Actas - Consejo de los ADPIC - Ver detalles de la intervención/declaración

Ambassador C. Trevor Clarke (Barbados)
M ENFORCEMENT OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS – COMMUNICATION FROM THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES
179. The representative of Argentina said that, in her view, the Council was still at an early stage regarding this issue, given that her delegation and others had requested, since it had first been introduced, that it not be a regular item on the agenda. She asked whether the European Communities had again requested that the item be put on the agenda of the present meeting. 180. As a preliminary reaction to the new Joint Communication in document IP/C/W/485, she said that the focus, proposals and objectives that were being sought through the successive proposals were outside the functions of the Council and the mandate under the TRIPS Agreement. In paragraph 7 of the document, it was suggested that Members engage in a discussion of how to implement the enforcement provisions of the Agreement in a more effective manner. This was not the responsibility of the Council, since there was no mandate under the Agreement to undertake such an examination or to revise its provisions to make them more effective. The Agreement remained as negotiated. If any delegation had questions or concerns about how specific Members had implemented it, appropriate mechanisms were already available, such as reviews of implementing legislation under Article 63 or the dispute settlement system. 181. The second indent of paragraph 7 invited Members to engage in a discussion of, inter alia, measures which could enhance the effectiveness of national implementing legislation and cooperation with other institutions. She said that such work was already being undertaken by other organizations, such as the World Customs Organizations (WCO), WIPO and Interpol, which had the mandates to do this. 182. She said that her delegation did not agree with the request for the Secretariat to prepare a synopsis of Members' contributions to the Checklist of Issues on Enforcement. The Checklist had been prepared for and was pertinent merely in regard to the notification exercise as agreed by Members. While other checklists such as the ones on geographical indications or the CBD, were voluntary, this Checklist was a mandatory part of notification of implementing legislation under Article 63.2 of the Agreement. It was not acceptable that the responses given within the scope of this mandatory exercise would be utilized for other purposes. 183. She regretted that the focus of the last indent of paragraph 7 was on developing countries as if they were the only countries in which piracy occurred and that the technical cooperation aspect of the paper was reduced to this preoccupation. 184. Paragraph 5 of the paper read that "such implementation must ensure adequate achievement of the objective of the TRIPS Agreement". She said that she had believed that this language referred to Article 7 of the Agreement, according to which enforcement should be undertaken to increase social benefits and development of developing countries. She would have hoped that the paper would have included something to that effect. However, she had realized that this language was in fact referring to technical cooperation and developing countries as if they were the only source of piracy. The only preoccupation was to facilitate the implementation of "enforcement provisions" and there was nothing referring to the objectives of Article 7 of the Agreement. The Council should not spend time on this issue even in the context of technical cooperation, because enforcement was being addressed by other organizations at the international level. For example, as indicated in paragraph 63 of document IP/C/W/478/Add.3 containing information on its technical cooperation activities, WIPO had undertaken, alone or in cooperation with other intergovernmental organizations and governments, many activities related to enforcement. 185. She felt that it was not the right time to continue discussing this topic. There were other topics of greater importance to developing and least-developed countries, such as the issue of technology transfer under Article 66.2, on which she suggested the Council should focus. Enforcement should not continue to be put on the agenda, because there was no consensus to debate it on the bases on which the proposals had been presented.
IP/C/M/52