Drug Trafficking as Crime Against Humanity: Global Moral Panics and Drugs at the United Nations

Abstract

This article presents archival data produced by Australian diplomats in the 1980s that report on the ‘drug problem’ in various host countries. The reports reveal growing concern in many countries at a rapid increase in drug use. The second half of the article focusses on diplomatic reports from the United Nations where discussions were beginning about creating a third convention against drug trafficking. These early drafts of the convention labelled drug trafficking a ‘crime against humanity’—a criminal charge that had not been prosecuted since the Nuremburg trials. The article applies elements of moral panic theory, neorealism, and the sociology of punishment. Combining these theories suggests that condemning drug traffickers in the 1980s allowed diplomats to create a global social solidarity that may have helped end the Cold War.