Geographical Indications present significant opportunities for differentiating products or services that are uniquely related to their geographic origin. While they can offer many positive economic, social, cultural, and even environmental benefits, they can also be problematic and therefore caution is warranted when pursuing them. The publication distills the relevant lessons that could apply, particularly to developing countries, from a review of more than 200 documents and a number of original Case Studies. It presents a groundwork to better understand the costs and the benefits of undertaking Geographical Indications by outlining the basic processes, covering the pros and cons of different legal instruments, and offering insights into the important factors of success. It reviews and presents current data on the key issues of global GIs such as: economic results, public and private benefits; and market relevance.

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Guide to Geographical Indications: Linking Products and Their Origins (Summary)

Indigenous Peoples, Consent and Benefit Sharing

Compared with the stated aims and the claims for urgent action, multilateral environmental agreements show unsatisfying results. Among other reasons – e.g. a deficit in national implementation – lack of coherence among a variety of overlapping and sometimes contradictory international institutions is considered as one major cause which needs to be overcome. In this article, however, it is argued that this lack of coherence is not a result of a lack of cooperation but a form of governance failure strongly connected with the political and economic structures of global capitalism and its ongoing neoliberal-imperial transformation. Moreover, it is demonstrated that this governance failure is a by-product of the articulation of sometimes antagonistic interests and related power relations inscribed in different national and international institutions. Building on the concept of societal relationships with nature, on historical-materialist state theory and its perspective of the internationalization of ...

Post-Fordist governance of nature: The internationalization of the state and the case of genetic resources – a Neo-Poulantzian perspective

Guide to Geographical Indications: Linking Products and their Origins

Opening Narrative (Preface) PART I INTRODUCTORY CHAPTERS: KNOWLEDGE CONTEXTS

Biodiversity-related traditional knowledge in Thailand : intellectual property relations and geographies of knowledge regulation

There is an urgent need for concrete steps to foster the mutual supportiveness of the objectives embodied in the Convention on Biological Diversity and multilateral trade rules under the World Trade Organization. Intellectual property is one area of debate where such efforts could be undertaken. More specifically, the question of including requirements to disclose the origin or legal provenance of genetic resources and traditional knowledge into intellectual property rights applications has begun to surface in national, regional and international discussions and negotiations. Written by a wide variety of leading thinkers in the field, the compilation of short essays and articles included in this publication provide technical input and proposals which should serve to build an analytical foundation to promote and stimulate legislative, regulatory and policy processes on disclosure at the national and international levels.

Manuel Ruiz Muller

Papers

Disclosure requirements : ensuring mutual supportiveness between the WTO TRIPS agreement and the CBD