On 18 June 2024, UNU will host “One Hundred Years of the International Drug Prohibition Regime in Latin America”, a conversation with Mónica Serrano, Professor of International Relations at El Colegio de México, and Associate Fellow of the International Institute for Strategic Studies. This event will start at 18:30 in the 2F Reception Hall at UNU Headquarters in Tokyo.
Trade in illicit drugs has been a key driver behind violent crime and conflict across the Latin America and Caribbean region over the last century. From early efforts by the League of Nations, to more comprehensive interventions by the United Nations and the United States, international efforts towards an effective drug prohibition regime in the region have faced many setbacks.
Prof. Serrano will join UNU Rector Tshilidzi Marwala for a conversation exploring the history behind the drug prohibition regime in Latin America. What role have the United Nations and other international actors played? What impact have drug prohibition and punitive drug control had on criminal violence, human rights and democratic rule in Latin America? How does the international human rights regime interface with efforts for drug policy reform?
The UNU Conversation Series aims to foster audience participation; you are encouraged to engage with the speakers during the conversation and at the reception that will follow, where all event attendees are invited to enjoy hors d’oeuvres and drinks while exchanging ideas and making new contacts.
Please note that this event will be in English. Advance registration (by 17 June at 15:00) is required.
Please be prepared to present identification at check-in.
About the Speaker
Mónica Serrano is Professor of International Relations at El Colegio de México. She is also a member of the International Faculty of the Doctorate on Organised Crime at the University of Milan, and an Associate Fellow of the International Institute for Strategic Studies IISS. Her research focuses on the interfaces between security, drug-trafficking/organised crime and human rights. She is especially concerned with the consequent tensions for the regional and global governance architectures.
She was the founding Executive Director of the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect (2008-2011), Senior Fellow at the Ralph Bunche Institute at CUNY, Senior Research Associate at the Centre for International Studies, Oxford University and co-editor of Global Governance. She served on the International Advisory Board of the FRAME Project — Fostering Human Rights Among European (External and Internal) Policies—and the Board of Directors of the Academic Council on the United Nations System ACUNS.
Mónica Serrano has taught at Oxford University, the Institute of Latin American Studies, London University, and at the Universitá Degli Studi Di Milano. and has published extensively on international security and Latin America, with particular reference to international institutions, security, human rights, transnational crime and civil-military relations.
Her recent books include: Human Rights Regimes in the Americas (2009); After Oppression: Transitional Justice in Latin America and Eastern Europe (2012); Mexico’s Security Failure: Collapse into Criminal Violence (2012); The International Politics of Human Rights. Rallying to the R2P Cause? (2014); El Tratado de Tlatelolco. Una mirada retrospectiva a medio siglo de su firma (2017) and Verdad, Justicia y Memoria. Derechos Humanos y Justicia Transicional en México (2023). She currently serves on the editorial boards of Conflict, Security and Development, Global Responsibility to Protect, Foro Internacional and Perfiles Latinoamericanos.
