On 11 December 1946, at Lake Success, New York, the Protocol amending the Agreements, Conventions and Protocols on Narcotic Drugs concluded at The Hague on 23 January 1912, at Geneva on 11 February 1925, 19 February 1925 and 13 July 1931, at Bangkok on 27 November 1931 and at Geneva on 26 June 1936 is signed. It is not the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs and not the Paris Protocol of 19 November 1948.

The preamble records that the League of Nations had been invested with duties and functions under those instruments, that provision must be made after the dissolution of the League, and that those duties should henceforth be performed by the United Nations and by the World Health Organization or its Interim Commission. The authentic texts of the Protocol are Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish. The Annex, which sets out the amended instruments, is authentic in English and French only.

Article I binds the Parties, as between themselves and for the instruments to which each is a party, to give full legal force to the amendments in the Annex and to apply them. Article II authorizes the Secretary-General of the United Nations to perform at once the duties hitherto discharged by the Secretary-General of the League. Until the amendments to the 1925 and 1931 conventions enter into force, the Permanent Central Board and the Supervisory Body continue as constituted; vacancies on the Board may be filled by the Economic and Social Council. If the World Health Organization is not yet able to assume its functions, they are performed provisionally by its Interim Commission.

Article III transfers to the United Nations Secretary-General the functions conferred on the Netherlands Government by articles 21 and 25 of the 1912 Hague Convention and entrusted to the League Secretary-General, with Dutch consent, by the Assembly resolution of 15 December 1920. Article IV requires the Secretary-General to prepare the revised texts. Article V opens the Protocol to signature or acceptance by States Parties to the six instruments to which a copy has been communicated. Article VI allows a State to become a Party by signature without reservation as to approval, by signature subject to approval followed by acceptance, or by acceptance through deposit of a formal instrument with the Secretary-General.

Article VII provides that the Protocol comes into force for each Party on the date of signature without reservation or of deposit of acceptance. The Annex amendments come into force for each instrument when a majority of the Parties thereto have become Parties to the Protocol. On the same day, among those signing without reservation are Afghanistan, Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, India, Iran, Mexico, New Zealand, Pakistan, Poland, the United Kingdom, the Dominican Republic, Syria, Turkey and the Byelorussian SSR. The United States later accepts, on 12 August 1947. The amendments to the Convention of 13 July 1931 come into force on 10 October 1947.

Article VIII requires registration and publication of the amendments under Article 102 of the Charter. Article IX deposits the Protocol in the archives of the United Nations Secretariat. A certified copy, including the Annex, is to be sent to the Parties to the 1912–1936 instruments, to Members of the United Nations and to the non-member States mentioned in Article IV. The Commission on Narcotic Drugs, appointed by the Economic and Social Council, takes over the policy functions of the League Advisory Committee on Traffic in Opium and Other Dangerous Drugs.

It is not the first session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs, and not the 1936 Convention as such, but the transfer of its functions to the United Nations. It is not the 1961 Single Convention, which later superseded this Protocol except as it affected the 1936 Convention.

Image: United Nations meeting hall, Lake Success; Willem van de Poll, June 1948; CC0, Wikimedia Commons / Nationaal Archief. Cropped to 16:9.

Source consulted: 1946 Lake Success Protocol. Treaty text: Protocol amending the Agreements, Conventions and Protocols on Narcotic Drugs, Lake Success, 11 December 1946.