In international law and international relations, a protocol is 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 not required 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.
Some examples: the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) established a framework for the development of binding greenhouse gas emission limits, while the Kyoto Protocol contained the limits later agreed upon.
Protocol is also a term used in computer science's object-oriented programming.
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