66. The representative of South Africa said that both the issues of TRIPS/CBD and GI extension had been listed as implementation-related issues according to the Hong Kong Ministerial Declaration. These two issues had been discussed in the Council and its Special Session. He recalled that the Doha Round was a developmental round and that developing countries had made out a case for an amendment of the TRIPS Agreement in order to take into account the CBD. In the view of developing countries, there was a clear conflict between the CBD and the TRIPS Agreement. He said that there were a number of biopiracy cases in South Africa where traditional knowledge and genetic material had been taken out of South Africa and then patented. It had been very difficult and costly for the poor communities in South Africa to fight for their rights. Therefore, his delegation had supported the proposal to amend the TRIPS Agreement to include the disclosure requirement, prior informed consent and benefit sharing, which was important for poor communities to protect their traditional knowledge.
67. He said that after listening to the proponents of the issue of GI extension, it was clear that no case had been made for it. Although 100 Members supported negotiations on the issue of GI extension, some of them did not provide GI protection. He questioned how those Members could know that there was need for GI extension. He expressed his delegation's serious concerns over the parallelism in the non-paper of 26 May, and said that his delegation did not see any linkage between the TRIPS-related issues. They were separate issues with separate mandates. The issue of GI register had a negotiating mandate, and the other two issues had been put in the Ministerial Declaration for examination. A clear case had been made that the TRIPS Agreement should be amended to include the disclosure requirement, but no case had been made for GI extension.
