HONDURAS: WIPO COPYRIGHT TREATIES ARE IN EFFECT

UNCLAS TEGUCIGALPA 001689 SIPDIS STATE FOR EB/IPC: Susan Wilson E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: KIPR ECON ETRD HO SUBJECT: HONDURAS: WIPO COPYRIGHT TREATIES ARE IN EFFECT REF: STATE 174496 ¶1. On July 10 EconOff delivered reftel demarche to Marvin Discua, head of the GOH's Intellectual Property Rights office. Discua confirmed that Honduras became party to both the WIPO Copyright Treaty and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty on May 20, 2002. He further explained that under Honduran law, such treaties are self-executing, and that no additions or changes to national law are necessary for the treaties to acquire the full force of law. While in some cases the GOH will write rules to provide for the clear implementation of a treaty, Discua stated that, in his opinion, the WCT and WPPT were already sufficiently clear, and writing an additional layer of rules was not necessary. He said that there have been no problems with the implementation of the treaties. ¶2. Comment: Post has received no complaints from U.S. companies operating in Honduras pertaining to the issues covered by the two treaties. EconOff forwarded reftel's recommendation that `self-execution' of the treaties should be considered insufficient, but Discua made clear that the GOH does not believe there is further legislative work to be done on this issue. End comment. PALMER