The Advisory Committee would continue to work on [the illicit traffic], which was [a task] peculiarly its own, even if it handed over some part of its functions to the Permanent Central Board .... Life was dear to the Committee and it would not abandon it lightly.
Opium Advisory Committee (1929)

So far, we have dealt with the key organs singly. But to understand the workings of the control apparatus, we must consider the relationship of these organs to each other. On the surface, and as is impressed upon one by the tone of their own reports, harmony and mutual respect prevail.

Anyone familiar with the literature on organizations will know that such a picture is deceptive. Organizations typically seek to expand, and such expansions often take the form of increasing claims over areas of responsibility, with subsequent invasion of the territories of other departments. Competition for resources and recognition reaches a point of conflict, accentuated on occasion by differences of opinion on a particular issue, or even by personal antagonism among top-level officials. History tells us that these have always been features of organizational life. Observable behavior has many causes, only some of which are determined by the role of the organ as officially prescribed, for example, in its terms of reference. The less rational elements figure importantly but are less susceptible to description. We are thus confined to a few concrete illustrations of the nature of the interrelations between the drug control bodies.

It has generally been acknowledged that the creation of the Board by the 1925 treaty followed from the loss of confidence in the Advisory Committee, whose narrow representation was subjected to heavy criticism. The creation of the Board injected a certain uneasiness into the Advisory Committee, and a much debated issue in its meetings was the precise relation of the Board to the League and the role of the secretariat of the Board. During one meeting, the decision was taken, by six votes to four, that the Board's secretariat should be part of the League. The votes were an indication of the extent to which opinions were divided on this question (OAC Minutes: 6th, 1924). That it was still not completely resolved in 1927 is suggested by the following statement in the minutes of the session held that year: "As regards the criticism directed against the Central Board, it was pointed out that the Board formed part of the machinery of the League" (OAC Minutes: 10th, 1927).

The Committee certainly felt threatened by the new Board and was at pains to guard the boundaries of its field of activity against capture by the Board. A traditional "gray area" was that of illicit traffic, in relation to which both the Committee and the Board had certain duties. For the Board to obtain early access to the data transmitted to the Committee by governments, its president had to write to the chairman of the Committee; but the Board put up barriers of red tape to discourage requests for information from the Committee. The excerpt of the letter from L. A. Lyall, the Board's first president, to Constantin Fotitch of the Committee, which we quoted in chapter 6, portrays the distance at which the Board held the Committee. A discussion by the Advisory Committee at its twelfth session of its relationship to the Board is revealing. The Portuguese representative, de Vasconcellos, said that:

It would . . . be a curious way to show friendly co-operation if the Central Board began its work by deciding to prevent the Advisory Committee from examining statistics which were absolutely indispensable to it. This would amount to lopping off a limb and the Committee could not submit to such an operation.

The Japanese representative, Sato, said:

In regard to [the] observation that to deprive the Advisory Committee of one of its most important duties, the examination of the annual statistics meant suicide for the Advisory Committee, [he] could not agree . . . the question of the illicit traffic was still before the Committee. (OAC: 12th, 1929: 23, 25).

The question of a joint secretariat of the Commission and the Board has attracted much debate. But, before discussing this question, we must mention another feature of the total set of relations. This is what is generally referred to as the "technical independence" of the Board. It has sometimes been claimed that the INCB and its secretariat have an existence independent of the UN. The legal basis for this claim is said to lie in the fact that the INCB's predecessors, the PCB and the DSB, existed before the UN itself existed, having been brought into life by special treaties, and that the INCB is likewise a "treaty organ." The following provisions in the Single Convention are invoked as supporting the argument:

— the expenses of the INCB are to be borne by the UN and by parties not members of the UN;
—the INCB elects its own president and other officers and adopts its own rules of procedure;
— ECOSOC, in consultation with the INCB, is to make arrangements to ensure the full technical independence of the INCB.

It would appear that this independence precludes the integration of the secretariats of the INCB and the Commission, or of the organs themselves.

On the other hand, arguments can be advanced against such an interpretation. Between parties to the Single Convention, the treaty, upon coming into force, terminates earlier narcotics treaties, except the 1936 Convention. Legally, the INCB is a creature of the Single Convention and it is to the "International Narcotics Control Board provided in the Single Convention" which the Vienna Convention refers in its first article. Furthermore, the Board is given through the Single Convention the functions of the PCB and the DSB with respect to the states which are parties to the earlier drug treaties but not to the Single Convention. Also, the provisions relating to expenses (article 6) and UN secretariat services (article 16) are the same for the INCB and the Commission. The latter article does not spell out the way in which these services are to be provided, although the administrative arrangements agreed to between the secretary-general and the PCB and endorsed by ECOSOC specify that the latter has to be consulted before budgetary and personnel decisions are taken. There is no legal impediment to having a single secretariat of the Commission and the Board and, indeed, the Division of Narcotic Drugs had proposed that such an arrangement be considered. "The agreement between the Secretary-General and the Board, intended to ensure its technical independence" could provide, the Division suggested, "for consultation of the Board in regard to the appointment and removal of members of the [single] secretariat" (E/CN. 7/AC.3/Rev. 1).

The General Assembly was also in favor of a joint secretariat. Its Fifth Committee's view on the subject was that "in as much as both units had been housed since 1955 in the European Office, it appeared illogical and wasteful to maintain the existing separate arrangements" (A/4336, 1959). However, the Commission, itself was against unification (E/3010/Rev.1), as was the Board, naturally. How the Board's insistence on keeping its secretariat separate from the Division has affected relations between the Division and the Board secretariat may only be surmised. It seems that personal factors are involved to a high degree in the whole question. When he was a staff member of the Division, Adolf Lande argued convincingly in favor of a single secretariat. However, when he was appointed secretary of the Board, his arguments were equally convincing in the other direction.

At the conference to amend the Single Convention in 1972, there was a debate on the role of the Board vis-à-vis the Commission—whether advisory, subordinate or otherwise. The balance of participation in decision-making by the drug control bodies eventually agreed to was one struck between attempts to vest the INCB with greater authority and independence on the one hand, and efforts to attenuate its influence on the other. The latter activity characterized the position of both the drug producing countries and the Soviet bloc, whose attitude was a mixture of opposition in principle, defence of sovereignty, and resistance to supranationalism. The USSR delegate at the conference was quick to point to the turnabout in the position of those countries which, during the drafting of the Vienna Convention, had opposed all proposals designed to enhance the power of the Board. Manufacturing countries generally tend to be in favor of strengthening the Board when it is a question of controlling opium production at source, but not so when "psychotropics" are involved.

Another source of conflict lies in the fact that WHO has been authorized by the treaties to recommend whether or not a drug should be placed under international control. Although the final decision rests with the Commission, there is little room, in fact, for decisions contrary to what WHO has recommended. Since the decisions on the control status of drugs have to be based on the findings of WHO as to whether, for instance, a substance "is liable to similar abuse and productive of similar ill effects as the drugs in Schedule I or Schedule II or is convertible into a drug," WHO virtually decides what type of control should be applied to a particular drug. There are misgivings on the part of the Division's officials about the competence of WHO, an organization in which the medical profession predominates, to decide about matters into which social and economic factors enter to such a large degree. Different perceptions of the boundaries of each other's competence have affected personal relations between the members of the secretariats of the organs concerned.

Mutual criticism is implied in the following interchange between the representatives of the Commission and WHO during the discussion of a WHO Expert Committee report containing remarks on the treatment of drug dependence through methadone maintenance (WHO/EC DD, 1965; 343):

Beedle (U.K. delegate on the Commission) said that: "It was also curious, having regard to the short duration of the Expert Committee's meeting, that it should have attempted to make such a generalized comment on so important a subject . . . . The Expert Committee should have adopted a more detached approach, instead of expressing enthusiasm, admittedly tempered with some caution, for the treatment methods described. The same
criticisms applied to the last paragraph of the section, dealing with community-oriented treatment; that was a very broad subject to be disposed of in four sentences, particularly since the Committee concluded by approving a broad philosophy."

Halbach (WHO representative) said that: " . . . all the conclusions of the medical profession must be reached on a strictly ethical and scientific basis. On the other hand, many members of the Commission represented law enforcement organs, which had
their own particular objectives and methods; this was the source of the Commission's difficulty in understanding the intentions of the Expert Committee in drafting section six of its report. The Commission tended to concentrate on the possible effect of that section on the general public, whereas scientists were concerned exclusively with facts" (E/CN.7/SR.537: 5-6).

A similar question may arise in relation to the INCB's confirmation or establishment of government estimates of yearly medical requirements. WHO may perceive itself as a more competent body to handle this question and, as we have seen, WHO has, in fact, lent its assistance to the Board in connection with this task. Within WHO itself, diverse role-perceptions exist between different units; for example, alcohol is traditionally approached from a psychiatric viewpoint and the other drugs from a predominantly pharmacological one.

Perception of one's own role is intimately linked to definitions of competence. At the Shanghai conference, for instance, a vote taken on the competence of the conference to discuss "medical aspects of the opium question" was narrowly defeated, seven votes to six, the latter cast mainly by countries which had in their delegations people with medical qualifications. The INCB has always been particularly concerned to underline its status as a treaty organ with fixed duties and its inability to do more or less, as the case may be, than what is laid down in the treaties. The WHO Expert Committee has gone beyond its original role as a classifier of drugs for international control.

Despite disagreements over the boundaries of each other's provinces, the drug control organs and particularly their secretariats do collaborate to a marked extent. Their interaction occurs at several levels. They attend each other's meetings, and they meet at conferences convened by other UN bodies or by groups outside the UN system. They travel abroad on missions together (see table 8.1). It is interesting to note how frequently INTERPOL has accompanied the Division on its missions: though peripheral to the key drug control machinery, INTERPOL has done this with greater frequency than even the Board and WHO. This is an indication of the importance of police matters in the business of these missions.

Relations between the key organs have been affected by the creation of the UN Fund for Drug Abuse Control, which, because of its unstructured position in the total system and its relatively brief history, we have so far discussed only in the context of other topics.

UNFDAC was established as a special trust fund for the purpose of securing "priority attention to urgent drug problems" without diminishing the resources of other programs, especially the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) (GE. 72- 17024, 1972). It was managed, in the initial year of its existence, by a personal representative of the secretary-general, who, assisted by three special consultants, had exclusive responsibility for the approval of projects financed by the Fund. The Division was given responsibilities for planning and executing programs, but the cooperation of other international organizations was repeatedly stressed. An interagency meeting of all the organizations concerned, in July 1971, endorsed "a system-wide approach to the global problem of drug abuse." The actual programs to be undertaken were outlined in a "Plan for Concerted Action against Drug Abuse" (E/CN.7/538) prepared by the Division. The immense list of projects which this plan contained was later subjected to much criticism by the Commission: not only did the estimated cost of the projects go far beyond the resources then available, there were no concrete suggestions as to the order of priorities (CND:24th, 1971: 88).

Difficulties were encountered soon after the Fund went into operation. Some of these were financial, but others had to do with the lack of coordination between the various involved agencies and the duplication of efforts which ensued. That it has not been possible to avoid the overlapping of efforts is evident from the resolution drafted at the Commission's twenty-fifth session (1973), enjoining the Division to study the coordination problem and ways of resolving it (E/CN.7/L.354). Two years after the Fund's establishment, the UN secretary-general decided on a new organizational structure for it vis-à-vis the other drug organs (See figure 8.1). As yet, no one has been permanently appointed to the post of executive director of the Fund, although the director of the Division is currently acting in that capacity, taking over from the secretary-general's personal representative the overall management of the Fund.

The establishment of the Fund has led other agencies hitherto uninvolved in drug matters, such as ILO and UNESCO, to stake their claims to drug control responsibilities, competence, and resources with consequent competition for business. Although the readiness of other agencies to interpret their mandates to include action on drugs as a result of the sudden availability of funds can lead to a broadening of the base on which present policy rests, it can also aggravate the difficulties of work coordination. Because the priorities for action adopted by the Fund are determined by the preferences of the contributing nations, the Commission, in spite of its being the policy-making organ, has had relatively little say in the setting up of programs financed by the Fund.
Interaction with the outside world is illustrated by table 8.2, which lists, among other organizations, the nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) which are represented at the sessions of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs. These represent diverse interests and are recognized pressure groups whose consultative status gives them facilites for lobbying. Their marked increase in number over the years is an indication of the growing attraction which the drug area holds for different interest groups in society.

Apart from the attendance by the International Council on Alcohol and Addictions (ICAA) at the more recent meetings of the WHO Expert Committee on Drug Dependence, participation of non-UN groups in the meetings of the drug control organs has been limited to the public sessions of the Commission.