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Part Four. Article 12 689Rolling text (A/AC.254/4/Add.2/Rev.2)“Option 1“Article XVII“Confidentiality“Subject to the obligations imposed by its constitution [, other law] 15 or any internationalagreements, each State Party shall guarantee the confidentiality of any informationthat it receives from another State Party [, including proprietary informationpertaining to commercial transactions,] if requested to do so by the State Party providingthe information. If for legal reasons such confidentiality cannot be maintained,the State Party that provided the information shall be notified prior to its disclosure. 16“Option 2“States Parties shall guarantee the confidentiality of any information that theyreceive, if requested to do so by the State Party providing the information, when itsdisclosure could jeopardize an ongoing investigation pertaining to matters related tothis Protocol. If for legal reasons such confidentiality cannot be maintained, the StateParty that provided the information shall be notified prior to its disclosure.”Seventh session: 17-28 January 2000Notes by the Secretariat4. Delegations based their comments on the text of article 17 of the revised draftprotocol contained in document A/AC./254/4/Add.2/Rev.3, which was the same as thatcontained in document A/AC./254/4/Add.2/Rev.2.Rolling text (A/AC.254/4/Add.2/Rev.4)“Article 1717, 18“Confidentiality“Subject to the obligations imposed by its constitution [, other law] 19 or any internationalagreements, each State Party shall guarantee the confidentiality of any infor-15Addition proposed by the United States.16China suggested that State parties that were to provide information should be notified prior to providing the information.That suggestion was supported by the United Arab Emirates.17At the seventh session of the Ad Hoc Committee, it was decided to retain only the former option 1 for the purposesof further discussion and to remove the square brackets from the words “including proprietary information pertaining tocommercial transactions”. Several delegations noted that the confidentiality and notification requirements of this article hadimplications for article 14 of the draft convention, which dealt with mutual legal assistance in criminal matters. They expressedthe view that those requirements should not reduce the effectiveness of article 14.18At the seventh session, Mexico proposed a reorganization of this article so that the text would read as follows:“States Parties shall guarantee the confidentiality of any information that they receive from another StateParty, including proprietary information pertaining to commercial transactions, if requested to do so by the StateParty providing the information, unless the State Party concerned has previously informed the State Party providingthe information about the possibility that it may be unable to fulfil this obligation pursuant to its domesticlegislation. In cases where the confidentiality cannot be maintained, the State Party that provided the informationshall be notified prior to its disclosure.”19Several delegations proposed alternative wording for this provision at the seventh session of the Ad Hoc Committee.Proposals were “domestic law” (Australia); “domestic legislation” (Italy); and “constitution or law” (Pakistan).