23. The representative of Australia said that Canada, Malaysia and Argentina had covered some of the issues that she wanted to address, in particular the comment that the system, supported by Australia and others, was somehow not a multilateral system. The system would result from a multilateral negotiation in which all WTO Members had participated and which would be agreed by consensus by all WTO Members. She associated her delegation with the comments that had been made by others in that regard. Canada had also covered what was a non-issue from the perspective of the Joint Proposal, that of the so-called unreliable information. It was clear from Australia's perceptive that legal certainty came through the use of national administrative and judicial processes and that was how Members could achieve the outcome they were looking for. Comments had been made that there was no intention on the part of some of the proponents of more cumbersome and costly systems to change the current rights and obligations of the TRIPS Agreement. For her delegation, it was very difficult to fully comprehend those comments in light of the proposals on the table. For example, there was nothing in the current exceptions under the TRIPS Agreement that required Australia to enter into bilateral negotiations whenever her national authorities decided to invoke such an exception. Such an obligation would exist under other proposals. For Australia, it would be like a new Article 24.10, which would state that, notwithstanding these exceptions, Members might only invoke them subject to a bilateral agreement between the parties in conflict as to whether or not a term was a geographical indication. She said that this was a legal matter and that it was very difficult for her delegation to understand how that was not fundamentally altering the TRIPS Agreement and creating an increase in the level of protection afforded to geographical indications.
