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where delay would cause damage difficult to repair, be free to suspend, upon the taking of the action and throughout the period of consultation, such obligations or concessions as may be necessary to prevent or remedy the injury. Article XX General Exceptions Subject to the requirement that such measures are not applied in a manner which would constitute a means of arbitrary or unjustifiable discrimination between countries where the same conditions prevail, or a disguised restriction on international trade, nothing in this Agreement shall be construed to prevent the adoption or enforcement by any contracting party of measures : I. (a) Necessary to protect public morals ; (b) Necessary to protect human, animal, or plant life or health ; (c) Relating to the importation or exportation of gold or silver ; (d) Necessary to secure compliance with laws or regulations which are not inconsistent with the provisions of this Agreement, including those relating to Customs enforcement, the enforcement of monopolies operated under paragraph 4 of Article II and Article XVII, the protection of patents, trade-marks, and copy-rights, and the prevention of deceptive practices ; (e) Relating to the products of prison labour ; (/) Imposed for the protection of national treasures of artistic, historic, or archaeological value ; (g) Relating to the conservation of exhaustible natural resources if such measures are made effective in conjunction with restrictions on domestic production or consumption ; (h) Undertaken in pursuance of obligations under inter-governmental commodity agreements, conforming to the principles approved by the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations in its Resolution of March 28, 1947, establishing an Interim Co-ordinating Committee for International Commodity Arrangements ; or (i) Involving restrictions on exports of domestic materials necessary to assure essential quantities of such materials to a domestic processing industry during periods when the domestic price of such materials is held below the world price as part of a governmental stabilization plan : Provided that such restrictions shall not operate to increase the exports of or the protection afforded to such domestic industry, and shall not depart from the provisions of this Agreement relating to non-discrimination ; 11. (a) Essential to the acquisition or distribution of products in general or local short supply : Provided that any such measures shall be consistent with any multilateral arrangements directed to an equitable international distribution of such products or, in the absence of such arrangements, with the principle that all contracting parties are entitled to an equitable share of the international supply of such products ; (b) Essential to the control of prices by a contracting party undergoing shortages subsequent to the war ; or