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

Ambassador István Major (Hungary)
World Trade Organization
G TECHNICAL COOPERATION
74. The representative of the Secretariat, responding to the question from the representative of Japan concerning the Joint Initiative, said that a joint letter had been sent by the two Directors General on 17 July 1998 to the Ministers of each of the WTO developing country Members that had accepted to comply with the Agreement by the year 2000. Attached to this letter were two annexes, aimed at facilitating a stocktaking in the capitals of those Members that wished to do so, in particular of where they were with TRIPS compliance, how far they needed to go in order to comply by the year 2000 and, therefore, what assistance would be useful to them. One annex concerned a checklist of main requirements of the Agreement and the other a list of the forms of assistance that could be offered by the two Secretariats. While the WTO Secretariat had expected that it would take some time for this stocktaking and therefore some time before concrete reactions to the initiative would be received, replies had begun to come in from developing country Members. Three types of reactions could already be distinguished, namely specific proposals for cooperation; requests for advice on the cooperation that would be most helpful to the country concerned; and one communication from a country informing the Secretariat that it was consulting in its capital with all the relevant departments and would revert to the matter later. As regards specific types of assistance that had been pointed out, these fell within the classic categories of assistance regarding legislation, human resource development training, especially in regard to those persons and agencies involved in enforcement, and institution-building and infrastructure. It should also be noted that both WIPO and the WTO had regular contact with their Members on technical cooperation matters so that there was an ongoing flow of business which took place without necessarily a specific reference to the Joint Initiative. Responding to the comments of Kenya, he suggested that the matter be followed up bilaterally after the meeting. He regretted that neither the regular WTO budget nor the trust funds made available on a voluntary basis by individual countries enabled the WTO to cover the costs of representatives attending meetings such as the present meeting.
IP/C/M/20