Discussing International Drug Policy and Border Cooperation

Freerk Boedeltje, Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Institute for Regional Studies of the Californias at SDSU, and Constanza Sanchez Aviles, USD's Trans-Border Institute's visiting scholar, presented their individual research on international drug control regime and the San Diego- Tijuana Border.

Ms. Sanchez presented her research on the evolution of the international drug control regime, major obstacles to change and alternative domestic policies to punitive prohibitionism that are being implemented and discussed at the international level while Mr. Boedeltje will focus on the San Diego-Tijuana Border.

Constanza Sánchez Avilés is a PhD candidate in International Relations at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra and received her LL.M. at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra and M.A. in International Relations at the Barcelona Institute of International Studies (IBEI). Since 2007 she has worked as Teaching Assistant at the Department of Public International Law and International Relations at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, where she completed her master thesis, entitled "The US war on drugs in Latin America. A study of new forms of hegemonic action". Her research interests focus on political economy of illicit drugs, transnational organized crime and national and international drug control policies. She recently attended the 54th UN Commission on Narcotics Drugs Session, Vienna (2011), and the 4th Meeting of the Observatory of Organized Crime in Latin America and the Caribbean, San José de Costa Rica (2010). She has been visiting scholar at the University of Miami (2010) and did fieldwork on drug policies in Peru (2009). Among her recent publications: "Transnational organized crime and illegal drugs. Beyond the traditional conceptions of international security", and "Illicit drug trafficking as a new threat to international security. Linking theory and policy”, both included in collective works published by the Instituto Universitario General Gutiérrez Mellado, Ministry of Defense. Ms. Sánchez will be with the Trans-Border Institute until July 2012.

As a political geographer and border scholar, Dr. Freerk Boedeltje participated in large scale European Framework projects on cross border cooperation and geopolitics on the external borders of the European Union, in particular the Mediterranean. His research interest includes globalization, geopolitics, global city regions, and border research. At San Diego State University, Freerk is extending his research interests on to the San Diego-Tijuana region as well as the urban centers in Southern California. Originally from the Netherlands, his PhD in Human Geography is from the University of Eastern Finland where he worked as a researcher at the Karelian Institute and the department of Geography. Before appointment as post-doctoral researcher, Freerk was a visiting adjunct professor at San Diego State University from 2010.

Read Constanza Sánchez's paper, The International Drug Control Regime & the Global Drug 'Problem'.

Read Dr. Freerk Boedeltje's paper, Opportunities for Regional Collaboration on the Border: Sharing the European border experience with the San Diego/Tijuana region