126. The representative of New Zealand said that her delegation did not see a contradiction in the two concepts. As the EC pointed out in another negotiation where it was the key demandeur, that of the relationship between the WTO and multilateral environment agreements, one element to consider in assessing whether a treaty was a multilateral environment agreement was that the agreement should be open for accession to any WTO Member. She referred Members to document TN/TE/W/1, "Multilateral Environment Agreements (MEAS): Implementation of the Doha Development Agenda". Her delegation believed that notion would be useful in the discussion in the Special Session. Just because participation was voluntary did not detract from its multilateral character. The key concept was openness to join if one wished. With respect to the application of effects to the membership, the EC had pointed out in its proposal that some of the effects of the system would be applicable to all WTO Members, regardless of whether they had elected to join. This went beyond the concept of voluntariness and was not acceptable to her delegation. It disagreed that something was only multilateral if all WTO Members were bound by its effects.
127. She noted that, in one of the EC's papers, there was a pertinent question with respect to whether LDCs would be participating in the system. She said that LDCs were not currently required to provide TRIPS protection on geographical indications, including any obligations flowing from Article 23.4. LDCs would therefore not be meeting the TRIPS requirement that national protection of geographical indications be a prerequisite for protection under the TRIPS Agreement. Her delegation failed to see why the obligations automatically flowing from the EC's proposal to all Members should also apply to LDCs. However, she believed that Members should hear from LDCs themselves on that point as they had a much better understanding of their capacity to bear the burdens of the system. With respect to participation by the EC and their member States in the final registration system, she asked if, under the register, EC individual member States would be notifying terms protected at their national level or if there would be a single EC-wide notification, or both. This was an important distinction because, as Members had heard in the TRIPS Council's regular session, there was not necessarily agreement between all EC member States with respect to specific terms. To the extent that the situation applied to wines, her delegation was unclear as to whether a member State could, for example, put up a term for the multilateral register that was not protected at the EC level. Would other Members then be required to give protection to that term?
