 In October 2007, IHRA’s HR2 (harm reduction and human rights) team and the Swedish Drug Users Union (SDUU) made a joint submission to the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in order to feed into their review of Sweden’s compliance with human rights obligations. The Submission – or ‘Shadow Report’ – argues that, in its failure to provide comprehensive harm reduction measures such as needle and syringe exchange programmes, the Swedish Government is violating the right to health of people who use drugs, placing them at unnecessary and avoidable risk of HIV and HCV infection.
This Shadow Report follows on from a visit by the former UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health, Professor Paul Hunt, who visited Sweden in 2006 and submitted his report to the General Assembly of the United Nations in February 2007. While congratulating Sweden for its extremely high standard of living, the Special Rapporteur was critical of the country’s poor implementation of harm reduction – stating that there was no room for complacency and that harm reduction was essential to enhance the right to health of people who use drugs. He concluded that Sweden has an obligation under the right to health to implement a comprehensive harm reduction policy across the country and as a matter of priority.
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 Click here to read the report [PDF:66KB]
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