6.1. The Chairman recalled that, at the Ninth Session of the Ministerial Conference, Ministers had directed the TRIPS Council to continue its examination of the scope and modalities for complaints of the types provided for under subparagraphs 1(b) and 1(c) of Article XXIII of GATT 1994 and make recommendations to their next Session that would be held in Nairobi in December 2015. It had been agreed that, in the meantime, Members would not initiate such complaints under the TRIPS Agreement.1
6.2. Members had discussed the matter at the TRIPS Council's three meetings in 2014. In particular, a communication on "Non-Violation Complaints under the TRIPS Agreement" submitted by the United States (circulated in document IP/C/W/599) had served as the basis for an intense exchange of views at the meeting in October 2014, where the Council had agreed to revert to this matter at its next meeting. The Chairman had been in touch with some interested delegations, but they had not been in a position to report on any new developments. He invited delegations to share any thoughts on how the Council could best move forward on this matter in order to be in a position to agree in a timely manner on its recommendations to the next Ministerial Conference.
6.3. The representatives of United States; Bangladesh on behalf of the LDC Group; the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela; Peru; Canada; Norway; Brazil; South Africa; China; Japan; Argentina; the Republic of Korea; Switzerland; Ecuador; Colombia; Egypt; Cuba; Chile; Chinese Taipei; Russian Federation; Nepal; India and Nepal took the floor.
6.4. The Chairman said that there were only two more formal meetings of the Council left to respond to the instruction by Ministers that draft recommendations be prepared by MC10. This should be of particular concern to delegations, given that the initial deadline for accomplishing this task was 1999 and that there were still no concrete proposals on the table as to how the Council might prepare the recommendations. Keeping the item on the agenda had not yielded any solution over the past 16 years.
6.5. The Council took note of the statements made and agreed to revert to this matter at its next meeting.
