# Agreement for the Repression of Obscene Publications

The Agreement for the Suppression of the Circulation of Obscene Publications is a multilateral anti-pornography treaty that was initially negotiated and concluded in Paris in 1910. It was amended by a 1949 Protocol. As of 2013, the treaty has 57 state parties. The treaty was concluded on 4 May 1910 in Paris and was initially entitled the Agreement for the Repression of Obscene Publications.
This is the official United States government version published in the first volume of the United States Treaty Series (Bevans).
REPRESSION OF CIRCULATION OF OBSCENE PUBLICATIONS
* Arrangement signed at Paris May 4, 1910
* Senate advice and consent to ratification January 13, 1911
* Ratified by the President of the United States February 4, 1911
* Ratification of the United States deposited at Paris March 15, 1911
* Proclaimed by the President of the United States April 13, 1911
* Entered into force September 15, 1911
* Amended by protocol of May 4, 1949
37 Stat. 1511; Treaty Series 559
[translation]
The Governments of the Powers hereinbelow named, equally desirous of facilitating within the scope of their respective legislation, the mutual interchange of information with a view to tracing and repressing offences connected with obscene publications, have resolved to conclude an arrangement to that end and have, in consequence, designated their plenipotentiaries who met in conference at Paris from April 18 to May 4, 1910, and agreed on the following provisions:
Article 1
Each one of the Contracting Powers undertakes to establish or designate an authority charged with the duty of
* (1) Centralizing all information which may facilitate the tracing and repressing 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.
* (2) 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.
* (3) Communicating the laws that have already been or may subsequently be enacted in their respective States in regard to the object of the present Arrangement.
​The Contracting Governments shall mutually make known to one another, through the Government of the French Republic, the authority established or designated in accordance with the present Article.
Art. 2
The authority designated in Article 1 shall be empowered to correspond directly with the like service established in each one of the other Contracting States.
Art. 3
The authority designated in Article 1 shall be bound, if there be nothing to the 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 offences coming under Article 1.
Art. 4
Non-Signatory States will be permitted to adhere to the present Arrangement. They shall notify their intention to that effect by means of an instrument which shall be deposited in the archives of the Government of the French Republic. The said Government shall send through diplomatic channel a certified copy of the said instrument to each one of the Contracting States and shall at the same time apprize them of the date of deposit.
Six months after that date the Arrangement will go into effect throughout the territory of the adhering State which will thereby become a Contracting State.
Art. 5
The present Arrangement shall take effect six months after the date of deposit of the ratifications.
In the event of one of the Contracting States denouncing it, the denunciation would only have effect in regard to that State.
The denunciation shall be notified by an instrument which shall be deposited in the archives of the Government of the French Republic. The said Government shall send through the diplomatic channel a certified copy thereof to each one of the Contracting States and at the same time apprize them of the date of deposit.
Twelve months after that date the Arrangement shall cease to be in force throughout the territory of the denouncing State.
Art. 6
The present Arrangement shall be ratified and the ratifications shall be deposited at Paris as soon as six of the Contracting States shall be in position to do so.
​A procès-verbal of every deposit of ratifications shall be drawn up and a certified copy thereof shall be delivered through the diplomatic channel to each one of the Contracting States.
Art. 7
Should a Contracting State wish to enforce the present Arrangement in one or more of its colonies, possessions or consular court districts, it shall notify its intention to that effect by an instrument which shall be deposited in the archives of the Government of the French Republic. The said Government shall send through the diplomatic channel a certified copy to each one of the Contracting States and at the same time apprize it of the date of the deposit.
Six months after that date the Arrangement shall go into effect in the colonies, possessions or consular court districts specified in the instrument of notification.
The denunciation of the Arrangement by one of the Contracting States in behalf of one or more of its colonies, possessions or consular court districts will be effected in the form and under the conditions set forth in the first paragraph of this Article. It will become operative twelve months after the date of the deposit of the instrument of denunciation in the archives of the Government of the French Republic.
Art. 8
The present Arrangement which will bear date of May 4, 1910, may be signed at Paris until the following 31st of July by the Plenipotentiaries of the Powers represented at the Conference relative to the repression of the circulation of obscene publications.
Done at Paris, the fourth day of May one thousand nine hundred and ten in a single copy of which a certified copy shall be delivered to each one of signatory Powers.
* ↑ Six months after Mar. 15, 1911, date of first deposit of instruments of ratification (see arts. 5 and 6).
* ↑ 1 UST 849; TIAS 2164.
Footnotes
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it is a work of the United States federal government (see 17 U.S.C. 105).
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