roadmaps to reforming the un drug conventions - Beckley Foundation

unhappy about a country implementing a change in their situation in this manner, todeny reaccession would be a dramatic retreat from the goal of universality that it isdoubtful the international system would want to take.The main disincentive to a country taking this path arises less from a threat of exclusionthan from pressures and countermeasures outside the drug control system (e.g.economic sanctions) that could be threatened by the U.S. and other main supporters ofthe system. As an example of such pressures, in response to Bolivia’s actions, on 19March, 2012, the European Commission decided to ‘initiate an investigation in order toestablish whether the denunciation of the UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugsjustifies a temporary withdrawal of the special incentive arrangement for sustainabledevelopment and good governance for products originating in Bolivia’. 61 There wouldbe more safety in numbers against these pressures and threatened countermeasures,which makes a coordinated series of denunciations and reaccessions a path worthconsidering for like-minded countries wishing to implement either of the Optionsdiscussed in Chapter 6.3.4 Passing countermanding national legislationA path which is theoretically open to some countries, but not to others, is to nullify aninternational commitment with a new national law. States in which international treatiesare constitutionally ‘on the same footing as national legislation’ may pass laws whichsupersede treaty obligations under the ‘last in time’ rule. 62 In the U.S., for instance,national legislation can thus nullify a commitment in international law. 63 Depending onthe constitutional and legal situation, this is also possible in some other countries. 64 ‘It isby no means settled as a general principle whether treaties prevail over domestic rules’,a leading textbook notes after a 20-page review of the situation in a number ofcountries. 65 Such an approach would, however, be a direct challenge to internationalnormative expectations, and countries taking this path could expect considerableinternational opprobrium and pressure.61European Commission. Commission implementing decision of 19 March 2012 (2012/161/EU).Official Journal of the European Union 20.3.2012. http://eurlex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2012:080:0030:0030:EN:PDF(accessed 28 March,2012).62Cassese, A. International Law, 2nd ed., p. 222. Oxford, etc.: Oxford University Press, 2005.63Ku, J. ‘Treaties as laws: a defense of the last in time rule for treaties and federal statutes’. Indiana LawJournal, 80: 319−91, 2005; Bianchi, A. ‘International law and US courts: the myth of Lohengrinrevisited’. European Journal of International Law 15(4):751−81, 2004.64Conforti, B. International Law and the Role of Domestic Legal Systems. Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff, 1993.65Shaw, M.N. International Law, 6th edition. 1st South Asian edition, p. 178. Cambridge, etc.:Cambridge University Press, 2010.24