Bolivia rejoins narcotics convention with reservation protecting coca leaf over U.S. and others' objections.

• Author: Crook, John R.

In January 2013, Bolivia rejoined the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs (1) (Single Convention) subject to a reservation allowing coca leaf chewing and limited cultivation within Bolivia. (2) The United States and other countries failed to block the reservation. (3)

Bolivia's indigenous peoples use the leaves of the coca plant, chewed or in beverages, to counter the cold and thin air of Bolivia's Andean highlands. Beginning in the sixteenth century, the Spanish supplied coca to indigenous slaves forced to work in their mines; poor indigenous miners still rely on coca to combat cold, thin air, and hunger, (4) and coca consumption is common in the western part of the country. However, the coca leaf is also the source of cocaine, a widely abused drug in many countries, including the United States, and the coca leaf and its derivatives are therefore internationally controlled.

Article 49(1)(c) of the Single Convention provides that a party may reserve the right to permit "temporarily" coca leaf chewing. Article 49(2)(e) then notes that "[c]oca leaf chewing must be abolished within twenty-five years from the coming into force of this Convention" for a party. Bolivia entered a reservation under Article 49(1) when it joined the Single Convention in 1976. It lapsed in 2001.

President Evo Morales is Bolivia's first elected indigenous president and enjoys strong support from the country's majority indigenous population. He also heads the federation of Bolivia's coca growers' trade associations. Morales has stoutly defended the right of indigenous Andean peoples to cultivate and chew coca leaf and has strongly opposed U.S. drug policy. In 2008, Morales expelled the U.S. ambassador and agents of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency. (5) In 2009, Bolivia proposed amending the Convention to delete its provisions barring coca leaf. (6) This proposal did not gain sufficient support and failed. Following failure of its proposed amendment to exclude coca leaf, Bolivia in June 2011 notified the UN secretary-general that it was denouncing the Convention. In accordance with Article 46(2) of the Single Convention, the denunciation took effect on January 1, 2012.

Bolivia then tried another approach. It sought to accede to the Single Convention subject to a new reservation allowing the cultivation and consumption of coca leaf for limited purposes only in Bolivia. (7) The reservation provides:

The Plurinational State of Bolivia reserves the right to allow in its...