On 19 November 1948, at Paris, the Protocol Bringing under International Control Drugs outside the Scope of the Convention of 13 July 1931 for Limiting the Manufacture and Regulating the Distribution of Narcotic Drugs, as amended by the Protocol signed at Lake Success on 11 December 1946, was signed. Approved by the General Assembly in resolution 211 (III) of 8 October 1948. Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish, equally authentic. Depositary: the Secretary-General of the United Nations. It is not the 1961 Single Convention, which later terminates and replaces it as between the parties thereto, and not the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances.

The preamble: the progress of modern pharmacology and chemistry has resulted in the discovery of drugs, particularly synthetic drugs, capable of producing addiction, but not covered by the 1931 Convention; the desire to complete that Convention and to place these drugs, including their preparations and compounds, under control, so as to limit by international agreement their manufacture to the world’s legitimate requirements for medical and scientific purposes and to regulate their distribution.

Article 1: any Party which considers that a drug used or capable of being used for medical or scientific purposes, to which the 1931 Convention does not apply, is liable to the same kind of abuse and productive of the same kind of harmful effects as the drugs specified in article 1, paragraph 2, of that Convention, shall send a notification, with all material information, to the Secretary-General, who shall transmit it immediately to the other Parties, to the Commission on Narcotic Drugs of the Economic and Social Council and to the World Health Organization. If WHO finds that the drug is capable of producing addiction or of conversion into a product capable of producing addiction, it shall decide whether the drug falls under the regime of group I or group II of article 1, paragraph 2, of the 1931 Convention. Communication to Members of the United Nations, non-member Parties, the Commission and the Permanent Central Board. Upon receipt of the decision, the Parties shall apply the appropriate 1931 regime.

Article 2: the Commission on Narcotic Drugs shall consider whether the measures applicable to group I of 1931 should apply provisionally pending WHO’s finding; if so, the Secretary-General shall communicate the decision to the Parties, WHO and the Permanent Central Board, and the measures shall thereupon apply provisionally. Article 3: revision in the light of further experience, in accordance with the procedure of the chapter. Article 4: the Protocol does not apply to raw opium, medicinal opium, coca leaf or Indian hemp as defined in the Geneva Convention of 19 February 1925, or to prepared opium as defined in the Hague Convention of 23 January 1912.

Article 5: open to Members of the United Nations and to non-member States invited by ECOSOC; signature without reservation as to acceptance, signature subject to acceptance, or acceptance by deposit of a formal instrument with the Secretary-General. Article 6: entry into force upon the expiration of thirty days after twenty-five or more States, including five of China, Czechoslovakia, France, the Netherlands, Poland, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the USSR, the United States and Yugoslavia, have signed without reservation or accepted. The United Nations Treaty Series records 1 December 1949, No. 688, volume 44, p. 277. Article 8: territorial extension, from the thirtieth day. Article 9: denunciation after five years; if received on or before 1 July, it takes effect on 1 January of the succeeding year. Article 11: registration under Article 102 of the Charter. DONE at Paris, in a single copy, deposited in the archives of the United Nations.

Palais de Chaillot, Paris. Seat of the third session of the General Assembly in 1948, not the confirmed signing hall of the Protocol. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

For context: Protocol Bringing under International Control Drugs outside the Scope of the 1931 Convention. The text: UNTS vol. 44, No. 688.