 Distinguished delegates, a very good morning to you all. It's a great pleasure for me to join Ambassador McCook in extending a very warm welcome to you here this morning. I'm delighted to see once again that the room promises to be full as soon as we all settle down. There is a very wide, large participation and this I think is key. As you all know, the mandate for 2012-13 biennium for the IGC was to expedite the work on the text-based negotiations with an objective of reaching agreement on a text or text of an international legal instrument or instruments that will ensure effective protection for genetic resources as well as traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expressions. And you all, I am sure, are aware of the decision that was taken by our member states in the Assemblies in October last year, 2012, which set out the work program for 2013. And as you know, that work program is foreseeing an extremely busy six months ahead of us for the IGC. You know that the General Assembly decided upon three thematic sessions that were to build on existing texts. And this is, of course, the first one of them on genetic resources. The second will take place in April of this year and it will address traditional knowledge. And the third will take place in July and it will be an eight-day session with five days devoted to traditional cultural expressions and then three days devoted to an overview of all the work that has been done throughout the year. Let me recall also that the meeting that took place 12 months ago on genetic resources was a very successful meeting because it led for the first time to a consolidated single document on intellectual property and genetic resources. Of course, that document is very much a work in progress, but it was a major step forward that we had a single consolidated document for the first time. And that consolidated text, as you know, is available in document number four and a great deal of work is still needed upon it. There is another working document that has been submitted to this session. It's a resubmission of a joint recommendation on intellectual property and genetic resources. That has been document number five and has been submitted by the delegations of Canada, Japan, Norway, the Republic of Korea and the United States of America. So I would like this morning quite simply to make a plea to you all to really do what the mandate requires the member states to do. That is to engage in good faith and to engage in negotiations to move forward this topic. I would like to acknowledge the presence of a number of persons. First of all, let me start with the Indigenous and local community experts. And I'd like to acknowledge their continuing contribution to this process and the importance of that contribution. As you may know, we now have on the WIPO website a portal which is termed an Indigenous portal which gives specific, whose purpose is specifically to facilitate access to information that's useful for and related to Indigenous peoples and local communities. Let me mention in this regard also the WIPO voluntary fund. You are all aware that this was established to facilitate the participation of Indigenous representatives in the IGC. Recently we wrote to all member states and to several foundations and funds to try to elicit some renewed, some new contributions to the voluntary fund. I'm afraid to say that we have not received any. And so the current state of affairs is that it is likely that we have enough money to fund one or two representatives, Indigenous representatives, at the next IGC, IGC 24, but none beyond that. So I would again make a plea to all of the member states in this regard to see if it's possible to make a contribution to the voluntary fund. We are very fortunate to have present this morning the United Nations special rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous peoples and I would like to welcome Professor James Anaya from the United States of America. I'd like to welcome the other three panellists that are coming, namely Dr. Anil Gupta from India, Ms. Tarsila Rivera Zeya from Peru, and Mr. Godbe Tumushabi from Uganda. A very warm welcome to you all. And finally, but certainly not least, I would like to place on record a very deep gratitude to Ambassador Wayne McCook, the chair of the IGC. You are no doubt not aware of the extent of commitment and work of Ambassador McCook to this process. He has been working tirelessly to facilitate this process and to move it forward and we're very, very fortunate to have him as our chair and I would like to express our special gratitude to him for his work.