Minutes - TRIPS Council - View details of the intervention/statement

Ambassador Choi Hyuck (Korea)
K SPECIAL AND DIFFERENTIAL TREATMENT PROPOSALS REFERRED TO THE COUNCIL
286. The Chairman recalled that, in its Decision on the Doha Work Programme of 1 August 2004, the General Council had recalled Ministers' decision in Doha to review all special and differential treatment provisions with a view to strengthening them and making them more precise, effective and operational, and recognized the progress that had been made so far. With regard to all those WTO bodies to which proposals in Category II had been referred, the General Council had instructed them to complete the consideration of these proposals expeditiously and report to the General Council, with clear recommendations for a decision, as soon as possible and no later than July 2005. At its meeting in June 2005, the TRIPS Council had agreed to authorize him to report to the General Council that the TRIPS Council reiterated its recommendation concerning the text that had been forwarded to the General Council for appropriate action by the Chair of the TRIPS Council in August 2003, and to provide a brief factual report on what had happened with regard to the other proposals. The Chair's report had been circulated as document IP/C/36. 287. The Chairman said that, as he had informed Members at the Council's informal meeting on 20 October, he had recently received a letter, dated 13 October 2005, from Mr. Faizel Ismail, Chair of the Special Session of the Committee on Trade and Development. In this letter, Mr. Ismail had indicated that the Category II proposals remained with the respective bodies. At the July meeting of the General Council, the Chair of that body had agreed to the course of action that the Chair of the Special Session of the CTD had proposed, namely that the Special Session would continue to monitor and coordinate its efforts with that of the Negotiating Groups and other WTO bodies to which these proposals had been referred by the General Council. 288. The Chairman further informed the Council that Mr. Ismail had met on 24 October with the Chairs of the various bodies to which Category II proposals had been referred. As he had indicated at the Council's informal meeting of 20 October, he had informed Mr. Ismail that in regard to the TRIPS Category II S&D proposals the situation remained as set out in the report to the General Council at its meeting of 29 July. 289. He proposed that the Council authorize him to report to the General Council, if requested to do so, that the situation remained as described in the TRIPS Council's report of July 2005.
IP/C/M/49