The Director General of the World Intellectual Property Organization welcomed the deposit of the instrument of accession of Yemen to the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property on November 15, 2006. The said International Convention will enter into force in the country on February 15, 2007.
The instrument of accession, however, declares that pursuant to Article 28 (2) of the Paris Convention, Yemen does not consider itself bound by the provisions of Article 28 (1) of the Convention. According to Article 28 (1), any dispute between two or more countries of the Union concerning the interpretation or application of the Convention, not settled by negotiation, may, by any one of the countries concerned, be brought before the International Court of Justice unless the countries concerned agree on some other method of settlement. Therefore, with regard to any dispute between Yemen and any other country of the Union, the provisions of paragraph 1 of Article 28 shall not apply.
By way of background, the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property now has a total of 171 contracting member states, which makes it one of the most widely adopted treaties worldwide. Contracting member states from our region include: Algeria, Bahrain, Cyprus, Djibouti, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. Notably, Kuwait is still not party to the Convention.
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