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

Mr. S. Harbinson (Hong Kong)
D Implementation of Article 65.5
47. The representative of Poland said that the full obligation to notify laws and regulations as laid down in Article 63 would not apply for developing countries and countries in transition until 1 January 2000 and that there was no obligation on them to notify amendments during the transitional period. Of course, it could be useful to have such notifications as well if a Member was in a position to make them but, from a legal perspective, there was no obligation to do so. This had been reflected in point 2.1 of the working hypothesis discussed earlier today, which said that as of the time that a Member was obliged to start applying a provision of the TRIPS Agreement the corresponding laws and regulations must be notified without delay. Consequently, all developing countries and countries in transition must notify laws and regulations pertaining to Articles 3, 4 and 5 as of 1 January 1996 and four years later laws and regulations relating to other Articles. While agreeing with Canada that the Council for TRIPS had the obligation to monitor the operation of the Agreement, he thought that the Council would also be in a position to do so without Members having to notify laws and regulations, for example through consultations or by using other sources of information.
IP/C/M/2