94. The representative of Argentina said that understanding the registration procedures proposed by the EC was important to the discussion on the two key issues of participation and legal effects, for it was in this aspect that Members would feel most of the legal, administrative and cost-related impacts of that proposal. She was still not convinced by the explanations given by the European Communities to justify its proposed registration procedures. They might be based on an erroneous interpretation of Section 3 of Part II of the TRIPS Agreement. The Agreement required Members to implement this Section so as to make available to the parties the means to avoid certain uses, but it did not mandate any automatic protection of geographical indications in Members. As with any IP right holder, GI right holders had to go to each country and assert their rights, which would be granted according to the national legislation of that country. Recalling that the negotiations of the register could not be carried out in a vacuum but only within the framework of the existing rights and obligations under the TRIPS Agreement, she expressed the concern that through a procedural element, the EC proposal was aiming at changing the existing balance of rights and obligations.
95. She agreed with Canada that the EC proposal was adding new phases to the mandated procedure of notification and registration. These new phases, examination, reservations and mandatory bilateral negotiations, were fundamentally detrimental to developing countries. She disagreed with the argument made by the European Communities that, in the WTO, bilateral negotiations were a customary method to resolve disputes. In the WTO, differences were to be dealt with through the dispute settlement system, which had been created precisely to prevent unilateral measures or political pressure. The EC proposal would replace this neutral way to resolve disputes with a politically-oriented dispute mechanism, which could not, in any event, be justified by Article 24.1 of the TRIPS Agreement. The approach of bilateral negotiations would be detrimental to all Members, in particular to developing ones, which had less resources and bargaining power vis à vis the European Communities or any other developed country Member.
