Article 17

SPECIAL ADMINISTRATION

The Parties shall maintain a special administration for the purpose of applying the provisions of this Convention.

Commentary

1. There is a need for co-ordinating the work of the various departments of a central national Government and its political subdivisions which perform the various tasks involved in carrying out the provisions of the international narcotics treaties, and more generally in dealing with the problem of drug abuse. Arrangements must also be made on the national level to ensure that each communication of an international organ relating to drug control is routed to the national Government agency which is competent in the special sphere of drug control in question. Such routing facilitates an appropriate response, either by taking the required national action or by furnishing to the international organ the requested information, as the case may be.

2. The constitutional, legal and administrative systems of many countries do not allow the establishment of a single authority for the implementation of all the provisions of the international narcotics regime, which require action in very different substantive fields. The Plenipotentiary Conference which adopted the 1931 Convention therefore limited itself to recommending to Governments to consider the desirability of establishing a single authority,1 while the treaty itself imposed on the Parties only a legal obligation to maintain a "special administration" for the purposes of applying the provisions of the Convention, of regulating, supervising and controlling the trade in drugs subject to the Convention, and of organizing the campaign against drug addiction by taking all useful measures to prevent its development and to suppress the illicit traffic. 2 It was understood by the participants in the Conference of 1931 that the term "special administration" did not mean a "single authority", as can be seen from the debates 3 and also from the recommendation just referred to, by which the Conference only recommended that Governments should "consider the desirability of establishing" a single authority. This understanding has also been confirmed by the subsequent practice of the Parties, and by the League of Nations documents interpreting the terms of the 1931 Convention. 4 Parties to the 1931 Convention have in most cases implemented their obligation to establish a "special administration" by taking some special administrative arrangements to provide for liaison among their various national agencies charged with functions of drug control, and to co-ordinate the work of such agencies in its domestic and international aspects. Many countries have made a special unit in one of their central government departments responsible for this task of liaison and co-ordination. 5

3. The term "special administration" has nevertheless sometimes given rise to misunderstandings. At the Plenipotentiary Conference there was some opposition to using this term, since it could be understood to mean a "single authority". When adopting the text of article 17, the delegates to the Conference made it clear that they used the term "special administration" in the same sense as this phrase was used in the 1931 Convention, and that they did not mean to impose an obligation to establish a "single authority", but only to require the maintenance of some national administrative arrangements for liaison and co-ordination. The Conference found it superfluous to state this expressly in the treaty itself, since the Conference Records were very clear on this point. e

4. See also article 35, paragraph (a) of the Single Convention regarding arrangements at the national level for co-ordination of preventive and repressive action against the illicit traffic; and articles 11 and 12 of the 1936 Convention requiring the Parties to establish a national "central office" for the supervision and co-ordination of all operations in the fight against the illicit traffic and for international co-operation in this area.
 

1 Recommendation I Records of the Conference for the Limitation of the Manufacture of Narcotic Drugs; League of Nations, document C.509.M.214.1931.X1, vol. I p. 415.

2 Article 15, second para. of the 1931 Convention.

3 League of Nations document referred to in foot-note 1, vol. 1, pp. 186, 201 and 251.

4 Commentary on the 1931 Convention, para. 162; see also Model Code, p. 7.

5 Others have established to this end interdepartmental committees; Records, vol. 1I p. 250.

6 Records, vol. 1I p. 278, foot-note 87 and page 289, foot-note 56; see also Conference document E/CONF. 34/L.18, Records, vol. 1I p. 63-65; for the discussions, see Records, vol. I pp. 36 and 120-122 and vol. 1I pp. 249-254.