International Narcotics Control Board

The International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) is a key pillar of the international drug control regime. Since its foundation in 1961, its main role has been to interpret the international drug control conventions and to monitor their implementation in member states. Through its work, the board promotes national drug policies that tend to favor the total prohibition of controlled substances.

The INCB was established by the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, which remains the most universally accepted international drug control treaty. The INCB is the successor to the Permanent Central Opium Board and the Drug Supervisory Body, combining their mandates and functions. The INCB's basic mandate is to oversee the implementation of the major drug control conventions. The conventions' principal aim is to limit the global production, use, and trade of psychoactive substances, such as heroin and cocaine, to medical and scientific purposes and to prohibit all other aspects of the global trade. The major means promoted to attain this aim is the reduction of drug supply through law enforcement measures, particularly border policing. The 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances and the 1988 United Nations (UN) Convention Against the Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances further extended the powers of the INCB, in particular the range of psychoactive substance under its control. In effect, the INCB is both a product as well as the major guardian of these treaties.

In terms of its position in the wider drug control framework, the board is the quasi-judicial organ of the international regime. It interprets and monitors the implementation of international drug control law, while the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) is the regime's major legislative organ and the UN International Drug Control Programme (UNDCP) executes international drug policy. All three organs are today part of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), an umbrella body established in 2002. The INCB is the body least integrated into the UNODC. Unlike the CND and the UNDCP, the board was directly set up by the treaties and remains largely funded by the central UN budget. This gives the board greater independence from the interests of UN member states but makes it also more dependent on the provisions of the treaties.

The board is composed of 13 independent individual experts, most of them pharmacists, medical doctors, lawyers, or law enforcement officers from different member states. They meet on a regular basis to review national reports and to publicize their assessment of member states' policy implementation.

The treaty-based functions of the INCB can be divided into two fields: supervision of the control of licit markets in controlled substances and the control of illicit markets. First, the board promotes the licensing of licit production and trade of controlled substances for medical and scientific purposes in member states. In addition, the board aims to eliminate the diversion of licitly used drugs into illicit channels. For instance, the INCB oversees that enough [Page 414]morphine is globally available for medical use in hospitals, while ensuring that the drug will not leave hospitals illegally. This is done through a national estimate and licensing system. Member states annually estimate their use of controlled substances for medical and scientific purposes and nationally license the production, trade, and use of these substances. The INCB reviews these estimates as well as the figures for actual production, trade, and use and highlights any inconsistencies. On most accounts, this system has been successful at regulating the global licit trade in substances such as morphine and cocaine.

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