97. The representative of Ecuador supported the Disclosure Group's proposal as a means to fully comply with the Doha mandate and acknowledged the existing parallelism between the TRIPS issues under discussion. He reiterated the importance of ensuring the legitimate use of biological materials and traditional knowledge and of ensuring the recognition of countries' collective rights over traditional knowledge at national and international levels. He said that there was a need to amend the TRIPS Agreement in order to fulfil the objectives and principles provided for in Articles 7 and 8 of that Agreement and to establish an adequate and effective coordination between the TRIPS Agreement and the CBD. He welcomed the consultations on the TRIPS/CBD issue carried out by the Director General under the mandate contained in the Hong Kong Ministerial Declaration. He emphasized the urgency of these issues and said that negotiations towards an amendment of the TRIPS Agreement should constitute a central part of the Doha Round's development dimension, should reflect the parallelism in the intellectual property negotiations and be intimately linked to the Single Undertaking.
