96. The representative of Guatemala said that the recent decision by the WIPO General Assembly to renew the mandate of the WIPO IGC was positive, and represented well the level of ambition that they wished to reach in the three areas, namely, traditional knowledge, traditional culture expressions/folklore and genetic resources. She said that an international legal instrument was under consideration by WIPO covering these three areas. However, the IGC had laid down the principle that its work supplemented the work carried out in other forums and was thus without prejudice to the work carried out in the WTO. As there had been considerable discussion of misappropriation of genetic resources and the disclosure proposal contained in document IP/C/W/474 in the TRIPS Council for a long period, the issues should be resolved soon. She said that the consultations led by the Director General had shown that the discussion on the TRIPS/CBD issue had reached a high level of maturity. Developing countries had great interests in this subject, and it should therefore be part of the outcome of the Doha Round. However, she said that a case had not been made for the issue of GI extension, which deserved ongoing technical discussions and clarifications as to its implications. She said that there was an undue linkage between the three TRIPS related issues as indicated by El Salvador, Argentina and New Zealand. She said that an artificial parallelism between three TRIPS related issues, which had different mandates and different levels of maturity, was not acceptable.
