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1. Members of the Board of Appeal shall not take part in any appeal proceedings if they have any personal interest therein, if they have previously been involved as representatives of one of the parties to the proceedings, or if they participated in the decision under appeal.

2. A member of the Board of Appeal shall inform the Board in the event that, for one of the reasons referred to in paragraph 1 or for any other reason, he or she considers that a fellow member should not take part in any appeal proceedings. Any party to the appeal proceedings may object to the participation of a member of the Board of Appeal on any of the grounds referred to in paragraph 1, or in the case of suspected bias. Such an objection shall be inadmissible if it is based on the nationality of a member or if, while being aware of a reason for objecting, the objecting party to the appeal proceedings has taken a procedural step in the appeal proceedings other than objecting to the composition of the Board of Appeal.

3. The Board of Appeal shall decide on the action to be taken in the cases specified in paragraphs 1 and 2 without the participation of the member concerned. For the purpose of taking that decision, the member concerned shall be replaced on the Board of Appeal by his or her alternate. If the alternate finds him or herself in a similar situation to that of the member, the Chair shall designate a replacement from among the available alternates.

4. The members of the Board of Appeal shall undertake to act independently and in the public interest. For that purpose, they shall make a written declaration of commitments and a written declaration of interests indicating either the absence of any interest which might be considered prejudicial to their independence or indicating any direct or indirect interest which might be considered prejudicial to their independence. Those declarations shall be made public annually.