121. The representative of Peru said that the voluntary nature of the "multilateral system of notification and registration" was due to the fact that it was not indispensable for Members to include their geographical indications in the register, for their protection to be mandatory for other Members because that obligation directly resulted from the TRIPS Agreement and not from registration. The system should guarantee Members' freedom to include or not to include geographical indications in the system in order to have the resulting protection. However, once the geographical indications which met the criteria laid down in the Agreement were included in the register, they should be protected by other Members. This did not mean that protection of a geographical indication was mandatory because it was on the register; it was because its protection was mandatory under the TRIPS Agreement that the geographical indication was on the register.
