Minutes - TRIPS Council Special Session - View details of the intervention/statement

Ambassador C. Trevor Clarke (Barbados)
B.i Meeting of 23 October 2009, p.m.
45. The representative of New Zealand said that he agreed that there were relevant facts in both the consulting country and in the notifying country. The key point was that there should be an equal balance between these facts. His delegation did not want to see the TRIPS Agreement pre-determining which facts had greater weight than others. This was the reason why New Zealand had concerns regarding the proposed presumption, which in effect asked national decision-makers to pre-determine, i.e. to presume, that the facts on the international register had greater weight than other facts, for example the facts that a domestic objector might present with regard to the generic character of a term. Therefore, while his delegation would agree that the register was an opportunity to ensure that decision-makers had the best facts available in order to inform their decisions, it could not accept that the register contained the only facts or better facts. It just contained information. Domestic decision-makers had to retain the ability to assess that information and balance it against any other information they received from any other source, to make their decision on a particular issue.
TN/IP/M/23