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Articles VI - X
Article VI
1. Any State Party to this Convention may propose amendments to the Convention. The text of any proposed amendment shall be submitted to the Depositary who shall promptly circulate it to all States Parties.
2. An amendment shall enter into force for all States Parties to this Convention which have accepted it, upon the deposit with the Depositary of instruments of acceptance by a majority of States Parties. Thereafter it shall enter into force for any remaining State Party on the date of deposit of its instrument of acceptance.
The United Kingdom advocated tightening the amendment system contained in Article VI, in order to avoid "discriminatory changes". The UK proposed that any amendment have 10 parties as sponsors and would require support of two-thirds of the original signatories before coming into force (CCD/PV.695; March 18, 1976, pp. 24-25). This proposal did not enjoy wide support.
Canada was more successful with a proposal to adopt a formula similar to that of the BTWC, in which an amendment would enter into force for all Parties who had accepted it when it had been accepted (and instruments deposited) by a majority of States Parties (CCD/PV.699; 1 April 1976, p. 15).
Article VII stipulates that the Convention is of unlimited duration.
Article VIII
1. Five years after the entry into force of this Convention, a conference of the States Parties to the Convention shall be convened by the Depositary at Geneva, Switzerland. The conference shall review the operation of the Convention with a view to ensuring that its purposes and provisions are being realized, and shall in particular examine the effectiveness of the provisions of paragraph 1 of Article I in eliminating the dangers of military or any other hostile use of environmental modification techniques.
2. At intervals of not less than five years thereafter, a majority of the States Parties to the Convention may obtain, by submitting a proposal to this effect to the Depositary, the convening of a conference with the same objectives.
3. If no conference has been convened pursuant to paragraph 2 of this article within ten years following the conclusion of a previous conference, the Depositary shall solicit the views of all States Parties to the Convention, concerning the convening of such a conference. If one third or ten of the States Parties, whichever number is less, respond affirmatively, the Depositary shall take immediate steps to convene the conference.
The review process established Article VIII was not included in the US-USSR draft. Many countries favored the inclusion of a provision for review conferences. Those that spoke in favor included the Netherlands, UK, Iran, Canada, Japan, Egypt, Yugoslavia, Mongolia, Romania, Bulgaria and India. According to Canada:
Because of the kind of activities that the proposed convention is designed to prohibit, the uncertainty of future scientific and technological achievements in the field of environmental modification, and unavoidable ambiguities in the language of the draft convention, we strongly support the view that the convention should include a specific provision for periodic reviews. (CCD/PV.699; 1 April 1976, p. 15)
As for how often the review conferences should be held, Canada suggested that "not less than every ten years", while the UK thought that there should be between three to ten years between conferences.
Article IX details the (standard) process for joining the Convention. It was agreed that ENMOD would come into force with twenty ratifications and that it would remain open for accession by all States at any time.Article X indicates the English, Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian, and Spanish texts of the Convention are equally authentic.
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