From LSE Business Review – “Turf wars? Placing geographical indications at the heart of international trade”

by David M. Higgins (Newcastle University), originally published on 09 October 2018 on the LSE Business Review

When doing your weekly shop have you ever observed the small blue/yellow and red/yellow circles that appear on the wrappers of Wensleydale cheese or Parma ham? Such indicia are examples of geographical indications (GIs), or appellations: they show that a product possesses certain attributes (taste, smell, texture) that are unique to a specific product and which can only be derived from a tightly demarcated and fiercely protected geographical region. The relationship between product attributes and geography can be summed up in one word: terroir. These GIs formed an important part of the EU’s agricultural policy, launched in 1992 and represented by the logos PDO and PGI, to insulate EU farmers from the effects of globalisation by encouraging them to produce ‘quality’ products that were unique.

GIs have a considerable lineage: legislation enacted in 1666 reserved the sole right to ‘Roquefort’ to cheese cured in the caves at Roquefort. Until the later nineteenth century domestic legislation was the primary means by which GIs were protected from misrepresentation. Thereafter, the rapid acceleration of international trade necessitated global protocols, of which the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property (1883) and its successors, including the Madrid Agreement for the Repression of False or Deceptive Indications of Source on Goods (1890).

Full article here: http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/businessreview/2018/10/09/turf-wars-placing-geographical-indications-at-the-heart-of-international-trade/