85. The representative of Chile said that the proposal from Japan and United States had positive elements, such as the voluntary nature of the multilateral system for notification and registration. Nevertheless, his delegation had problems with certain aspects of the proposal. In particular, Chile did not agree that the Singapore Ministerial had extended the coverage of Article 23.4 to spirits. The TRIPS Council was only empowered to negotiate the establishment of an international register for wines, as stipulated in the text of the Agreement. The mandate given in the Singapore Declaration, which was a political declaration and not a treaty, while approving the Report (1996) of the TRIPS Council, was that the Council could include in its preliminary work aspects relevant to the notification and registration of geographical indications for spirits. In Chile's opinion, a political declaration could not extend, broaden or modify what had been established in an international treaty like the TRIPS Agreement. For Chile, therefore, the establishment of a register for spirits was an issue for future negotiation and not one of implementation, which applied only to wines. Chile was not opposed to an international register for geographical indications relating to spirits similar to that for wines, but that had to be looked at in the context of a future round of negotiations. In the TRIPS negotiations, a register for spirits had figured in an earlier draft of Article 23.4, but it had disappeared from the so-called Dunkel text of 1991. Chile agreed with the United States that participation in the international system of registration of geographical indications for wines was voluntary for those Members that wished to participate and therefore could not have a binding effect. His delegation considered the role to be played by the registration and notification system for wines to be one of informing other Members which geographical indications were registered in a particular country. The register could in no way produce any effect regarding the validity or the granting of rights for the items registered. The registration was just to make known the existence of geographical indications of countries without this implying recognition by other countries, whether or not they participated in the system. Notification and registration of an indication of origin would not prevent any Member from invoking and applying, regarding such registration, any of the exceptions mentioned in Article 24 of the TRIPS Agreement.
