REPORT on the amendment of Rule 156 of Parliament"s Rules of Procedure (Right of petition)

27 April 1998

Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities
Rapporteur: Mr Sören Wibe

At the sitting of 22 October 1996 the President of Parliament announced that he had referred the proposal by Mr Dell"Alba for amendment of Rule 156 (Right of petition) of the Rules of Procedure to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities as the committee responsible (B4-1091/96).

At its meeting of 26 November 1996 the committee decided to draw up a report and appointed Mr Wibe rapporteur.

At the sitting of 24 April 1997 the President of Parliament announced that he had asked the Committee on Petitions for its opinion.

The Committee on the Rules of Procedure considered the draft report at its meetings of 9 October and 25 November 1997 and 17 March and 22 April 1998.

At the last meeting it adopted the proposal for a decision unanimously.

The following took part in the vote: Fayot, chairman; Filippi and Janssen van Raay, vice-chairmen; Wibe, rapporteur; Corbett, Dell"Alba, Brendan Patrick Donnelly, Hager and Voggenhuber (for Aglietta).

The report was tabled on 27 April 1998.

The deadline for tabling amendments will be indicated in the draft agenda for the relevant partsession.

A PARLIAMENT'S RULES OF PROCEDURE - PROPOSAL FOR A DECISION

Present text

Proposed new text

(Amendment 1)

Rule 156(2)

2. Petitions to Parliament shall show the name, occupation, nationality and permanent address of each signatory.

2. Petitions to Parliament shall show the name, occupation, nationality and permanent address of each petitioner.

(Amendment 2)

Rule 156(7a) (new)

7a. Unless the person submitting the petition asks for it to be treated in confidence, it shall be entered in a public register.

Decision amending Rule 156 of Parliament"s Rules of Procedure on the right of petition

The European Parliament,

– having regard to the proposal for amendment of its Rules of Procedure, B4-1091/96,

– having regard to Rule 163 of its Rules of Procedure,

– having regard to the report of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities and the opinion of the Committee on Petitions (A4-0158/98),

1. Decides to amend its Rules of Procedure as indicated above;

2. Instructs its President to forward this decision to the Council and Commission, for information.

B EXPLANATORY STATEMENT

1. The proposed amendment seeks to allow the submission of petitions via electronic media.

The relevant provision of Rule 156(2) of the Rules of Procedure (Right of petition) reads:

"2. Petitions to Parliament shall show the name, occupation, nationality and permanent address of each signatory."

Reference to the signatory implies that a petition must be personally signed by the petitioner if, with a view to further consideration, it is to be entered in a register pursuant to Rule 156(4) of the Rules of Procedure.

2. The committee should take the opportunity afforded by consideration of the proposed amendment referred to above in order to pursue two objectives:

a) to make the work of the Parliament more transparent by opening up communication channels to the public, i.e. to establish closer links between EP and the ordinary citizen,

b) to encourage the use of new communication technologies and open up for increased availability of EP documents, such as reports, minutes of debates, voting results etc. Ideally, the ordinary citizen should (via Internet) be able to find who has said what and who has voted so only hours after the event has taken place.

3. The level of public knowledge of the work of the EU institutions is recognised as being very poor. Public knowledge of the importance of the institutions in defending citizens" rights is even worse. Any measure that can draw attention to its achievements should therefore be welcomed. The introduction of a right to petition the Parliament by electronic means would be the subject of some publicity and promotion, that itself would publicise the workings and, hopefully, the Parliament"s work on petitions.

4. Furthermore it could be considered whether this modification is sufficient to achieve the objective of increasing "the opportunities for direct relations between the public and the European Union", as the proposed amendment of Mr. Dell"Alba (B4-1091/96) states.

In this context three points need to be addressed:

- What electronic means could be used to facilitate submission of petitions to Parliament?

- How could potential petitioners join an existing petition, that already takes up a matter concerning them also, rather than submitting a fresh petition?; and, following on from this,

- To what extent should Parliament publicise the work that it undertakes on petitions, and in particular its successes?

If electronic petitions are to be accepted there needs to be a study that covers:

- validation of origin (requirement, for example, to follow up electronic submission with a "traditional" dossier of supporting material);

- receipt, registration and handling of such submissions;

- security of transmission.

These are manageable, technical questions but it should be underlined that technical means must be found that correspond to the political will of Parliament, if Parliament decides to recommend in favour of accepting electronic submissions.

The Treaty establishes the right (repeated in Rule 156) for any citizen to address a petition, individually or "in association with others". In practice this latter provision has meant a petition being submitted at the same time by more than one person.

It can be imagined, however, that citizens might wish to associate themselves with a petition already submitted on a matter that directly concerns them. To do this, citizens must be able to know what petitions are before Parliament. The only reference in the Rules at present to information on petitions being divulged is that:

"Notice shall be given in Parliament of the petitions entered in the register...and the main decisions on the procedure to be followed...Such announcements shall be entered in the minutes of proceedings." Rule 158(1)

As all documents considered in plenary are in the public domain, therefore, the public already has access, in theory at least, to basic information on petitions. This is also available in the publicaccess EPOQUE database.

The European Parliament has recently launched its Website, Europarl. Although the site is still experimental and in constant evolution, it is currently constructed as a passive resource: it is designed for consultation and searching of information and documents held by the Parliament and any form of interaction (whether sending e-mail to Members or to staff or in any way engaging in forms of dialogue) are for the moment completely excluded.

There is understandable (if unjustified) concern about the operation, within the Europarl site, of unmanaged and unmanageable Internet/Newsnet newsgroups or discussion forums.

For the moment, e-mail is still largely considered as an internal communication tool and no provision is made for "institutional" e-mail addresses (e.g. "[e-mail]" or "[e-mail]") that would allow or encourage such electronic correspondence.

5. However, of all on-line forums or dialogues that could be opened on Europarl to EU citizens, one concerning the right to petition must be considered as a priority. There an immediacy in terms of people being able to submit, for the Parliament"s attention, complaints or concerns about application or non-application of European Community law.

The nature of the so-called "World Wide Web" is such as to allow an easy and secure means of searching and displaying information: as regards petitions, therefore, it could be imagined that a citizen could search all petitions as well as (for those that are declared public) the dossiers associated with them. This search would be conducted using the "classic" methods popular on the "Web", using keywords or other criteria.

In this way, citizens can easily learn about the right to petition, its practical consequences (in the follow-up that Parliament gives to them) and exercise their right by submitting an electronic petition in a suitable form.

6. Although there is no universally recognised system of validation of signatures via electronic mail, this is also true for documents submitted by fax, and indeed signature in itself does not ascertain the authenticity or the identity of any petitioner.

If, on a Website, a potential petitioner were required to submit a full name, occupation, nationality and permanent address, as required by the Rules, it would be a relatively simple matter once a petition was submitted, for a letter of confirmation of receipt to be sent automatically to the petitioner firstly confirming receipt of their petition and secondly asking them to re-confirm their proposal submitted by e-mail: rather than adding to the workload of the secretariat of the Petitions Committee, this could actually help alleviate and simplify procedures.

The question of asking for a letter of reconfirmation could be developed a little further: Should such a confirmation be needed for all petitions or only for electronic ones? Furthermore if 10.000 trade unions members send a petition, should not the letter of confirmation be sent to only the first name?

Regarding publicity of petitions, we could introduce the idea that the letter of reconfirmation includes a choice between "publicity" and "privacy". If the petitioner chose the former, then the petition should be openly available on the parliaments homepage.

7. Although there is a database containing all details of petitions registered with the Parliament this service is - for reasons of confidentiality - at present only accessible by a limited number of officials.

As the information is already available and as it would involve little work to transform the format of the database records into a format that could be used on a WorldWideWeb site, we should consider to what extent information about currently registered petitions may also be included on the site.

This would open up the possibility not only for potential petitioners to see petitions that might already have been submitted in their field of concern but would also allow citizens to see the wide range of petitions that are dealt with by the Committee and by the Parliament following complaints dealt with by the European Commission and even decisions of the European Court of Justice.

This can only clarify the image of the Parliament and give concrete evidence of the work that the Parliament has done and continues to do in bringing the Union close to its citizens and taking up issues that they directly feel concerned by.

8. Furthermore we should consider the idea of opening up for the possibility of associating to an already registered petition. One of the problems in this case is that of false associations, i.e. that manipulating the system might add thousands (or even millions) of false names to a petition. This problem must be addressed. Perhaps the best way is just to add a note to the petition when it is processed, that X number of people have expressed their support. I do believe that we should explicitly state that an association by name does not require any specific action on behalf of the EP, such as e.g. a letter of confirmation.

ANNEX

B4-1091/96

Proposed amendment to Rule 156 (Right of petition)

by Mr Dell"Alba,

The European Parliament,

- having regard to its resolution on the annual activity report (1995) of the Ombudsman of the European Union (A4-0176/96), in which it "requests that the citizens and residents of the Union should also be able to apply to the European Ombudsman via electronic communication systems, in order to improve the actual practicability of their right and create an important precedent for these new communications technologies for the benefit of both citizens and institutions",

- having regard to the reply to Question No 11/96 to the President (PE 165.831), which stated that "with regard to the admissibility of electronic mail sent by citizens, the requirement that petitions to Parliament be signed derives from Rule 156(2) of the Rules of Procedure",

- whereas the possibility of petitioning Parliament and appealing to the Ombudsman increases the opportunities for direct relations between the public and the European Union,

- whereas a written and uncertified signature does not provide any more guarantees regarding the identity of a petitioner than the attaching of a name to a text sent by electronic mail,

- whereas checks on the identity of petitioners can nevertheless be made once the admissibility of a petition has been established,

1. Decides to amend its Rules of Procedure as follows:

RULES OF PROCEDURE	PROPOSED AMENDMENT
Rule 156 Right of petition	Rule 156 Right of petition
1. Any citizen of the European Union, and any natural or legal person residing or having its registered office in a Member State, shall have the right to address, individually or in association with other citizens or persons, a petition to the European Parliament on a matter which comes within the European Union"s fields of activity and which affects him, her or it directly.	1. Any citizen of the European Union, and any natural or legal person residing or having its registered office in a Member State, shall have the right to address, individually or in association with other citizens or persons, a petition to the European Parliament on a matter which comes within the European Union"s fields of activity and which affects him, her or it directly.
2. Petitions to Parliament shall show the name, occupation, nationality and permanent address of each signatory.	2. Petitions to Parliament shall show the name, occupation, nationality and permanent address of each petitioner.
3. Petitions must be written in one of the official languages of the European Union.	3. Petitions must be written in one of the official languages of the European Union.
4. Petitions shall be entered in a register in the order in which they are received if they comply with the conditions laid down in paragraph 2; those that do not shall be filed, and the petitioner shall be informed of the reasons therefor.	4. Petitions shall be entered in a register in the order in which they are received if they comply with the conditions laid down in paragraph 2; those that do not shall be filed, and the petitioner shall be informed of the reasons therefor.
5. Petitions entered in the register shall be forwarded by the President to the committee responsible, which shall first ascertain whether the petitions registered fall within the sphere of activities of the European Union.	5. Petitions entered in the register shall be forwarded by the President to the committee responsible, which shall first ascertain whether the petitions registered fall within the sphere of activities of the European Union.
6. Petitions declared inadmissible by the committee shall be filed; the petitioner shall be informed of the decision and the reasons therefor.	6. Petitions declared inadmissible by the committee shall be filed; the petitioner shall be informed of the decision and the reasons therefor.
7. In such cases the committee may suggest to the petitioner that he contact the competent authority of the Member State concerned or of the European Union.	7. In such cases the committee may suggest to the petitioner that he contact the competent authority of the Member State concerned or of the European Union.
8. Where the committee deems it appropriate, it may refer the matter to the Ombudsman.	8. Where the committee deems it appropriate, it may refer the matter to the Ombudsman.
9. Petitions addressed to the European Parliament by natural or legal persons who are neither citizens of the European Union nor reside in a Member State nor have their registered office in a Member State shall be registered and filed separately. The President shall send a monthly record of such petitions received during the previous month, indicating their subject matter, to the committee responsible for considering petitions, which may request those which it wishes to consider.	9. Petitions addressed to the European Parliament by natural or legal persons who are neither citizens of the European Union nor reside in a Member State nor have their registered office in a Member State shall be registered and filed separately. The President shall send a monthly record of such petitions received during the previous month, indicating their subject matter, to the committee responsible for considering petitions, which may request those which it wishes to consider.

16 March 1998

OPINION

for the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities

on the amendment of Rule 156: Right of petition (report by Mr Wibe)

Committee on Petitions

Draftsman: Mrs Astrid Thors

PROCEDURE

At its meeting of 17-18 March 1997, the Committee on Petitions appointed Mrs Thors draftsman.

The Committee considered a draft interim opinion at its meetings of 24-25 September and 3-4 November 1997. At the latter meeting it adopted the draft interim opinion unanimously (PE 223.539/fin.).

It considered the draft opinion at its meeting of 16 March 1998 and adopted the conclusions unanimously.

The following Members took part in the vote : Mr Fontana, chairman; Mr Ullmann, vice-chairman; Mrs Thors, draftsman, vice-chairman; Mrs Banotti, Mr Gutierrez Dias, Mrs Heinisch, Mrs Kuhn, Mr Papakyriazis, Mr Perry, Mrs Schmidbauer, Mr Tamino.

I. INTRODUCTION

1. On behalf of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, Verification of Credentials and Immunities, Mr Wibe examined the question of amending Rule 156 of the Rules of Procedure, after the President of the Parliament, at the sitting of 22 October 1996, announced that he had referred to that committee a proposal on the subject by Mr Dell"Alba, pursuant to Rule 163(1) of the Rules of Procedure (B4-1091/96). On 24 April 1997 the Committee on Petitions was invited to deliver its opinion on the matter pursuant to Rule 147 of the Rules of Procedure.

When considering an initial working document by Mr Wibe (6 February 1997; PE 221.102), the Committee on Petitions held that, since on the one hand the position of the rapporteur and the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, Verification of Credentials and Immunities was not consolidated in amendments and, on the other hand, some factual research needed to be carried out on technical and administrative implications of Parliament"s use of computerized communication and information technology, it was expedient for the Committee to reserve its final opinion and to first deliver an interim opinion, sketching its position and making suggestions which might be useful in the rapporteur"s further work. For that reason, Mrs Thors drafted and interim opinion, which was considered by the Committee at its meetings of 24-25 September and 3-4 November 1997. At the latter meeting the Committee adopted the draft interim opinion unanimously (PE 223.539/fin.).

The draft report before the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, Verification of Credentials and Immunities proposes (amendment 1) to amend the wording of the last part of Rule 156(2) of the Rules of Procedure reading "...of each signatory." to read "...of each petitioner." The aim of the amendment is to enable petitions to be submitted in ways other than documents signed in the petitioner"s own hand, i.e. according to both Mr Dell"Alba and Mr Wibe, particularly by electronic means in the form of e-mail.

The draft report also proposes (amendment 2) to amend Rule 156 with a new para. 7a, reading "Unless the person submitting the petition asks for it to be treated in confidence, a summary of the petition and the related observations of the committee shall be entered in a publicly accessible register".

2. The following sets out the views of the Committee on Petitions on such amendments. As the amendments aim to broaden the scope of Parliament"s use of computerized communication and information technology (IT) in its work "to increase the opportunities for direct relations between the public and the European Union"[1], this issue will also be examined.

II. BACKGROUND

3. The Committee on Petitions finds the initiative aimed at enabling petitions to be submitted by electronic means commendable and in line with the Committee"s aims to better process petitions and to provide a clear account of the outcome.

III. RULE 156(2) OF THE RULES OF PROCEDURE - AMENDMENT 1

4. The Committee on Petitions welcomes and supports the reason for the proposal.

5. The procedure of treatment of petitions covered by Chapter XIX of the Rules of Procedure comprises two different stages:

(a) verifying, in accordance with Rule 156(4) of the Rules of Procedure, the conditions laid down in Rule 156(2)[2]. This check of the formal conditions of admissibility is carried out by DG I under the responsibility of the President of Parliament;

(b) the actual processing of the petition pursuant to Rule 156(5) by the Committee on Petitions.

6. In other words, in practice it is DG I under the responsibility of the President that takes the initial steps and sorts out petitions from other written communication to the Parliament, and registers the petitions; the Committee on Petitions starts its work afterwards, by verifying the material conditions of admissibility, i.e. wether the subject matter of the petition falls within the sphere of activities of the European Union. Accordingly, the direct administrative implications of the proposed change primarily affect the Statute for Members" Division of the Parliamentary Acts" Directorate (DG I, Sessional Services) and not the Committee on Petitions.

7. As regards the legal considerations, the Committee on Petitions would like to make the following comments.

The proposed amendment of Rule 156(2) presupposes a definition of the term "petitioner"[3], which would be of particular relevance in the case of petitions with more than one signatory. In the case of mass petitioning (often in the form of lists of names), the Statute for Members Division applies the principle of communicating only with the person named as coordinator, alternatively with the first signatory, or the organization behind the petition. The Committee does not believe that the possibility of submitting petitions by electronic means would alter these routines.

As regards the general legal issue of what criteria should be applied to ensure that the petitioner is in fact the person he/she claims to be and what the scope of those criteria should be, the Committee on Petitions takes no part in verifying the signatory"s identity; as mentioned above, this task is a matter for DG I under the responsibility of the President of Parliament.

The Committee on Petitions rests assured that this office"s well established routines for verifying the identity of the signatory are highly reliable. This is important given the misuse that could be made of the right to petition and the possible legal and political implications of the Parliament receiving and processing petitions with a false signature.

Under the proposal put forward in the draft report, the question of verifying the petitioner"s identity would be solved by sending petitions received by e-mail to the person whose name appears first on the petition for written confirmation. This would mean that e-mailed communications would not be regarded as petitions until they had been confirmed in writing (in accordance with currently applicable rules), and that e-mailed communications which are not confirmed in writing never achieve the status of petitions. This also raises the question of how Parliament should act where, when e-mailed communications are received from more than one person, it is confirmed, or can allegedly be confirmed, by one or more persons other than the person named first on the petition.

8. If one wanted to follow such a system of confirmation, Parliament would not need to amend its Rules of Procedure to allow petitions to be submitted by e-mail for the simple reason that the document in question would not to be regarded as a petition until the "old" procedure (personal written signature) had been completed.

Moreover, a system requiring written confirmation is anything but cost-effective and more bureaucracy means a heavier burden on Parliament"s already overstretched administration.

9. In response to this proposal for administrative procedure, the Committee on Petitions would like to stress that the purpose of a signature is to verify the identity of the author of a document. Thus, a signature is a signature regardless of whether it is submitted in original writing, by e-mail, by fax or by any other means. The difference arises only as a technical and administrative question of how to verify the signature.

Henceforth, although welcoming and supporting the reason for the proposal , the Committee sees no need to amend the Rules of Procedure to enable petitions to be submitted by electronic means. The question of verifying the identity of the author is, as mentioned above, a matter for DG I under the responsibility of the President of Parliament, and that office is therefore the appropriate one to deal with this issue within its usual remit.

However, with the present as well as the proposed wording of the article, and regardless of means of submission, referring to each signatory or petitioner, that office would be responsible for checking and verifying sometimes thousands or even millions of names on mass petitions. The Committee on Petitions is not aware of how the checking and verifying of the signatures of these petitions is carried out at the moment, but, in conjunction with what has been stated above, it would seem reasonable if, certainly in the case of mass petitions, this requirement, and thus the wording of the Rule, was altered.

10. It is of the utmost importance that Parliament keeps abreast of developments in this area so that its administrative procedures do not become outdated and so that changes to those procedures are dynamic and sustainable.

IV. RULE 156(7a) OF THE RULES OF PROCEDURE - AMENDMENT 2

11. As regards the rapporteur"s proposal to amend Rule 156 of the Rules of Procedure with a new para. 7a, the Committee on Petitions would make the following comments.

The Committee would like to see further work on developing public data bases on petitions received. Most recently, the Committee called for this in connection with the annual reports on the Committee"s activities and the activities of the Ombudsman.

However, it should be taken into account that currently the petitioners themselves, by an active statement, suggest whether their petition is to be considered in public or not; there are no grounds for questioning or changing that right. With a public Internet register of petitions submitted by e-mail, as advocated by the rapporteur, Parliament would switch to a system whereby the actual form of submitting the petition would determine the form and degree of publicity. The Committee on Petitions also regards this as drawing an undesirable distinction between otherwise similar petitions.

12. Furthermore, the amendment itself, targeting all petitions regardless of way of submission, would contradict the Parliament"s rules governing public access to documents, as established by the Bureau following a delegation of powers[4]. Applying these rules, and bearing in mind the Committee"s practical handling of petitions and related documents submitted by natural or legal persons outside the Parliament, the Committee would regard, for example, summaries or revisions of such documents as documents as defined by these rules.

According to these rules, the public does not have automatic access to documents written by, among others, natural or legal persons, but have to make a request directly to the author of such documents; the starting point is that documents originating from outside the Parliament are not "European Parliament documents"[5] and are thus not publicly accessible unless the author agrees. Accordingly, Parliament could not and should not have a rule in its Rules of Procedure stating the opposite, i.e. that unless the petitioner asks for it to be treated in confidence, a summary of the petition and the related observations by the committee should be entered in a publicly accessible register.

13. The draft report advocates that petitions submitted by e-mail should be public and be kept accessible to the public in a register on the Internet and that members of the public should be allowed to associate themselves with existing petitions over the Internet.

The proposal could be interpreted as meaning that it should be possible to express support for existing petitions via the Internet, regardless of how one became aware of the petition in question. This possibility already exists at the present time outside the Internet and is frequently made use of in certain cases, often in various forms of campaigns. In such cases, the petition is usually submitted with the comment that a certain number of people have announced their support for the petition. The Committee sees nothing to prevent support of this kind being communicated by e-mail at the present time.

V. CONCLUSIONS

In the light of the foregoing, the Committee on Petitions requests the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, Verification of Credentials and Immunities to take account of the following considerations and conclusions in its further work regarding the amendment of Rule 156 of the Rules of Procedure:

1. The Committee on Petitions welcomes and supports the reason for the proposal , but the Committee underlines that the opportunity to submit petitions by electronic means should not replace petitions submitted in written form ;

2. The procedure of receiving documents covered by Chapter XIX of the Rules of Procedure and verifying the identity of the author lies within the remit of DG I under the responsibility of the President of Parliament; any administrative implications of submitting petitions by electronic means, which the Committee welcomes in that it broadens and strengthens the right of petition, should be accepted and ways and means of checking authenticity of such a signature should be worked out by that Department;

3. The Committee on petitions proposes that the reference to each signatory in Rule 156(2) of the Rules of Procedure is changed.

4. According to Rule 158(1) of the Rules of Procedure, when received, all petitions are announced in Parliament and entered into the minutes, and so are the main decisions taken on them. The Committee is opposed to the differential treatment of petitions depending on the manner in which they are submitted to Parliament and is therefore opposed to a public register and automatic public processing only of petitions submitted by e-mail, but welcomes a public database on all petitions where the petitioners so wish;

5. The Committee points to Parliament"s new rules on public access to European Parliament documents, which are in elaboration under Article 191a Amsterdam Treaty; the Committee suggests to take them into consideration in developing a public register of petitions;

6. Petitions should be equally processed and petitioners should still have the right to request the public or non-public treatment of their petitions. The Committee can therefore only support a public register for those petitions to be dealt with in public;

7. The Committee on Petitions welcomes the idea of opening up for the possibility of associating to an already registered petition by electronic means; however the Committee stresses that it can be only for those petitions to be dealt with in public;

8. The Parliament should, together with the Commission and the Ombudsman, possibly as a part of the Dialogue with Citizens and in utilization with extended and linked electronic data-processing systems, improve information on citizens" rights to address the institutions and among these possibilities to stress the right to petition the Parliament.

• [1] () Resolution on the annual report of the European Ombudsman 1995; (A4-0176/96); proposed amendment, pursuant to Rule 163 of the Rules of Procedure, by Mr Dell"Alba (B4-1091/96).
• [2] () "Petitions to Parliament shall show the name, occupation, nationality and permanent address of each signatory."
• [3] () As regards the definition of a petition, see p. 4 of the resolution and p. 7 ff of the explanatory statement to the report on the deliberations of the Committee on Petitions during the 1996-1997 parliamentary year (A4-0190/97); rapporteur Mr Perry.
• [4] () Decision of the European Parliament of 10 July 1997 on public access to European Parliament documents; OJ L 263 of 25.9.1997, p. 27.
• [5] () Ibid, Articles 1(2), 2(3).