GlobalChild Platform

Article 33: Measures to protect children from substance abuse

States Parties shall take all appropriate measures, including legislative, administrative, social and educational measures, to protect children from the illicit use of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances as defined in the relevant international treaties, and to prevent the use of children in the illicit production and trafficking of such substances.

-UN Convention on the Rights of the Child

Overview of Article 33

Article 33 enshrines the right to protection from narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances, and has no equivalent in earlier human rights treaties. Later, the International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention No.182and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Childcomplemented the provision [1-2].  There are, two related but separate clauses in Article 33: the protection of children from illicit use, and the prevention of the use of children in illicit production and trafficking. Thus, the former is placed by the Committee (since 2010) within ‘basic health and welfare’ cluster, while the latter is assessed as a ‘special protection measure’ [3]. The phrase ‘shall take’ indicates a strong formulation that, commensurate with other provisions in the Convention, requires positive obligations on the part of States Parties.

While protecting children from drugs is self-evident, the means to do so are a constant political and social debate. Article 33 is very generally framed and finds itself within a contested area of law and policy. Protecting children from drugs and the drug trade could cover all drug policy. The added value of the CRC provision is in bringing the question of drug use and the drug trade into the normative child rights framework [4]. Thus, rather than merely providing a child rights rationale for existing drug laws and policies, the periodic reporting process is an opportunity for critical child rights reflection on them.

This approach requires unpacking the normative content of ‘appropriate measures’. Barrett and Tobin have developed a basic test for this purpose: ‘appropriate measures’ for the purposes of Article 33 must be a) human rights compliant and b) evidence based [4]. While a very basic test, this leans towards a rights-based analysis of the quality and content of the laws, policies and practices States Parties have put in place.

Core attributes of Article 33

The core attributes of Article 33 are:

  • Protection from the illicit use of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances
  • Prevention of the use of children in illicit production and trafficking
  • ‘Appropriate measures’ – ‘Rights compliance and effectiveness’as a normative test


Each of these attributes can be measured in terms of structural or process implementation or in terms of outcomes achieved through implementation as outlined in the table below. Some indicators, for instance the structural ones, may be common to all attributes. Others are common to two or more attributes, while some indicators may be relevant to one attribute only. An attempt has been made to balance the use of objective and subjective data indicators as well as qualitative and quantitative ones.

What did children say?

These are some ideas that children from around the world shared with us during the Global Child Rights Dialogue (GCRD) project:

Relevant provisions within the SDGs
  1. Goal 3 Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages.
    • Target 3.3 By 2030, end epidemics of AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and neglected tropical diseases and combat hepatitis.
    • Target 3.5 Strengthen the prevention and treatment of substance abuse, including narcotic drug abuse and harmful use of alcohol.
    • Target 3.8 Achieve universal health coverage, including financial risk protection, access to quality essential health care services and access to safe, effective, quality and affordable essential medicines and vaccines for all.
    • Target 3.a Strengthen the implementation of the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in all countries, as appropriate.
  2. Goal 16 Promote just, peaceful and inclusive societies.
    • Target 16.1 Significantly reduce all forms of violence and related death rates everywhere.
    • Target 16.4 By 2030, significantly reduce illicit financial and arms flows, strengthen the recovery and return of stolen assets and combat all forms of organized crime. Addressing organised crime has relevance to this article at an arm’s-length.

Potential sources of data for users of the indicators sets
  • Ministry of Health
  • Ministry of Interior
  • Ministry of Justice
  • Primary research by national human rights institutions for children
  • Primary research by universities and NGOs
  • UN Office on Drugs and Crime (World Drug Report)
  • UNICEF MICS
References used for the overview
  1. International Labour Organization (ILO). (1999). C182 – Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, 1999 (No.182). (See Article 3(c)). Retrieved from https://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=NORMLEXPUB:12100:0::NO::P12100_ILO_CODE:C182
  2. African Union. (1990). African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (CAB/LEG/24.0/49), (see Article 28). Retrieved from https://www.achpr.org/public/Document/file/English/achpr_instr_charterchild_eng.pdf
  3. United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child. (2010). Treaty-specific guidelines regarding the form and content of periodic reports to be submitted by States Parties under Article 44, paragraph 1(b), of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC/C/58/Rev.2). Retrieved from the United Nations Office of the High Commission for Human Rights website https://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Education/Training/Compilation/Pages/c)Treaty-specificguidelinesregardingtheformandcontentofperiodicreportstobesubmittedbyStatespartiesunderarticle44,paragraph1.aspx
  4. Barrett, D. & Tobin, J. (2019). Article 33: Protection from Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances. In J. Tobin (ed), A Commentary on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1st ed., pp. 1273-1309). Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.
References used to create indicators
  • International Guidelines on Human Rights and Drug Policy. (2019). International Centre on Human Rights and Drug Policy.United Nations Development Program. Retrieved from www.humanrights-drugpolicy.org
  • Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. (2019). Health at a Glance 2019: OECD Indicators. Paris, France: OECD Publishing.
  • United Nations General Assembly. (2015). Sustainable Development Goals. Retrieved from https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/?menu=1300
  • United Nation Office on Drugs and Crime (2018). International Standards on Drug Use Prevention (indicators 5 and 9). Vienna, Austria: United Nations. Retrieved from https://www.unodc.org/documents/prevention/UNODC_2013_2015_international_standards_on_drug_use_prevention_E.pdf
Glossary/key words

Narcotic drugs
According the UN Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (1988), “‘Narcotic Drug’ means any of the substances, natual or synthetic, in Schedules I and II of the Single Convention on Narcotics Drugs (1961), and the 1972 Protocol amending this latter convention. Control is exercised over 134 narcotic drugs” (UN, 1988).

Psychotropic substances
“Psychoactive substances are substances that, when taken in or administered into one’s system, affect mental processes, e.g. cognition or affect. This term and its equivalent, psychotropic drug, are the most neutral and descriptive term for the whole class of substances, licit and illicit, of interest to drug policy […]” (WHO, n.d.).

Article 33 Indicator Tables

© GlobalChild (2020)