50. The representative of Argentina disagreed with the representative of the European Communities regarding the usefulness of mentioning any date of protection. For her delegation, such a date would only be relevant to national protection systems.
51. In response to the comment made by the European Communities and Switzerland on obligations contracted under bilateral or multilateral agreements, she said that WTO Members did not need to be reminded of obligations undertaken under other auspices. She asked whether the EC would include in the Community registers information on all the lists of geographical indications which might be protected as a consequence of bilateral agreements. For her delegation, bilateral agreements served other purposes: they were concluded, for example, in the framework of mutual concessions, and would not necessarily be relevant information. The idea explained by the delegation of the European Communities, i.e. to inform the WTO membership on the protection granted by some Members under bilateral or international agreements, would create a precedent by ensuring that agreements concluded outside the WTO had effects on WTO Members.
52. Referring to his earlier statement (paragraphs 24-28), the representative of Canada said that his delegation was merely asking whether information about how a Member was protecting a geographical indication would be useful and was not advocating that the information should or should not be in the notification. He further said that his delegation did not see any possible role for any type of challenge in the multilateral system nor any role for the administering body in deciding whether a geographical indication notified met the definition in Article 22.1 This was a matter for individual Members to decide at the national level in accordance with the principle of territoriality.
