25. The representative of Argentina shared the views expressed by the delegations of the United States and Singapore. She agreed with Singapore that "multilateral" should rather be compared to "bilateral" and said that Members should also think about what the term "plurilateral" meant. Referring to document TN/IP/W/6, co-sponsored by her delegation, she said that it was clear from that that the concept of "multilateral" should not be linked to the question of the scope or the nature of the register. It also seemed clear from Article 23.4 that the register should be open to those Members who "participate" in the system on a voluntary basis. There was no reference or link in Article 23 that imposed obligations on non-participating Members. As stated by other delegations, it was not necessary to consider S&D treatment for certain countries: document TN/IP/W/6 made it clear that participation would be voluntary. In light of Article 23.4 and the mandate on negotiations, there was no need to make a distinction between categories of countries. Guaranteeing a voluntary system with no legal obligations on non-participating Members would protect the interests all WTO Members. In her view, the system should not be one that would confer advantages or disadvantages upon Members who did not currently have national systems of protection, but might decide to do so in the future. Regarding the Lisbon Agreement, she made three points. Firstly, not all of those Members who wanted a mandatory system were signatories of the Lisbon Agreement; therefore, the argument that the WTO system should be mandatory did not seem to be valid. Secondly, the Lisbon Agreement did not have a dispute settlement mechanism which, in her view, was a fundamental consideration to those delegations who had raised the matter within the WTO. Thirdly, the Lisbon Agreement being voluntary in nature involved ratification on a voluntary basis; its legal effects were therefore very different from those resulting from proposals presented by some countries. Under the Lisbon Agreement, contracting parties should take action under their domestic legislation. This Agreement also set a deadline within which a Member could oppose the protection of a GI within its own territory without having to give the grounds for such an opposition and without that GI having an effect in the territory of the signatory. In her view, there was no need to compare the Lisbon Agreement with matters under discussion in the Special Session. With respect to the proposal that the system be administered on a rotational basis by national administrations, she did not know how many national administrations for GIs existed in WTO Members, and therefore, how such a system of rotation would work . In her view, such a system would be a burden for Members and might distort the concept of a "multilateral agreement", because such concept did not involve any national administration. There were no national administrations involved in the management of the WTO agreements.
