94. The Chairman recalled that, at the Eighth Session of the Ministerial Conference, Ministers had directed the TRIPS Council to continue its examination of the scope and modalities for complaints of the types provided for under subparagraphs 1(b) and 1(c) of Article XXIII of GATT 1994 (so-called "non-violation and situation complaints") and make recommendations to their next Session, which they had decided to hold in December 2013. It was agreed that, in the meantime, Members would not initiate such complaints under the TRIPS Agreement.1
95. He said that discussions on that issue dated back to 1998, in view of the initial deadline for the Council to make recommendations by 1999, and that Members might wish to take the time now to consider what form a concrete recommendation to the next Ministerial Conference could take rather than working on the assumption that the matter would be deferred yet again.
96. As requested by the Council at its last meeting, he had consulted with a number of interested delegations on how the Council should organize its continued examination of the scope and modalities for non-violation complaints. There had been calls for specific examples of situations where such complaints could be applied. Some delegations had said that it would be helpful if the proponents could explain the potential benefits of such complaints. Some other delegations had said that those having concerns relating to such complaints should suggest modalities for their application to address such concerns.
97. A number of delegations had suggested that it might be helpful to discuss those matters in an informal setting. He said that he intended to get in touch with interested delegations to ascertain whether he could facilitate such informal discussions among delegations, reaffirming his commitment to working with them to find a concrete way forward on that longstanding question. One way to facilitate discussions at that stage would be to request the Secretariat to update its earlier summary note on the points raised in the Council's substantive discussion on that matter thus far. The summary note was originally circulated in June 2002 as document IP/C/W/349, and subsequently updated in 2004 as document IP/C/W/349/Rev.1. The delegations he had consulted were broadly in favour of that idea.
