In international law and international relations, a protocol is generally a treaty or international agreement that supplements a previous treaty or international agreement. A protocol can amend the previous treaty, or add additional provisions. Parties to the earlier agreement are <answer>not required</answer> to adopt the protocol. Sometimes this is made clearer by calling it an "optional protocol", especially where many parties to the first agreement do not support the protocol.
Do parties to a treaty have an obligation to adopt a later protocol?
not required