International Organizations and Drug Policy in Latin America & the Caribbean

April 12, 2024 - 5:00 pm

Room 9207
The Graduate Center, CUNY

Over the past decade the Western Hemisphere has been the center of intense debates over drug policy. For fifty years the region has been the center of a global war on drugs that has resulted in marked bloodshed and suffering. The Andean region is the source of the world’s cocaine supply and Mexican criminal organizations dominate a great deal of the global supply chain for that and other narcotics. While some leaders such as Gustavo Petro of Colombia and Gabriel Boric of Chile have pushed for drug policy reforms, others such as Nayib Bukele of El Salvador have adopted ever more repressive policies. This talk by Arlene Tickner, senior diplomat at Colombia’s Mission to the United Nation and an international relations expert, will discuss regional debates about drug policy reforms and the role of international organizations in that process.

Arlene B. Tickner (Ph.D., University of Miami) is the Deputy Permanent Representative of Colombia to the United Nations. Before her current role, Dr. Tickner was a Professor of International Relations and Director of Research at the School of Political Science, Government and International Relations at the Universidad del Rosario, Bogotá, Colombia. She also taught at the Universidad de los Andes for over two decades. Her research focuses on Latin American and hemispheric security, foreign policy, and the international politics of the global south. She is the co-founder (with Ole Wæver) and co-editor (with David Blaney and Inanna Hamati-Ataya) of the Routledge book series, “Worlding beyond the West.”

Moderator: Desmond Arias, Bildner Center/Graduate Center, CUNY

TO REGISTER send email to bildner@gc.cuny.edu