111. The Chairperson recalled that the Council had agreed, at its previous meeting, to consider at the present meeting how to take up the review of Article 27.3(b) that it was required to undertake in 1999, and that informal consultations would be held in advance in this regard. Reporting on these informal consultations, he said that they had focused on two main issues, namely whether this review process should be initiated in the same way as the Council had done in respect of other elements of the built in agenda, i.e. through an information gathering exercise, and if this were to be an acceptable way of proceeding, whether the Council would need to draft some type of questionnaire or whether Article 27.3(b) itself was already sufficiently clear on the sorts of information that would be relevant.
112. In the light of the informal consultations held, the Chairperson proposed that the Council initiate this review process in the following way:
First, those Members that were already under an obligation to apply Article 27.3(b) would be invited to provide information on how the matters addressed in this provision were presently treated in their national law. Other Members would be invited to provide such information on a best endeavours basis. The target date for the provision of this information would be 1 February 1999.
Second, while it would be left to each Member to provide information as it would see fit, having regard to the specific provisions of Article 27.3(b), the Secretariat would be requested to provide an illustrative list of questions relevant in this regard in order to assist Members to prepare their contributions.
Third, the Secretariat would be requested to contact the FAO, the Secretariat for the Convention on Biological Diversity and UPOV, to request factual information on their activities of relevance.
It would be understood that this information-gathering would be a first step in the review process and without prejudice to the review process to be carried out. Once this information had been received, the Council might revert to the question of whether any further information might be requested from the Secretariat.
