Artikel 140

1. Every proposal concerning the Convention, the Agreements and their Final Protocols shall be subject to the following procedure: where a member country has sent a proposal to the International Bureau, the latter shall forward it to all member countries for examination. They shall be allowed a period of 45 days in which to examine the proposal and forward any observations to the International Bureau. Amendments shall not be admissible. Once these 45 days have elapsed, the International Bureau shall forward to member countries all the observations it has received and invite each member country to vote for or against the proposal. Member countries whose votes have not been received by the International Bureau within a period of 45 days shall be considered as having abstained. The aforementioned periods shall be reckoned from the dates of the International Bureau circulars. Any documentation and observations arising from the aforementioned procedure shall be submitted by physical or secure electronic means and, in the case of member country submissions to the International Bureau, be signed by a duly authorized representative of the governmental authority of the member country concerned. For the purposes of this paragraph, “secure electronic means” shall refer to any electronic means used for the processing, storage and transmission of data that ensure that the completeness, integrity and confidentiality of the data are maintained during the submission of the aforementioned documentation and observations by the International Bureau or a member country.
2. If the proposal relates to an Agreement of the Union or its Final Protocol, only the member countries which are parties to that Agreement may take part in the procedure described in paragraph 1.