"Bis" in treaty articles

[Acsenray]

What is the meaning of bis as used to designate divisions of an international treaty, as in “Article 6bis of the Paris Convention”?

[RealityChuck]

Article 6, Section b, subsection i, paragraph s (The i is a roman numeral).

[Acsenray]

@RealityChuck

Article 6, Section b, subsection i, paragraph s (The i is a roman numeral).

Are you joking? Because I don’t think so. I’ve seen it too often for it to mean something like this.

[Xema]

I think RealityChuck was in a mischevious mood. “Bis” tends to get tacked on (especially by the French) when you have the next version of something. This site gives a reasonable sense of the meaning:

Confused by all the terms? V.22, V.22bis, V.32, V.42, V.42bis and MNP? These are all technical names given to communications standards as recommended by the CCITT (another achronym!). V.22bis, pronounced, “VEE-DOT TWENTY-TWO BISS” is the technical name for what we know as a 2400 baud dial-up modem. V.22 was the official designation for the 1200 baud modems and the “bis” suffix (bis meaning “second”) was added when the 2400 baud standard was settled upon.

[aktep]

http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/paris/trtdocs_wo020.html

bis has something to do with “2nd”. See above link and use of ter, quater, quinquies, sexies and septies

[Acsenray]

While this might be a use of the term, I don’t think it really explains the use in treaties, because that would mean that Article 6bis replaces Article 6. I don’t think that’s what happens. However, your explanation that it means “second” does help. And now I’ve found the text of the Paris Convention and I see it has lots of these things:

Article 5
Article 5bis
Article 5ter
Article 5quater
Article 5quinquies
Article 6
Article 6bis
Article 6ter
Article 6quater
Article 6quinquies
Article 6sexies
Article 6septies
Article 7
Article 7bis
Article 8

So it looks like a way of sticking in more subdivisions without changing the numbering system. In the U.S., we might do something like 6, 6A, 6B, 6D, 6E, 6F, 6G, instead.

[Sal_Ammoniac]

And incidentally, in French house addresses, you’ll often see something like 32 bis, which would be the equivalent of our 32B, or sometimes 32 1/2.

[Schnitte]

@acsenray

So it looks like a way of sticking in more subdivisions without changing the numbering system. In the U.S., we might do something like 6, 6A, 6B, 6D, 6E, 6F, 6G, instead.

I guess that hits the nail. The bis/ter/etc. articles are amendments added later on (and placed next to an existing article because their content is related to the content of that existing article).