tantamount to the ratification of the 1912 Hague Convention on drugs.
International documents approved following the Hague Convention just
filled in the gaps and developed its provisions. The need for such
documents was prompted by the continuous expansion of drug addiction, and
of the illegal trade and smuggling of various narcotics. These documents
are kept within the demands of the present problems that had been approved
at the international level. They had defined more precisely and expanded
the range of questions pertaining to the regulation of the issue on the
basis of international law. They also involved more and more countries
concerned about combating narcotics.
The growing threat from narcotics was evident from a series of
international acts on drugs. Apart from that, however, the passing of these
acts marked an important stage in international relations. They affirmed
the principle that international law was bound to help organize and ensure
control over drugs. The case in point was the Agreement banning the
production, domestic trade and use of refined opium. It was signed on
February 11th 1925 at the Geneva Opium conference.
Following the signing of the Versailles Peace Treaty and the founding
of the League of Nations this conference was the first to discuss the issue
of narcotics.
Its official program envisaged the development of measures to implement
the decisions of the 1912 Hague Convention to limit and eliminate the
production, domestic trade and use of smoke opium. But according to
juridical literature, the Conference in reality expressed the latent
interests of the colonial powers- the signatories of the above mentioned
Agreement.
The Geneva Conference of 1925 Agreement of February 11th, 1925:
The Agreement provided for the establishment of monopoly associations
on the territories and domains controlled by these powers to deal with the
opium turnover, for handing over the production of smoke opium to the state
monopoly, as well as conducting anti-opium propaganda.
The general control over the implementation of the Agreement's
provisions concerning the trade in opium was placed upon the League of
Nations- an international body set up in accordance with the Versailles
peace treaty.
One of the provisions of this Agreement stipulated the need to study
the state of control over smoke opium in the Far East. This study was
carried out, practically for the first time in world practice, by a Special
Commission appointed by the League of Nations Assembly in 1928.
The results of the study were examined in Bangkok and paved the way for
the signing of the Bangkok Agreement of November 27th 1931, which banned
opium smoking. The Agreement entered into force only in April 1937.
The Bangkok Agreement of 1931:
The Bangkok Agreement added some new provisions to the Geneva Agreement of
11th February 1925. These new provisions made retail trade in opium
possible only by government institutions; established criminal offence for
persons under 21 years of age who visited opium dens; legally regulated the
sale of smoke opium for cash and so on and so forth.
However, prior to the Bangkok Agreement, in view of the deterioration
of the drug situation in the world in the postwar period, the second Geneva
Opium Conference passed an Opium Convention that was signed in Geneva on
19th February 1925 and entered into force in September 1928.
The Opium Convention of 1925:
It underlined that there was no way to end drug abuse and drug
smuggling unless the production of those drugs was reduced considerably and
a more stringent control over their international trade was introduced than
the one stipulated by the 1912 Hague convention.
For this end, the 1925 Convention stipulated some legal and
organizational measures against drug abuse both at the international and
domestic levels.
This Convention confirmed the principles of the 1912 Hague Convention
and, what is more, it firmly established that drugs could be produced only
for the legal purposes of states, having defined what these legal purposes
were. Of principal importance was the decision to put several more kinds of
raw materials which drugs could be produced from (coca leaves, raw cocaine,
and cannabis) on the list of the controlled substances (in addition to the
ones named by the 1912 Hague Convention). Moreover, the Convention was
applicable to any substance, which, in accordance with the conclusion drawn
by an authorized body, could cause the same harmful consequences as the
substances listed in the Convention.
To exercise domestic control over narcotic substances the parties to
the Convention agreed to the following pledges: to pass national laws that
would ensure the control over the production, dissemination and exportation
of raw opium and to systematically revise and toughen those to the extent
that the articles of the Convention would require; to limit the use,
production, importation, sale, distribution, export, and application of
narcotics exclusively to medical and scientific purposes; to exercise
control over the activities of persons who were allowed to produce, import,
export, sell, distribute and use drugs and also to exercise control over
premises where these persons work with drugs or traded in them; to curtail
the number of ports, cities and other populated centers where the
importation and exportation of narcotics would be permitted and to pass
through and adopt domestic legislation that would envisage punitive
measures for the violations of the Convention's provisions.
To exercise international control over narcotic substances the
Convention stipulated adoption of the following measures: to introduce a
system of evaluation and estimation of a country's domestic need in
narcotics for medical, scientific and other purposes in the up-coming year;
to hand in statistics connected with drugs (in a special form and at
definite periods of time); to establish control over international trade in
drugs and to also establish firm rules for the importation and exportation
of drugs (to import and export narcotics only if there is a special written
permission, as outlined by the Convention; to regulate the order of transit
shipments and the storage of drugs at stores of third countries to prevent
their possible leakage from the legal circulation during their shipments
and storage); to establish control over the compliance with all commitments
taken by the countries- parties to the Convention; to place the exercise of
that control on a newly organized international body called the Permanent
Central Committee (later its official name changed several times, although
most of the time, it was known as "The Permanent Central Committee on
Narcotic Substances").
The Convention also stressed the need for cooperation between countries
in preventing the use of narcotic substances for purposes other than
designated. It stipulated that the exchange of information about laws and
decisions on the implementation of the proclaimed principles (using the
services of Secretary General) would be a concrete form of this
cooperation.
To put it in a nutshell, the Convention defined the content and forms
of realization of international control over narcotics. It introduced a
system of licensing and recording foreign trade operations of drugs and
obliged the member countries to submit detailed statistics about such
operations.
The convention on the limitation of production and the regulation of
the distribution of narcotic substances signed on July 13th 1931 in Geneva
proved to be another link in the international control system.
The Convention of 1931:
That Convention meant to introduce amendments to the two already
existing conventions in force, those of 1912 and of 1925. It contained the
following additions: uniform definition of notions, through the control
over drugs. Alternative versions of such notions as "production",
"refining", "processing", "storage reserves", "state storage reserves",
"import-export" and others were removed. For the first time, a list of
medicines containing drugs was established and production, processing, use,
exportation and importation of them would now be controlled. The system of
evaluating and estimating the overall demand for drugs in all countries
regardless of their membership in the given Convention was perfected.
Accountability for the commitments of member governments was enhanced. A
special agency, the Control Commission, was set up to study data from
governments about the quantity of narcotics and accounts about their
receipt and use. In case the Commission found any deviations or the demand
for drugs was too large in its judgment, the Commission had the right to
question the examined figures and carry out its own calculations. The
extradition of criminals was envisaged (under certain conditions) for
committing crimes linked to drugs. The convention stipulated that member-
countries had to have norms in their national legislation concerning the
criminal punishment of persons who encouraged the illegal spread of the
most dangerous forms of drugs.
The Convention also contained some administrative decisions aimed at
perfecting the domestic control over drugs. It urged member-countries, in
particular, to set up a special body that was to apply the Convention's
decisions; regulate, supervise and control the trade in medicines on the
Convention's list; act against toxicomania using all possible measures for
halting its development, and bar, in particular, the illegal trafficking of
toxic substances.
Under the Convention cooperation between member-countries expanded
considerably. Along with the traditional exchange of the texts of legal
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