This agreement was opened for signature at Lake Success on May 4, 1949. It was ratified by the Senate of the United States on July 6, 1950. Ratified by President Truman on August 7, 1950 and the Instrument of Ratification of the United States deposited with the United Nations on August 14, 1950. On November 25, 1950 the President proclaimed the treaty with the following statement:
"Be it known that I, Harry S.Truman, President of the United States of America do hereby proclaim and make public the said protocol amending the agreement for the suppression of the circulation of obscene publications signed at Paris on May 4, 1910 to the end that the said protocol and every article and clause thereof and the said amendments set forth in the annex to the protocol shall be observed and fulfilled with good faith on and after August 14, 1950 by the United States of America and by the citizens of the United States."Rather than attempt to summarize this Treaty as amended by the 1949 Protocol and designated "Annex to the Protocol," we shall repeat some of the language of the agreement as amended by the Protocol and as translated into English as follows:
Agreement for the Supression of the Circulation of Obscene Publications, Signed at Paris on May 4, 1910, As Amended by the Protocol, Signed at Lake Success, New York, on May 4, 1949.
Article 1 Each one of the Contracting Powers undertakes to establish or designate an authority charged with the duty of:The Contracting Governments shall mutually make known to one another, through the Secretary-General of the United Nations, the authority established or designated in accordance with the present article.
- Centralizing all information which may facilitate the tracing and suppression of acts constituting infringements of their municipal law as to obscene writings, drawings, pictures or articles, and the constitutive elements of which bear an international character;
- Supplying all information tending to check the importation of publications or articles referred to in the foregoing paragraph and also to insure or expedite their seizure all within the scope of municipal legislation.
- Communicating the laws that have already been or may subsequently be enacted in their respective states in regard to the object of the present Agreement.
Article 2 The authority designated in Article 1 shall be empowered to correspond directly with the like service established in each one of the Contracting States.
Article 3 The authority designated in article 1 shall be bound, if there be nothing contrary in the municipal law of its country, to communicate bulletins of the sentences passed in the said country to the similar authorities of all the other Contracting States in cases of offenses coming under Article 1.
Note On May 16, 2001, Mr. Andrey Kolomoyets, Legal Officer in the Treaty Section of the United Nations verified that both treaties are currently in effect.International Convention for the Suppression of the Circulation and Traffic in Obscene Publications
Article 1 The High Contracting Parties agree to take all measures to discover, prosecute and punish any person engaged in committing any of the following offenses, and accordingly agree that it shall be a punishable offense.Article 2 Persons who have committed an offence falling under Article 1 shall be amenable to the Courts of the Contracting Party in whose territories the offense, or any of the constitutive elements of the offense, was committed. They shall also be amenable, when the laws of the country shall permit it, to the Courts of the Contracting Party whose nationals they are, if they are found in its territories, even if the constitutive elements of the offense were committed outside such territories.
- For purposes of or by way of trade or for distribution or public exhibition to make or produce or have in possession obscene writings, drawings, prints, paintings, printed matter, pictures, posters, emblems, photographs cinematograph films or any other obscene objects;
- For the purpose above mentioned, to import, convey or export or cause to be imported,conveyed or exported any of the said obscene matters or things, or in any manner whatsoever put them into circulation;
- To carry or take part in a business, whether public or private, concerned with any of the said obscene matters or things, or to deal in the said matters or things in any manner whatsoever, or to distribute them or to exhibit them publicly or to make a business of lending them;
- To advertise or make known by any means whatsoever, in view of assisting in the said punishable circulation or traffic, that a person is engaged in any of the above punishable acts, or to advertise or make known how or from whom the said obscene matters or things can be procured either directly or indirectly.
Each contracting party shall, however, the right to apply the maximum non bis in idem in accordance with the rules laid down in its legislation.
Article 4 Those of the Contracting Parties whose legislation is not at present adequate to give effect to the present Convention undertake, or to propose to their respective legislatures, the measures necessary for this purpose.
Article 5 Those of the Contracting Parties whose legislation is not at present sufficient for the purpose agree to make provision for the searching of any premises where there is reason to believe that the obscene matters or things mentioned in Article 1 or any thereof are being made or deposited for any of the purposes specified in the said Article or in violation of its provisions, and for their seizure, detention and destruction.
Article 6 The Contracting Parties agree that, in case of any violation of the provisions of Article 1 on the territory of one of the Contracting Parties where it appears that the matter or thing in respect of which the violation of such Article has occurred was produced in or imported from the territory of any other of the Contracting Parties, the authority designated in pursuance of the Agreement of May 4, 1910 of such Contracting Party shall immediately render to the corresponding authority of the other Contracting Party, from whose country such matter or thing is believed to have come or in which it is believed to have been produced, full information so as to enable such authority to adopt such measures as shall appear to be suitable.
Article 14 A special record shall be kept by the Secretary General of the United Nations showing which of the parties have signed, ratified, acceded to or denounced the present Convention. This record shall be open at all times to any of the Members of the United Nations or any non member State to which the Secretary General has communicated a copy of the convention.
It shall be published as often as possible.
Article 16 Upon a request for a revision of the present Convention by five of the signatory or adherent parties to the Convention the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations shall call a conference for that purpose. In any event the Council will consider the desirability of calling a conference at the end of each period of five years.
Notes: The following states by reason of Article 10 of the 1923 Treaty automatically accepted the 1910 Treaty: Afghanistan, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Japan, Paraguay. The last country to adhere to the 1910 Convention was Zimbabwe on December 1, 1998.
Notes: Denmark denounced its participation in the 1923 convention as amended on August 16, 1967. The Netherlands denounced the convention on July 30, 1985.
It suggests that a new Treaty is required which possibly could take the form of an amendment to the 1910 or 1923 treaties but probably should stand alone to meet the requirements of the telecommunications revolution. The 1910 Treaty is essentially a simple notification project. The 1923 Treaty only requires that the member states enact obscenity laws. There is no concentration on or appropriate regulation of trans-border obscenity, which is obviously required. The proposed Treaty's necessity and nature are as outlined herein.
In order to determine the need for an International Treaty on Trans-Border Transmission of Obscenity utilizing Satellites or the Internet, we must first examine the nature and extent of these mediums of communication.Memorandum To Support A Proposal for an International Treaty on Internet and Satellite Obscenity
A case decided by the United States Supreme Court, American Civil Liberties Union v. Reno on June 26, 1997, affords us the insight we need to determine the remarkable expansion of Internet use and the World Wide Impact resulting therefrom.
That case tells us that the Internet is a giant network which interconnects innumerable smaller groups of linked computer networks.
The Internet, says Reno, has experienced extraordinary growth in recent years expanding from 300 linked computers in 1981 to approximately 9,500,000 linked computers worldwide today. It is a reasonable estimate that 200 million people are Internet users today.
Within the Internet complex there exists a World Wide Web as a series of documents stored in different computers all over the Internet. Such documents include text, still images, sounds and videos that can normally be accessed by a computer anywhere in the world.
Various entrepreneurs around the world have abused this international communication device as shown by a study of the Carnegie Mellon Institute, described below, to transmit or make available for transmission various depictions of explicit sexual acts and activities including; masturbation, copulation, pedophilia, sadomasochism, fellatio, bestiality, necrophilia, oralism and cunnilingus, as well as advertisements for the same.
The domestic laws of many of the nations contain restrictions on the dissemination of obscene material including the Internet and via satellite.
The domestic laws of the various nations are inadequate to control the trans-border, trans-national transmission of obscenity because of extraterritorial origin.
It is patently obvious that the only way to inhibit trans-border, trans-national transmission of obscenity is by means of International Agreement in the nature of a Treaty.
In a study entitled "Marketing Pornography on the Information Highway", the Carnegie Mellon Institute in the United States (Georgetown Law Journal Vol. 83:1848 et seq) conducted an indepth review of 917,410 pornographic images, descriptions, short stories and animations which were downloaded 8.5 million times by consumers in over 2000 cities in forty countries provinces and territories and determined that pornographers are using the internet on a World Wide Basis including servicing consumers in China, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, South Africa, Chile, Malaysia, Hungary, Trinidad and Tobago, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Nigeria and Japan. The study confirmed that images of sadomasochism, fisting, urophilia, coprophilia, voyeurism, bestiality, incest, fellatio, sexual intercourse and anal penetration are found on numerous such sites.
In addition, in order to show the Harms to both adults and children resulting from the existence of obscenity, including transnational obscenity, read the The Harmful Effects of Pornography by Paul J. McGeady, Director of the National Obscenity Law Center, on our Porn's Effects page.
It is not necessary to expound on the fact that Satellite transmission of Obscenity brings with it the same evils that result from Trans-Border, Trans-National Internet Obscenity. To the extent that any outstanding Convention or Treaty mandates that a recipient nation of such satellite obscenity not attempt to block it, if it comes from a nation that has legalized the same, such a provision, which violates the spirit and the letter of the various conventions mentioned in the attached proposal should, to the extent it conflicts with this proposed Convention be considered to be superseded and, if necessary, a Protocol to that effect may be added by States signatory hereto.