The League of Nations and Drug Diplomacy: Japan and the 1931 Convention for Limiting the Manufacture

Abstract

Drug trafficking became one of the main manifestations of  transnational crime in the 20th century, and various  attempts were made to regulate it. The aim of this paper is  to present how Japan became directly responsible for the  final shape taken by the 1931 Convention for Limiting the  Manufacture and Regulating the Distribution of Narcotic  Drugs, one of the most relevant international drug  agreements of the first half of the 20th century. Subsequent agreements will demonstrate the concerns regarding the  repression of the narcotics trade, which has become a central element in the affirmation of a transnational  criminality. It analyses a set of printed sources produced  within the framework of the League of Nations between  1928 and 1931, in particular the minutes of the meetings of  the Advisory Committee on Traffic in Opium and Other  Dangerous Drugs, the technical body within the League of  Nations where the national representatives of various countries debated international agreements on the global trade and criminalisation of narcotics, the minutes of the  Conference that debated the construction of the 1931  Convention and the draft agreements and conventions debated during the Conference.