This chapter has two main parts. The first part examines the application of existing international copyright agreements to the protection of databases. In the course of that examination, the argument is made that the Member States of the EU may be in breach of their international copyright obligations to accord national treatment and most favoured nation status to other members of relevant international agreements, by not providing the same sui generis protection for foreign databases as that provided to EU databases. This argument is based on the points made in Chapter 3 concerning the overlap between the sui generis right and copyright. The Directive's sui generis protection may be categorised as copyright and, consequently, national treatment must be accorded to all databases, regardless of their geographical origin. In turn, this has implications for the argument that other countries, such as the United States, should provide similar protection in order to obtain reciprocal protection from the EU. If the EU is already obliged to accord national treatment, that argument loses all merit.

The second part of the chapter examines the steps taken to date towards a multilateral treaty that would deal specifically with database protection. It also discusses the myriad of bilateral agreements entered into by the EU with other countries that effectively ‘export’ the sui generis right of the Directive to those countries as part of the acquis communitaire of the EU. The very nature of the discussion concerning databases requires some consideration of these international legal dimensions.