63. The representative of Australia raised the question of translation of geographical indications, which had been mentioned by other delegations in the regular session. He held the view that translation costs would be very significant both to the administrator of the system and to individual Members. He understood that the EC had suggested that the bulk of the translation cost should be passed to the administrator and had foreshadowed that payments could be made on a user fee basis. If it were true that the EC would provide or would notify all their GIs, their relevant legislation, their bilateral agreements and regional agreements, that would mean thousands of GIs. For those Members whose languages were not one of the three WTO official languages, what would that mean? He recalled that Article 23.4 required that a GI for a wine and spirit be also protected in translation. Under the EC-style register, that seemed to place an onus on each Member to translate every GI notified by another Member into its own language and then to compare it and the original language against the relevant reference data bases, so that they could decide whether to challenge the registration under the EC-style of register or not. For example, Japan sold "Sake" with the name in Kanji characters; this name would be notified in Kanji characters to the Secretariat; it would be translated into Japanese Kana writing, into French and into Spanish. China, for example, would receive the GI in English, French and Spanish, but would have to translate it into Mandarin. Recalling that Chinese, Japanese and Korean characters were similar, he wondered what the situation would be for a term that would be common to several WTO Members. For Australia, it was, therefore, important to have a better understanding of the issue of translation of GIs, the need to respect Article 23.4 and the need for those Members whose languages were not one of the three official languages to also respect, in translation, all the GIs that would be notified by a large WTO Member.
64. With regard to challenges, Switzerland had suggested that there be some "gate keeper" who would decide whether a notified GI met the definition of Article 22.1 and the criteria of protection in the country of origin. Could Switzerland convince other countries that there would not be any confusion as to the criteria relating to definition and eligibility for example? He recalled the EC's new regulations on wines which claimed that traditional expressions met the definition of a GI. In the regular session, the EC representative said that traditional expressions had nothing to do with GIs. If the EC notified a traditional expression as a GI, this "gate keeper" would have the power to determine whether a name was a GI or not. He expressed doubts on such an approach. If "Basmati" was notified for a wine, who would determine up front whether that met the definition? Referring to the cases of the "Torres" wine company and the Danish Dairy Board, which had challenged the EC regulations on GIs, he said that the money, cost and resources in challenges within the EU had been phenomenal; he therefore drew the attention of those WTO Members who thought that this was just an easy system of registration, notification and opposition. Turning to Hungary's comments, he recalled the proposal, made in the context of DSU, for a standing group of DSU panelists. If GIs were to be dealt with by adjudicators, then there would be a comparable need for a standing group of adjudicators and DSU specialists to solve all the problems in the area of GIs. This aspect should not be considered lightly.
