63. My delegation takes the floor merely to reiterate statements that it has made in the past. From a personal note, this year makes ten years for my involvement in TRIPS-related work. For this purpose, I went through many of the statements that South Africa has made during this time. What struck me as quite instructive was that these statements repeated in many respects issues where there is potential for discussion, but necessarily no discussion happens. It would seem that, in the TRIPS Council, the more things change, the more things stay the same. My delegation has always stressed the relationship between TRIPS and the CBD. Most of the interventions this morning from a small number of countries have stressed the importance of this relationship and have provided information regarding recent developments.
64. We have also been a longstanding adherent to the call for the CBD Secretariat to be invited to brief the TRIPS Council on developments within the implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity, more specifically on the implementation of the Nagoya Protocol.
65. Further, there remains the issue of outstanding technical notes as referred to by colleagues this morning. From this perspective, I would like to encourage Members to more actively engage in issues that are important to all of us. It would seem that the paralysis that has taken hold of this house is to be seen generally in the paralysis that we see in the Organization in general. We have an opportunity to debate and we have an opportunity to become relevant, there are many issues that are not reflected on the TRIPS Council agenda that are relevant to Members but which we do not discuss. At any rate, Madam Chair, thank you for your valuable work and the consensus-building initiatives that you have pursued during your term, and we wish you all the very best in the coming years here at the WTO.