DISCUSSION ON CHAPTER VI (ARTICLES 26 AND 27) AND CHAPTER VII (ARTICLES 28 TO 34) OF THE DRAFT REVISED LISBON AGREEMENT
256 The Delegation of the European Union expressed some reservations with regard to Article 28(1)(iii) and Article 28(3)(b) of the draft Revised Lisbon Agreement. More specifically, the Delegation was of the view that the last part of the sentence which read “under the constituting treaty of the intergovernmental organization, legislation applies for the protection of appellations of origin and/or geographical indications in accordance with this Act” in
Article 28(1)(iii) should be modified in light of the corresponding provisions of the Madrid Protocol or the Beijing Treaty. In that regard, the Delegation recalled that the European Union legislation covered geographical indications for agricultural products, wines and spirits, but not for handicrafts at this point in time. The Delegation wanted to avoid that Article 28(1)(iii) would prevent the European Union from acceding to the Revised Lisbon Agreement. Further, the provision of Article 28(3)(b) would appear to prevent member States of intergovernmental organizations from acceding to the Revised Lisbon Agreement if the intergovernmental organization itself was not already a member. In the Delegation’s view, such a provision was intrusive as to how an intergovernmental organization interacted with its member States.
257 Referring to Article 31, concerning the relations between States party to the Revised Lisbon Agreement and those party to the current Lisbon Agreement, the Representative of INTA pointed out that Article 1(i) defined the Lisbon Agreement as “the Lisbon Agreement for the Protection of Appellations of Origin and their International Registration, as revised at Stockholm on July 14,1967, and as amended on September 28, 1979”, which did not cater for the situation of Haiti, that was only bound by the original Lisbon Agreement of 1958.
258 The Secretariat said that Article 28(3)(b) had been modeled on Article 27(3)(b) of the Geneva Act of the Hague Agreement. Article 28(3)(b) would only apply in respect of those intergovernmental organizations, such as OAPI or the Benelux, which provided for the “regional” registration of appellations of origin or geographical indications while their member States did not maintain national registration systems.
