member States of the Council of Europe necessary
for the entry into force.
171. The Convention is open for signature by the
European Union.18
Article 27 – Accession by non-member
States and international organisations
172. The Convention, which was originally developed
in close co-operation with the OECD and several nonEuropean States, is open to any State around the
globe complying with its provisions. The Convention
Committee is entrusted with the task of assessing
such compliance and preparing an opinion for the
Committee of Ministers relating to the level of data
protection of the candidate for accession.
173. Considering the frontierless nature of data flows,
accession by countries and international organisations from all over the world is sought. International
organisations that can accede to the Convention are
solely international organisations which are defined
as organisations governed by public international law.
Article 29 – Reservations
175. The rules contained in this Convention constitute
the most basic and essential elements for effective
data protection. For this reason, the Convention allows
no reservations to its provisions, which are, moreover,
reasonably flexible, having regard to the exceptions
and restrictions permitted under certain articles.
Article 30 – Denunciation
176. Any Party is allowed to denounce the Convention
at any time.
Article 31 – Notifications
177. These provisions are in conformity with the customary final clauses contained in other conventions
of the Council of Europe.
Article 28 – Territorial clause
174. The application of the Convention to remote territories under the jurisdiction of Parties or on whose
behalf a Party can make undertakings is of practical
importance in view of the use that is made of distant
countries for data processing operations either for
reasons of cost and manpower or in view of the utilisation of alternating night and daytime data processing
capability.
18. The amendments to the Convention approved by the
Committee of Ministers on 15 June 1999 lose their purpose
as from the entry into force of the Protocol.
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