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

Ambassador D. Mwape (Zambia)
B NEGOTIATION ON THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A MULTILATERAL SYSTEM OF NOTIFICATION AND REGISTRATION OF GEOGRAPHICAL INDICATIONS FOR WINES AND SPIRITS
104. The representative of Costa Rica congratulated the Chairman on his appointment and said that, in order to advance the negotiations, Members should respect the mandate, focusing on how to facilitate protection, and not to increase it. The legal obligation of the register acceptable to Costa Rica was that Members wishing to participate in the system should consult the database and take decisions in accordance with their domestic legislation, while respecting the balance of rights and obligations and the principle of territoriality. He believed that the joint proposal, of which Costa Rica was a sponsor, met this objective and constituted the only proposal that complied with the mandate. He said that those proposing the effect of prima facie evidence sought to change the burden of proof, which would go beyond the facilitation of protection and thus change the balance of rights and obligations. 105. With respect to special and differential treatment, he said that his delegation attached great importance to this issue and it should not be left to be addressed at a later stage. In the view of his delegation, voluntary participation in the register was a way to grant special and differential treatment. 106. Finally, his delegation believed that the establishment of a register that applied to other products than wines and spirits would be inconsistent with the mandate and did not support the artificial parallelism.
TN/IP/M/25