1. The Chairperson recalled that the Council had before it 15 outstanding requests from intergovernmental organizations for observer status (document IP/C/W/52/Rev.9). He said that, in the informal consultations that he had held on these requests, he had suggested that the Council consider granting ad hoc observer status on the requests of those multilateral organizations which already had observer status elsewhere in the WTO, i.e. the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI), the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the United Nations Environments Program (UNEP), and of those organizations which ran regional industrial property offices, i.e. the African Regional Industrial Property Organization (ARIPO) and the Cooperation Council of the Arab States of the Gulf (GCC). However, some delegations had indicated that they were not ready at this stage to accept this proposal.
