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

H.E. Ambassador Dr Lansana GBERIE
Tanzania on behalf of African Group
4; 5; 6 REVIEW OF THE PROVISIONS OF ARTICLE 27.3(B); RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE TRIPS AGREEMENT AND THE CONVENTION ON BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY; PROTECTION OF TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE AND FOLKLORE

104.   On behalf of the African Group, I would like to briefly reiterate our long-standing position on the three agenda items which is clearly known by this Council:  It is important to review Art 27.3(b) to incorporate among others, a limit to protection of certain life forms, oblige s disclosure requirement on origin of genetic resources, tradition knowledge and folklore, and right holders to be held responsible to share benefits with custodians or owners of genetic resources, traditional knowledge and folklore.  Members should also be obliged to prohibit misappropriation of genetic resources and traditional knowledge. 105.   Furthermore, the African Group would like to continue to insist on the need to invite the CBD Secretariat to update Members of the Council on the implementation of the Nagoya Protocol. This request is in line with the WTO mandate stipulated in the Marrakesh Agreement with respect to cooperation with other international organizations on matters relating to the WTO. Once again, we urge Members to act amenably on this matter.

25. The Council took note of the statements made and agreed to revert to these matters at its next meeting.
21. The Chair proposed to address these three agenda items together. He recalled that one tool for the review under item 4 was the information provided by Members in response to lists of questions on Article 27.3(b). He said that the latest Annual Report on Notifications and other Information Flows circulated by the Secretariat illustrated that responses to that checklist had been rather sparse recently. So far, only 28 Members had responded to the lists of questions on Article 27.3(b). The Chair thus encouraged Members to submit responses to these checklists, and to update their previous submissions if they were out of date.
22. The Chair noted that two long-standing procedural issues had been discussed extensively on the record at every regular meeting of the Council for almost ten years. The first was the suggestion for the Secretariat to update three factual notes on the Council's discussions on the TRIPS and CBD and related items; these notes were initially prepared in 2002 and last updated in 2006. The second was the request to invite the CBD Secretariat to brief the Council on the Nagoya Protocol to the CBD, initially proposed in October 2010.
23. The Chair noted that delegations' positions on these issues were well-known and had already been extensively recorded in the Council's minutes. He therefore suggested that delegations focus their interventions on suggestions on how to resolve the differences and on how make progress on substantive issues.
24. The representatives of India; Bangladesh; Indonesia; Tanzania, on behalf of the African Group; Peru; South Africa; Brazil; Japan; the United States of America; and the World Intellectual Property Organization took the floor.
25. The Council took note of the statements made and agreed to revert to these matters at its next meeting.
IP/C/M/107, IP/C/M/107/Add.1