Paris: How the Union Is Administered, Articles 13 to 18

In one line

The Paris Union has an Assembly of its members, an Executive Committee, and a secretariat that is the International Bureau of WIPO, and the administrative articles can be amended by the Assembly while the substantive ones can be changed only by a diplomatic conference.

In exam wording: Articles 13 to 17 of the Paris Convention establish the Assembly of the Union, the Executive Committee, the International Bureau and the finances of the Union, and provide for amendment of Articles 13 to 17 by the Assembly, Article 18 reserving revision of Articles 1 to 12 and 18 to 30 to a conference of representatives of the countries of the Union.

Why the Convention has these articles at all

Because a Union needs a body that can act. Somebody has to publish, to collect contributions, to convene conferences and to keep the register of accessions.

And because the substantive articles were unamendable in practice. Every revision of Articles 1 to 12 needed a diplomatic conference and unanimity, and the last one was at Stockholm in 1967. The Stockholm Act created a machinery that could adapt without one, and the amendment of 1979 used it.

Article 13: the Assembly

Article 13(1)(a): the Union shall have an Assembly consisting of those countries of the Union which are bound by Articles 13 to 17.

Article 13(2)(a) sets out the tasks. The Assembly deals with all matters concerning the maintenance and development of the Union and the implementation of the Convention; gives directions to the International Bureau concerning revision conferences; reviews and approves the reports and activities of the Director General concerning the Union; elects the members of the Executive Committee; reviews and approves the Executive Committee's reports; determines the programme and adopts the biennial budget of the Union and approves its final accounts; adopts the financial regulations; establishes such committees and working groups as it considers appropriate; determines which countries not members of the Union and which intergovernmental and international non governmental organisations shall be admitted as observers; adopts amendments to Articles 13 to 17; takes any other appropriate action designed to further the objectives of the Union; and performs such other functions as are appropriate under the Convention.

Article 13(3): each country has one vote.

Article 13(4): the Assembly meets in ordinary session once every two years, convened by the Director General, and in extraordinary session on the request of the Executive Committee or of one fourth of the member countries.

Article 13(5): one half of the countries members of the Assembly constitutes a quorum, with a mechanism allowing decisions taken with a smaller quorum to become effective if enough countries later communicate their vote in writing.