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The significant feature about the Convention was that it not only proclaimed the need for cooperation among countries in establishing control over the use of narcotics but also outlined what needed to be accomplished. One of these accomplishments was the duty of countries to exchange, via the Dutch government, texts of legal acts and statistics on drugs.
The 1912 Hague Convention, however, failed to bring practical results, largely because of World War I, which began soon after the passing of the Convention. It was put into force only with the signing of the Versailles and other peace treaties which specified that their ratification was 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.
Реферат опубликован: 14/12/2009