115. The representative of Argentina associated her delegation with the points made by Australia on the issue of reservations in the EC proposal. The joint proposal co-sponsors did not see the need to provide for any procedures for conflicts, including a mechanism to resolve differences, in the registration process because these issues should be solved by national courts. The use of the words "Any Member" in paragraph 3.2 of the EC proposal seemed to indicate a blurring of the differentiation made between participating and non-participating Members and that the same legal effects would apply to these two supposedly different categories of Members. The grounds for reservations in paragraph 3.2(a) and (b) of the EC proposal meant that the use of flexibilities given by the TRIPS Agreement and of the sovereign power of States Members within their jurisdictions would no longer be possible. This would therefore imply a renegotiation of rights already acquired by Members during the Uruguay Round. For example, according to paragraph 3.2(a) of the EC proposal, one Member would be able to lodge a reservation to what another Member had domestically defined as a geographical indication, which would be akin to a challenge of that Member's domestic legislation. Furthermore, both would be obliged to enter into negotiations. On the issue of the obligation to negotiate, she asked the European Communities whether the use of the phrase "if so requested by the notifying country" in paragraph 3.4 meant that such negotiations would only be mandatory when they were requested by the notifying Member and not when they were requested by the Member making a reservation. If this were the case, then Members lodging reservations would not have any capacity to request for negotiations. She added that this obligation would require, in fact, a negotiation on how a Member had applied in its domestic legislation the definition of Article 22.1 of the Agreement. This issue was important because it was already possible to predict which WTO Member would be a massive notifier of geographical indications. What would happen when developing countries presented, for example, reservations and would have to engage in bilateral negotiations? The examples of recent bilateral agreements on intellectual property showed imbalances in this kind of negotiations. In sum, it seemed that this kind of provision was aimed at giving more power to those who already had it to determine the course of a negotiation.
