Compte rendu ‒ Conseil des ADPIC ‒ Afficher les détails de l'intervention/la déclaration

Ambassador Choi Hyuck (Korea)
G REVIEW OF THE APPLICATION OF THE PROVISIONS OF THE SECTION ON GEOGRAPHICAL INDICATIONS UNDER ARTICLE 24.2
101. The representative of Australia said that his delegation regarded the review under Article 24.2 as a useful process that allowed Members to examine the ways in which other Members had implemented their TRIPS obligations and this was particularly important in an area as complex as GIs. It was against this background that his delegation wished to draw Members' attention to the outcome of the dispute in which Australia had challenged the EC regime for protecting GIs for agricultural products and foodstuffs and that had been adopted by the DSB on 20 April 2005. 102. The panel's report had confirmed that the EC regime was inconsistent with the European Communities' existing WTO obligations and Australia considered that this fact needed to be properly noted and recorded in the context of the Article 24.2 review. Although the European Communities claimed that the system put in place by the TRIPS Agreement was, among other things, insufficient and discriminatory, it was the European Communities' own system for implementing its GI obligations which had been shown to be insufficient and discriminatory and thus in breach of the its fundamental WTO obligations to treat imported products and foreign nationals no less favourably than it treated its own products and nationals. 103. Although it was at the European Communities' discretion how it would implement the panel's findings, it could be expected that it would have to amend its legislation and, as was evident from the period of almost a year until the 3 April 2006 that it had requested to make the necessary changes, this would clearly take some time. The fact that the Member with the most advanced system for the recognition and protection of GIs in the world needed one year to bring its system into conformity with a basic WTO principle such as national treatment raised serious concerns about how long it would take Members to implement the types of obligations that were being proposed by the European Communities in the context of the negotiations on the wines and spirits register. Her delegation would return to this issue in the Special Session of the TRIPS Council.
IP/C/M/48