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

Ambassador W. Armstrong (New Zealand)
I Review of the application of the provisions of the Section on geographical indications under Article 24.2
56. The representative of New Zealand said that her delegation continued to study carefully the material it had received in September and it would also study carefully any future inputs. Her delegation considered it important to recall, at the outset, the nature of the exercise on which Members had taken up work today and, in that regard, wished to draw particular attention to the specific wording in paragraph 34 of the Council's report to the Singapore Ministerial, which stated that Members had agreed that the review of the application of the provisions of the Section on geographical indications as provided for in Article 24.2 of the TRIPS Agreement would take the form outlined in paragraph 27 of that report which permitted inputs from delegations on the issue of scope. In her delegation's view, it was clear that the task before Members was the review of the application of existing provisions of the Agreement, not a negotiation. This was a task on which Members had already made substantial progress in the review of national implementing legislation at the present meeting. A large number of questions on geographical indications had been asked and answers, in some instances very detailed ones, had been given. These questions addressed a range of different matters including those raised in the non-paper presented by the European Community at the September meeting and a mass of information had been generated which Members still needed to digest, while several questions still had to be answered. Moreover, in accordance with the practice that Members had established in this Council, each Member would have the opportunity to raise, at subsequent meetings of the Council, any point it wished by way of follow-up to the review of national implementing legislation. This process had and would continue to enable a detailed consideration of matters pertinent to the Article 24.2 review, including those covered in the non-paper from the European Community. Further consideration of the ideas put forward by the Community might be necessary, but it was too early to take any decision on any of the matters concerned.
IP/C/M/11