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

Ambassador Eui-yong Chung (Korea, Republic of)
D ORGANIZATION OF WORK
24. The representative of Australia recalled, in reply to arguments put forward by some delegations about his request for information, that many developing countries had made the point about the cost incurred in implementing the TRIPS Agreement. The fact was that many of them had not yet fulfilled the obligations they were formally required to fulfil more than two years ago. Australia did not know which countries had yet to implement their obligations under Article 23.4 nor did it have, for the majority of them, an appreciation of their experiences in implementing the measures that they had enacted. Regarding the suggestion that the registration system be voluntary, he pointed out that that was not Australia's interpretation of the EC proposal. Indeed, as the paper recently tabled by the United States (document TN/IP/W/1) showed, the EC proposal would oblige all Members - developed, developing and least-developed countries - to protect notified terms as long as they did not challenge them or did not challenge them successfully. Australia's understanding was that the WTO Secretariat had the ability to obtain the information as to how WTO Members had implemented their obligations under Article 23 to extend a higher level protection to geographical indications for wines and spirits. Two of the criteria that many delegations had established for a successful negotiation on geographical indications for wines and spirits was that the outcome should be capable of securing wide participation, and it should be cost-effective and efficient. Australia did not want to risk wasting time negotiating another Lisbon Agreement, which had attracted a participation of 20 countries. It did not want to wait until March 2003 to find out that 120 Members would opt out of the multilateral system that was going to be negotiated simply because they would then realize the onerous obligations that they would have to assume. The matter was therefore highly relevant to this exercise. It would help to know how one could implement the outcome of this negotiation. In regard to the request that the EC comparison of the proposals on the table become the debating point for the next meeting, the Chairperson was right in saying that this body should debate the list of issues; there were two comparisons of proposals and participants would need to have a closer look to see which one was correct.
TN/IP/M/1