211. The representative of Australia agreed that enforcement was an important issue and pointed out that, as discussions on the topic were also being held in other forums, it was important that any discussions that would be held in the TRIPS Council would be conducted in a focused way that would be useful to the Council and all its Members. As a preliminary remark, he said that his delegation did not object to discussions focusing on how to address problems, shortcomings and difficulties with the current enforcement situation. Commenting on paragraph 26 of the EC document, where the availability of customs measures for export and transit had been listed as an issue for special attention in the proposed discussions, he said that his delegation was interested to know whether the European Communities was implying a need to strengthen or extend the legal provisions in this regard.
212. With regard to the mention of the establishment of benchmarks in paragraph 24, his delegation asked the European Communities to elaborate further on their potential nature, as it had to be recognized that effective border control always required adequate resources. Concerning the important issue of technical assistance and cooperation, he highlighted the fact that Australia was actively providing assistance relating to enforcement in its region, cooperating with the WHO in the Western Pacific on putting in place programmes to strengthen pharmaceutical systems against corruption and to improve national capacities to detect and eliminate counterfeit medicines in the Mekong basin area. Any discussion on this issue would need to take into account that a number of Members were already active in enforcement on the bilateral, regional and multilateral levels. He said that his delegation was open to further discussion on this topic in the TRIPS Council and might offer further comments on the EC paper at a later stage.
