52. The representative of the European Communities recalled that his delegation had already commented on the question of translations under the subheading on transliterations. To the question posed by the Chairman in paragraph 8 of the statement: "if the system were to be administered by the WTO, should there be a requirement to make available any translation into one of the three WTO languages of a notified geographical indication for which the language of origin was another language?", his delegation's reply was affirmative. However, with respect to the Chairman's observation that such a translation "would only be provided for information purposes", he recalled what he had said before, namely that translations as well as transliterations indeed carried legal effects with the understanding, in full respect of the principle of territoriality, that the final decision or determination of what the right translation was would still be in the hands of the examining Member. The EC proposal was therefore fully compliant with this principle and the principle that it would be up to the examining Member to decide which translations should carry the binding effects that the register would include. Obviously, a different question was the issue of what these legal effects would be. The fact that the obligations Members had to implement were those in the TRIPS Agreement was relevant, for among these obligations there were those under Article 23.1 of the Agreement, which included an express reference to translations. The EC proposal was proposing a presumption of the eligibility for protection under the TRIPS Agreement for notified geographical indications for wines and spirits. This would mean, in particular, that participating Members would enjoy a favourable presumption to enjoy the protection under Article 23.1 and hence, a favourable presumption against the use of translations by third parties. This demonstrated that effects would flow from the register regarding translations of notified geographical indications. As he had already mentioned, the same would be true if the use were based on Article 22, for it would be possible to conceive specific uses of a geographical indication which could mislead the public as to the geographical origin. For all these reasons, he believed that indicating that translations would be for information purposes only was slightly misleading. The message that the system would need to convey was that it remained in the hands of the national authorities to decide what the final or binding translation should be. He added that translations provided by the notifying Member could also be a useful tool for the examining Member.
