Submission from Mujeres Libres. ↩

Second, stigmatizing terrorist labelling chills civil society service provision in areas of criminal control, human rights critique of securitized responses and advocacy for alternatives (including drug policy reform), since such efforts may be seen as sympathizing with, or even as supporting, terrorists, potentially leading to legal harassment or reprisals.⁷⁰ Third, it deters dialogue and conflict resolution that seek to engage criminal groups that are perceived as adversaries beyond negotiation. Fourth, expanding and normalizing counter-terrorism measures can encourage mission creep and the use of such measures against a wider array of actors, particularly in States in the Americas where counter-terrorism laws or narratives have already been used against social, labour, environmental and Indigenous protest, human rights activism, journalism and political dissent.

70. Submission from Dejusticia and Elementa DDHH. ↩

Fifth, terrorist designations can counterproductively distract the attention and finite resources of authorities from addressing genuine terrorist threats.⁷¹ Excessive liability and penalties, including for material support offences, can reduce incentives to cooperate with authorities,⁷² while heightening risks of violence against law enforcement to avoid apprehension.⁷³ Lastly, abusive counter-terrorism framing can alienate foreign partners whose cooperation is essential. For example, the United States counterproductively sanctioned the President of Colombia and associates in 2025 for alleged links to “narco-terrorism” and his “total peace” plan to control drugs;⁷⁴ it also decertified Colombia as a drug control partner, which jeopardized anti-narcotics funding.

71. See https://www.justsecurity.org/107770/cartels-foreign-terrorism-designation/. ↩
72. Submission from Elementa DDHH. ↩
73. See https://www.police1.com/drug-interdiction-narcotics/trump-designates-cartels-as-foreign-terrorist-organizations-what-it-means-for-policing. ↩
74. See https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sb0292. ↩

A more effective and human rights-compliant response to violent organized crime should pursue a comprehensive strategy that addresses the four areas outlined below.

The Organized Crime Convention criminalizes various offences, including participation in an organized criminal group, provides for extraterritorial jurisdiction and enables information-sharing, mutual legal assistance and extradition, all while safeguarding human rights. There is much room to enhance the consistent implementation of its provisions regarding substantive and inchoate offences, jurisdictional grounds, modes of cooperation (including by simplifying, digitizing and expediting mutual assistance), information exchange and preventive measures. The same goes for instruments that address particular forms of crime, including under the three Protocols to the Convention and the three drug control conventions of 1961, 1971 and 1988;⁷⁵ it is essential to address all forms of crime in which a group is involved to prevent balloon effects of suppressing only some types.

75. See https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/commissions/CND/Mandate_Functions/Scheduling.html. ↩

Further enhancing criminal justice-based responses may require strengthening special investigative techniques (such as undercover operations, surveillance and controlled delivery),⁷⁶ forensic capabilities (including digital evidence), joint investigations, inter-agency intelligence-sharing, evidentiary rules, risk-based and community policing⁷⁷ and national strategies,⁷⁸ as well as increasing the funding and training of law enforcement and judiciaries⁷⁹ and data collection and analytics. Targeting illicit financial flows is especially important, through financial intelligence; asset tracing (including of beneficial ownership), freezing and confiscation, and forfeiture of unexplained wealth; addressing tax havens; and penalties for financial institutions and intermediaries. Border security, including port container inspections, require strengthening. Interventions should be tailored to the characteristics of groups.⁸⁰ Multilateral frameworks should be supplemented by mutually beneficial bilateral and regional cooperation, technical assistance and capacity-building, rather than relationships predicated on coercion, and accompanied by human rights due diligence.

76. Inter-American Commission on Human Rights resolution No. 1/26 (2026), p. 14. ↩
77. IMF, Violent Crime and Insecurity in Latin America and the Caribbean, p. 29. ↩
78. See https://www.unodc.org/documents/organized-crime/tools_and_publications/Strategies_ Toolkit/OC_Strategy_Toolkit_English.pdf. ↩
79. IMF, Violent Crime and Insecurity in Latin America and the Caribbean, p. 28. ↩
80. UNODC, World Drug Report 2025: Key Findings (2025), p. 87. ↩

Organized crime frameworks already share some of the key features and tools of counter-terrorism laws, such as group designations and prohibitions on dealing with groups,⁸¹ group-based liability and enhanced penalties, targeting financial flows (including money-laundering), special investigative techniques, and additional powers (such as surveillance and modified criminal procedures) and institutional capabilities. Counter-terrorism laws tend to be more invasive (including sanctions and preparatory offences such as “material support”), but legally it is often a matter of degree, not of kind. The symbolic and political “terrorism” label is certainly more powerful and risks unleashing greater abuses. If stronger legal powers or new tools are needed to keep pace with the scale or evolution of organized crime,⁸² the appropriate response is to proportionately adapt organized crime frameworks, domestically and through the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, in conformity with human rights law, not to escalate to counter-terrorism or even warfare paradigms.

81. See, for example, the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act (United States). ↩
82. See European Parliament, Study Addressing the Nature and Impact of Organised Crime on the International Scene: Understanding and Legislating for the Role of Organised Crime Groups as Geopolitical Actors (2026). ↩

Further, it is essential to strengthen anti-corruption measures through a comprehensive governance response⁸³ in order to combat the complicity of State officials in organized crime and improve public cooperation with law enforcement.⁸⁴ Doing so not only requires establishing adequate legal frameworks and penalties, but building institutional capacity (including through complaints and oversight mechanisms, financial investigations, anti-corruption bodies and the protection of independent prosecutors and judiciaries); protection for whistleblowers, witnesses and victims; securing evidence against tampering; public sector policies and guidance for business; transparency in public procurement, budgeting and auditing; disclosure of political financing; reforming cultures of patronage and State capture; and raising public sector salaries.

83. Transparency International, Holding Power to Account: A Global Strategy against Corruption 2021–2030 (2021). ↩
84. IMF, Violent Crime and Insecurity in Latin America and the Caribbean. ↩

Responses to organized crime should be led by civilian law enforcement authorities that are adequately trained in human rights and the use of force, subject to effective chains of command and human rights-compliant orders, and supervised by internal and independent external oversight and accountability mechanisms, with proportionate penalties and effective remedies for victims. The military should only be used where it is strictly necessary and proportionate in response to exceptional and temporary circumstances, and where they are trained in a law enforcement approach to the graduated use of force, under ultimate civilian control, and subject to effective accountability. Public oversight of accountability should be enhanced through civil society access to information, public participation and monitoring without fear of reprisals, with protections for human rights defenders and others at risk.⁸⁵

85. Inter-American Commission on Human Rights resolution No. 1/26, pp. 12 and 13. ↩

Firearms fuel the lethal violence of criminal groups, particularly in Latin America and the Caribbean.⁸⁶ The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has indicated that arms trafficking adversely impacts many human rights.⁸⁷ Weak domestic and transnational regulation and enforcement allows criminal groups to obtain firearms, munitions, explosives and drones from licit and illicit sources, including through diversion from military and police stocks, materiel from armed conflicts, trade, straw purchases and online platforms. Most cartel weapons in Mexico originated in the United States, from which between 135,000 and 500,000 guns are trafficked annually;⁸⁸ outbound border controls have been historically weak and corruption has reportedly occurred. Many arms manufacturers do not comply with the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, including by failing to conduct adequate human rights due diligence. Corruption and undue corporate influence on political processes also inhibit gun control.⁸⁹

86. S/2025/670, para. 28; see also UNODC, “Global study on homicide 2023: homicide and organized crime in Latin America and the Caribbean” (2023), p. 9. ↩
87. Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Advisory Opinion OC-30/25, 3 December 2025. ↩
88. See https://www.epsjournal.org.uk/index.php/EPSJ/article/view/517. ↩
89. A/HRC/58/41, paras. 13–15. ↩

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights emphasized that States have a duty to diligently prevent arms trafficking, including through regulation, private sector supervision, human rights assessments of exports, judicial remedies and international cooperation. To combat violent organized crime globally, States must strengthen domestic legal controls on licit and illicit firearms and enforcement against cross-border illicit trafficking, including under the Protocol against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Their Parts and Components and Ammunition, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, adopted in 2001, the Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects, and the International Instrument to Enable States to Identify and Trace, in a Timely and Reliable Manner, Illicit Small Arms and Light Weapons, adopted in 2005. They should prohibit the sale and export of military-grade weapons and munitions to private actors; ban the private possession of military weapons; and stringently regulate other weapons through marking, identification, registration and tracing, as well as background checks and purchaser records.

While many States impose export controls, these do not always adequately address risks of human rights abuses, while implementation and enforcement can be insufficient and regulators underresourced. Particular concerns include weak due diligence assessments, excessively high thresholds and evidentiary standards for refusing exports, licensing exemptions, open export licences without periodic review, politicized foreign policy considerations overriding human rights, and no or limited disclosure of export assessments and information.⁹⁰ A focus on export control can overshadow risks concerning transit and transshipment, brokers and intermediaries, re-export, diversion, verification of end-use, and sanctions for non-compliance with end-user conditions. All States, particularly exporters, should become Party to the Arms Trade Treaty, which has 118 Parties, and effectively implement articles 6 and 7 of the Treaty concerning safeguards against violations of human rights and humanitarian law, terrorism and diversion.

90. See A/HRC/58/41. ↩

The obligation to protect the right to life requires all States to take appropriate measures to address extensive substance abuse that threatens life or prevents individuals from enjoying their right to life with dignity.⁹¹ Yet, for many decades, in implementing the three drug control conventions,⁹² most States have supported a punitive approach to combating illicit drugs, with prosecutions more common for use or possession than for trafficking or production,⁹³ sometimes coupled with mandatory or otherwise excessive penalties (including the death penalty), and a lack of diversion and treatment programmes. This has not only failed to reduce demand – drug use is at an all-time high⁹⁴ – or reduce crime or violence – it has also come at an extraordinary cost to life and physical and mental health due to untreated addiction, unsafe drugs, dangerous consumption practices, infectious and debilitating diseases, disability, and intergenerational impacts on families and children. Almost half a million people die from drug use annually.⁹⁵ One in five prisoners worldwide are held on drug offences, and prison overcrowding and poor conditions have nurtured criminal recruitment and cultures of violence, with some criminal groups even forming in order to resist inhumane conditions. Cartels have grown more powerful despite decades of expensive, securitized suppression. Suppression has also disproportionately affected vulnerable groups, including youth, racialized groups (such as people of African descent and Indigenous Peoples), women, including mothers, rural communities, the urban poor and LGBTQI+ persons.⁹⁶

91. Human Rights Committee, general comment No. 36 (2018) on the right to life, para. 26. ↩
92. See https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/commissions/CND/Mandate_Functions/Scheduling.html. ↩
93. UNODC, World Drug Report 2026: Highlights (2026), p. 92. ↩
94. Ibid, p. 70. ↩
95. Ibid, p. 76. ↩
96. Submission from Instituto RIA. See also Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Northern Central America: Impact of Organized Crime on Women and Girls (2023). ↩

Wars on drugs must urgently end and global drug policy must be transformed.⁹⁷ In the past decade, there have been positive trends towards evidence-based harm reduction, decriminalization, human rights, health and development-based approaches, as was evident in the resolution adopted at the thirtieth special session of the General Assembly, on effectively addressing and countering the world drug problem, in 2016;⁹⁸ in Human Rights Council resolutions;⁹⁹ in the United Nations system common position supporting the implementation of the international drug control policy through effective inter-agency collaboration, of 2018;¹⁰⁰ in the work of United Nations human rights mechanisms, including treaty bodies,¹⁰¹ the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights,¹⁰² and the Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health¹⁰³ and other special procedure mandate holders;¹⁰⁴ in the work of the World Health Organization¹⁰⁵ and the United Nations Development Programme;¹⁰⁶ and in targets 3.5 and 16 of the Sustainable Development Goals. The International Guidelines on Human Rights and Drug Policy, of 2019, emphasize that the drug conventions must be implemented harmoniously with human rights, and detail how human rights apply across drug policy.¹⁰⁷

97. See https://www.ohchr.org/en/statements-and-speeches/2024/03/turk-urges-transformative-change-global-drug-policy. ↩
98. General Assembly resolution S-30/1. ↩
99. Human Rights Council resolutions 37/42, 52/24 and 60/26. ↩
100. CEB/2018/2, annex I. ↩
101. CAT/C/82/2, p. 9. ↩
102. A/HRC/54/53; see also A/HRC/30/65 and A/HRC/39/39. ↩
103. A/HRC/56/52, A/79/177. ↩
104. A/HRC/10/44, A/HRC/47/40; see also https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/ issues/health/2026-06-26-sr-health-stm-drug-abuse.pdf and https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2023/06/un-experts-call-end-global-war-drugs. ↩
105. See https://www.emro.who.int/asd/health-topics/drug-related-harm-reduction.html. ↩
106. See UNDP, Development Dimensions of Drug Policy: Assessing New Challenges, Uncovering Opportunities, and Addressing Emerging Issues (2025). ↩
107. See https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/Documents/Issues/Detention/Call/Others/int-guidelines-on-hhrr-and-drug-policy-201903.pdf. ↩

There is now greater acceptance of the domestic discretion available under the drug control conventions¹⁰⁸ to decriminalize drug use and reduce harm. The traditional focus on suppression¹⁰⁹ by the Vienna-based drug control bodies – the Commission on Narcotic Drugs, the International Narcotics Control Board and the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice – has been gradually evolving in recent years, including through the Ministerial Declaration adopted by the Commission on Narcotic Drugs in 2019, and the high-level declaration by the Commission on the 2024 midterm review, in 2024,¹¹⁰ and the mandating by that Commission, in 2025, of the first independent expert panel to review the international drug control machinery.¹¹¹ Ultimately, however, revision of the drug control treaties, particularly to facilitate legal regulation, may be necessary in order to ensure a more balanced approach.

108. Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs of 1961 as amended by the 1972 Protocol, art. 36 (1) (a); United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances of 1988, art. 3. ↩
109. See https://globalcommissionondrugs.org/gcdp-reports/enforcement-of-drug-laws-refocusing-on-organized-crime-elites/; see also International Drug Policy Consortium, The UNGASS Decade in Review: Gaps, Achievements and Paths for Reform (2026). ↩
110. See E/2019/28 and E/2024/28. ↩
111. E/2025/28, chap. I.B, resolution 68/6; see also E/2025/28/Add.1, chap. III.B. ↩

Many submissions for the present report supported alternative approaches,¹¹² while acknowledging their limits. Key human rights-compliant drug policy reforms are essential to more effectively combat organized drug crime and violence. First, public health-based interventions minimize drug mortality and health and socioeconomic harms, yet harm reduction policies remain underutilized and underfunded.¹¹³ Measures should include universally accessible drug-substitute medications and treatments to address addiction; supervised, safe consumption spaces and materials (such as needles and syringes); drug checking services; diversion from prison; health interventions in prisons; and public health campaigns to prevent use. Only 1 in 12 people who misuse drugs receive treatment, and the rates are lower among women and in Africa and Asia.¹¹⁴

112. Submissions from Elementa DDHH; Fundación para la democracia; Drug Policy Alliance, Elementa DDHH, Human Rights First, Institute for Policy Studies (Drug Policy Project), StoptheDrugWar.org and Washington Office on Latin America; International Drug Policy Consortium, Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales, Asociación Civil, Harm Reduction International and Washington Office on Latin America; Dejusticia and Elementa DDHH; Innovations for Poverty Action; Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales, Asociación Civil; Amnesty International, Cristosal and Rights and Security International. ↩
113. Harm Reduction International, The Global State of Harm Reduction 2024 (2024), p. 28. ↩
114. UNODC, World Drug Report 2025: Key Findings, p. 60. ↩

Second, States should not only decriminalize personal possession of drugs but consider legalization and responsible regulation.¹¹⁵ So far, legalization has been limited to cannabis. However, legalization is ultimately the only tool that could seriously reduce drug profits – worth $600 billion to $1 trillion annually¹¹⁶ – and thus weaken groups and reduce violence and drug-related deaths. Managed legalization, in concert with health measures and corporate regulation, need not increase consumption. Measures should control pricing, potency, quality and availability,¹¹⁷ such as through medical prescription, specialist pharmacies and licensed retail outlets and consumption premises,¹¹⁸ while allowing for customary uses (as of coca).¹¹⁹

115. See https://www.ohchr.org/en/statements-and-speeches/2024/12/hc-turk-international-pursuit-sensible-regulation-drugs. ↩
116. UNDP, Development Dimensions of Drug Policy, p. 10. ↩
117. Ibid, p. 11 ↩
118. Submission from Drug Policy Alliance, Elementa DDHH, Human Rights First, Institute for Policy Studies (Drug Policy Project), StoptheDrugWar.org and Washington Office on Latin America. ↩
119. Submission from Elementa DDHH. ↩

Where drug possession or supply remain criminalized, penalties must be proportionate; mandatory sentences and the death penalty must be prohibited. Diversion must be available, as should amnesty or mitigation where a person committed an offence under coercion or conditions of marginalization to support their family.¹²⁰ Rehabilitation and reintegration should also be available for prisoners to prevent recidivism.¹²¹ Women’s needs must be considered, and children should not be punitively removed from parental custody. Children should be treated in accordance with child protection and juvenile justice frameworks, and must be addressed as victims, not suspects, where they were victims of coercion, exploitation, trafficking or sexual and gender-based violence. Recruitment of children into criminal groups should be criminalized.¹²² Individualized, safe release and sustainable socioeconomic reintegration pathways must be available for children involved in criminal groups.

120. See e.g. Public Utility Act 2023 (Colombia) and Federal Amnesty Act 2020 (Mexico). ↩
121. The Hague Good Practices, good practice 17. ↩
122. Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Northern Central America: Organized Crime and the Rights of Children, Adolescents and Young People – Current Challenges and State Actions (2023), p. 132. ↩

Third, States should address the conditions that contribute to drug use and dependence, including socioeconomic disadvantage, untreated mental and physical health conditions, overincarceration, homelessness, loneliness, domestic violence, parental neglect and peer pressure.¹²³ Special preventive measures must be taken to protect children.¹²⁴ Fourth, States should subject drug policies to human rights assessments, including impacts on vulnerable groups. Fifth, civil society organizations need to be meaningfully engaged in drug policy.¹²⁵

123. See the International Guidelines on Human Rights and Drug Policy; UNODC, World Drug Report 2025: Key Findings, p. 90. ↩
124. See https://www.unodc.org/documents/prevention/UNODC-WHO_2018_prevention_standards_E.pdf. ↩
125. International Drug Policy Consortium, The UNGASS Decade in Review. ↩

Sixth, foreign aid should be redirected from expensive and inefficient drug suppression, including provisions that enable the death penalty, to alternative approaches, including development,¹²⁶ recalling that it is donors from the global North who largely drive the demand for illicit drugs from the global South. Finally, unilateral sanctions should not be misused against Governments or their leaders, as was the case in the sanctioning of the President of Colombia by the United States, in 2025.

126. See https://hri.global/publications/aid-for-the-war-on-drugs/; see also https://hri.global/ publications/aiding-executions-how-aid-donors-un-enable-death-penalty-for-drugs/. ↩

Many submissions urged States to invest more in addressing the conditions conducive to participation in organized crime, instead of focusing excessively on kinetic and law enforcement responses that implicitly punish poverty. Cartels and gangs often exploit the lack of opportunity, youth unemployment and socioeconomic inequalities to recruit, particularly in disadvantaged urban and rural communities,¹²⁷ and to “govern” areas where the State is weak. Gang membership can be a survival strategy, as well as offering (gendered)¹²⁸ identity and belonging, social status and mobility, and power. Securitized responses not only divert scarce funds from development – about $100 billion is spent annually on drug enforcement¹²⁹ – but by fuelling violence, they also further set back development and deepen cycles of recruitment. Securitizing illicit cross-border economic activities that sustain poor communities even risks stimulating political violence.¹³⁰

127. See Dammert and Sampó, “What do we know about organized crime in Latin America and the Caribbean?”; see also UNICRI, The Nexus between Transnational Organized Crime and Terrorism in Latin America. ↩
128. See UNODC, Organized Crime and Gender: Issues Relating to the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (2022). ↩
129. See https://hri.global/topics/funding-for-harm-reduction/redirecting-funds/. ↩
130. UNICRI, The Nexus between Transnational Organized Crime and Terrorism in Latin America. ↩

Effectively preventing organized crime requires strengthening human development empower people with alternatives, in line with the Sustainable Development Goals.¹³¹ Measures should include education, vocational training, employment and livelihood opportunities (including drug crop substitution, market access and addressing precarious labour in informal economies), land reform, inclusive growth, macroeconomic stability and social protection.¹³² Particularly in marginalized geographies (such as borderlands, remote areas and favelas), increased investments are needed in public services and infrastructure (including healthcare, water, sanitation and transport), and gender-responsive social, family and child protection services (to address risk factors such as abuse or neglect). Sustainable livelihoods should be in place before crop eradication begins, and aerial spraying, which harms health and the environment, should be avoided.¹³³ Crop substitution will not be viable as long as drugs are not legalized. Communities must be meaningfully involved in alternative development.¹³⁴ Special measures must be taken to prevent the recruitment of children and youth, including through the provision of information and the fostering of life skills, education and school retention, family and community services, safe spaces, and cultural, sports and recreational activities.¹³⁵

131. See CEB/2025/2/Add.1. ↩
132. See IMF, Violent Crime and Insecurity in Latin America and the Caribbean. ↩
133. See UNDP, Development Dimensions of Drug Policy, p. 5. ↩
134. UNODC, World Drug Report 2021, pp. 38, 54 and 55. ↩
135. Submission from Clinica Juridica, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Derechos de la Ninez; see also Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Violence, Children and Organized Crime (2015) and Northern Central America: Organized Crime and the Rights of Children, Adolescents and Young People (2023). ↩

Governance deficits in socioeconomic development must be confronted, through more responsive, representative and accountable local government and through inclusive sociopolitical dialogues to address community needs and grievances.¹³⁶ Expanding the State’s presence to neglected communities must encompass deploying trustworthy and human rights-respecting law enforcement in order to protect populations from organized crime, counter any popular appeal of criminal governance and suppress abuses by vigilantes (such as autodefensas) or paramilitaries. As the Colombian peace process since 2016 has shown, effective State presence is also essential to prevent new criminal actors from filling post-conflict security voids. Alternative development will struggle without a durable and effective State presence.¹³⁷ In certain contexts, it may be justifiable to tactically engage criminal groups in “ceasefires” or negotiations to mitigate violence, pending longer-term strategic efforts to reassert State capacities.

136. UNICRI, The Nexus between Transnational Organized Crime and Terrorism in Latin America; see also Dammert and Sampó, “What do we know about organized crime in Latin America and the Caribbean?”, pp. 38 and 41. ↩
137. Submission from Dejusticia and Elementa DDHH. ↩

With respect to the relationship between organized crime and terrorism, the Special Rapporteur recommends that Member States:
(a) Ensure that the definitions of terrorism¹³⁸ and terrorist organizations, and the procedures for terrorist designations,¹³⁹ are consistent with international law and best practice international standards;
(b) Refrain from listing organized criminal groups as terrorist, or applying counter-terrorism law to organized crime, unless the definition of terrorism, as properly defined in line with international standards (including a dominant political or ideological purpose) is met.

138. A/HRC/61/52. ↩
139. A/80/284, paras. 17–39. ↩

In order to uphold respect for human rights while countering organized crime, the Special Rapporteur recommends that Member States:
(a) Refrain from the use of force against organized criminal groups in violation of international law, including the prohibitions on the threat or use of force, aggression, foreign intervention, and violations of sovereignty; the rights to life and liberty; international criminal law; and international humanitarian law, the law of the sea, and international law on civil aviation and maritime safety;
(b) Disclose the legal bases of any authority to use force to counter organized crime; ensure that any authority respects international standards on the use of potentially lethal force; and require State officials to refuse orders in violation of domestic and international law;
(c) Refrain from knowingly aiding or assisting another State to commit any internationally wrongful act in the context of countering organized crime;
(d) Ensure that all arrangements for international law enforcement, migration, security, intelligence and military cooperation are publicly disclosed, and ensure respect for international human rights law, international refugee law, international humanitarian law, sovereignty, non-intervention and the non-use of force;
(e) Declare and use temporary public emergency powers strictly in accordance with the derogation requirements under article 4 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights;
(f) Respect relevant human rights, including the prohibitions on arbitrary deprivation of life, arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance, and torture and other ill-treatment; the rights to liberty and fair trial, freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association; and the rights of vulnerable groups;
(g) Ensure that migration decisions respect non-refoulement, the prohibition on arbitrary expulsion of non-citizens, due process in expulsion and the right to liberty;
(h) Refrain from using counter-terrorism sanctions and financing laws, and offences (such as “material support”) to target victims of organized crime and innocent associations with criminal groups, including humanitarian and human rights work;
(i) Ensure that alleged violations are promptly, independently and impartially investigated in line with international law, that perpetrators (including military and political leaders) are held accountable, and that victims receive effective remedies and reparation.

To effectively combat organized crime, the Special Rapporteur recommends that Member States pursue these alternatives to an overly securitized response:
(a) Strengthen the implementation of laws, investigative methods and international cooperation against organized crime; pursue a holistic anti-corruption strategy; and ensure that efforts to counter organized crime are under civilian control;
(b) Enhance controls on arms, munitions and explosive precursors in line with international instruments and standards; and recognize effective arms control as an element of the obligation to diligently protect the right to life and other human rights;
(c) Ensure that drug laws and policies are evidence-based, human rights-compliant, prioritize harm reduction and public health, pursue decriminalization and legalization, and address the conditions conducive to drug use and addiction;
(d) Address the conditions conducive to organized crime by promoting human development, employment and livelihoods, vocational training, education, programmes for youth and other vulnerable groups, economic inclusion, social protection, and public services and infrastructure, and expanding State authority in marginalized areas;
(e) Meaningfully engage diverse civil society actors in efforts to counter organized crime; provide public information about measures to counter organized crime; ensure measures do not restrict legitimate civil society activities; and protect civil society from reprisals by criminal groups, State authorities and others acting for the State.