76. The representative of El Salvador said that, in response to the Chair's third question, it was his delegation's view that there was no option other than voluntary participation, as clearly established in paragraph 4 of Article 23.
77. Regarding the Chair's fourth question, he agreed with Guatemala that there was a need for discussing special and differential treatment before moving on to other stages of the negotiation. He was surprised by some developing countries' view that this could be discussed later. The negotiations in this Special Session should not be an exception to the procedures that developing countries had followed in all other negotiating bodies. He said that the example given by Guatemala, like seeking assistance in developing GIs, was interesting, although he was doubtful about whether a multilateral register to avoid usurpation of developing country GIs could really add value to these negotiations.
78. He said that, as all Members in principle had to have TRIPS-compliant domestic legislation to provide protection that could be used by developing countries, it might be just a matter of using the national legislation for protection as special and differential treatment. One possibility could be to set up a transition period for developing countries to take into account the information contained in the register. In any case, any domestic system that a country applied in taking the register into account, be it Roman Law or Common Law, should be respected.
