176. The Chairperson recalled that the Council had before it 15 outstanding requests from intergovernmental organizations for observer status. An up-to-date list of the pending requests was available in document IP/C/W/52/Rev.9. He recalled the suggestion that his predecessor as Chairperson had made to the Council as a way of making headway on this matter. This was that the Council might consider, as a first step, accepting the requests from: (i) multilateral organizations which already have observer status elsewhere in the WTO, i.e. the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI); the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD); and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP); and (ii) organizations running regional industrial property offices, i.e. the African Regional Industrial Property Office (ARIPO) and the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf (GCC). He said that it seemed particularly important to respond to the requests from these Organizations (ARIPO and the GCC), in the light of the fact that they were directly concerned with implementing the TRIPS Agreement. He also recalled that the Council had been urged by the Special Session of the General Council held on 18 October 2000, inter alia, to give positive consideration to granting observer status to the CBD Secretariat on an ad hoc basis pending the conclusion of the wider discussions on observer status for intergovernmental organizations in the General Council, but that the TRIPS Council had been unable to reach a consensus on this point.
