The reservation made by Russia used a slightly different phrasing, just stating that works that were in the public domain in Russia in 1995 would not be reprotected. As pre-1973 foreign works were not copyrighted at all and thus in the public domain in Russia in 1995, such works remained in the public domain in Russia. Russia thus got rather favorable conditions when it joined Berne Convention: Russian and Soviet works became copyrighted retroactively in other Berne countries, but pre-1973 works from those other countries did "not" become copyrighted in Russia. This Russian interpretation was heavily criticized by Western countries and in particular by the United States. Russian scholars, however, repeatedly (and, in the opinion of Elst, rightly) pointed out that there had been a very prominent precedent: in 1989, when the U.S. had joined the Berne Convention, they "also" had denied the retroactivity of the treaty. From 1989 until 1995, the U.S. only respected the copyrights under the Berne Convention on foreign works from another country that were published on or after the later of that country's adherence date to the Berne Convention and March 1, 1989 (the adherence date of U.S.), and on foreign works from a UCC country according to the provisions of the UCC, which meant on works that were published after the later of September 16, 1955 (the date the UCC entered in force for the U.S. and the other initial signatories) and the adherence date of the foreign UCC country. In the case of Russian or Soviet works, this meant that until 1996, the U.S. continued to recognize only copyrights on Soviet works published after May 27, 1973. The U.S. faced harsh critique for its unilateral denouncement of the retroactivity of the Berne Convention defined in article 18(1) BC. Ultimately, the U.S. had to reverse its position on that issue. It implemented the TRIPS agreement (a precondition to becoming a WTO member) in its Uruguay Round Agreements Act (URAA), which was signed into law on December 8, 1994. The URAA effectively restored the copyright in the U.S. on foreign works on January 1, 1996, if those works were until then not copyrighted in the U.S. because of a failure to meet the U.S. formalities (such as not bearing a copyright notice, or lacking registration with the U.S. Copyright Office) or because of a lack of international treaties between the U.S. and the source country of the work, if the work was still copyrighted in its source country on January 1, 1996.