50. The representative of New Zealand, in offering some preliminary comments on the non-paper of the European Communities and their Member States, agreed with the Community on the importance of a full and timely implementation by Members of all their WTO obligations, including in the area of TRIPS. With respect to the appropriate level of protection in this regard, he believed that it was important to approach such questions from the perspective of the effectiveness of whatever system of protection a Member had in place. In the course of 1995 and 1996, the Council had worked hard to facilitate such implementation and the Ministerial Conference was a good opportunity to give further impetus to this important work. His delegation also had some sympathy with the notion in paragraph 7 of the non-paper that TRIPS Members needed to examine how best the TRIPS Agreement could keep pace with new or improved international intellectual property norms which might emerge in the period ahead to reflect developments in technology or the commercial environment. The built-in agenda of the TRIPS Agreement did contain, of course, the provisions of Article 71 concerning the possible review of the Agreement in the light of any relevant developments and some post-Singapore preparatory work in the form of analysis and information exchange could well be useful in this regard. He also wished to make the point, in relation to the idea of initiating the negotiations on geographical indications for wines, that there seemed to be some confusion between the time-frame specified for the review under Article 24.2 and that for future negotiations concerning the establishment of a multilateral system of notification and registration for geographical indications for wines, in respect of which no time-frame had been specified in the Agreement. In respect of the built-in agenda, his delegation was on record in other bodies of the WTO as supporting the initiation at the Singapore Ministerial of preparatory work on the agreed Uruguay Round built-in agenda across the board. This naturally meant that he could also support the initiation of such preparatory work in the TRIPS area, which could consist, inter alia, of a process of analysis and information exchange to allow Members to understand issues involved and identify their interests in respect of these issues. At the same time, however, his delegation wished to consider carefully the issues involved before it could be in a position to agree to the commencement of negotiations on particular aspects of the built-in agenda where no scheduled time-frame had been specified in the Agreement. With respect to building on the achievements of the Uruguay Round embodied in the TRIPS Agreement, he sounded a note of caution that it would be important to take care that this was not done at the expense of fully maintaining Members' other WTO obligations.
