Geographical indications at the crossroads of trade, development, and culture: Focus on Asia-Pacific

• Main Authors: CALBOLI, Irene, NG-LOY, Wee Loon
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2017
• Subjects: Law; Intellectual property; Asia; Intellectual Property Law
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/sol_research/1849; https://search.library.smu.edu.sg/discovery/fulldisplay?docid=alma99640127302601&context=L&vid=65SMU_INST:SMU_NUI&lang=en&search_scope=Everything&adaptor=Local%20Search%20Engine&tab=Everything&query=any,contains,Geographical%20indications%20at%20the%20crossroads%20of%20trade,%20development,%20and%20culture:%20Focus%20on%20Asia-Pacific.&offset=0
• Institution: Singapore Management University

Why a book on geographical indications (GIs) with a focus on the Asia-Pacific region? Our reason is simple enough. For several decades, GIs have not received mainstream attention by national policy-makers in Asia-Pacific. Consider that on the international stage, the Lisbon Agreement for the Protection of Appellations of Origin and their International Registration (Lisbon Agreement)has been of interest, at least so far, only to one country in Asia, namely, North Korea. Of course, this does not mean that there is no legal protection for GIs in this region; after all, GI protection is mandated by the Agreement of Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS). However, our sense was that GI laws in this region were enacted, at least initially, by the policy-makers primarily as a matter of compliance with international obligations without fully understanding the implications of these laws.3 This state of affairs, we felt, deserved further investigation and attention by academics – especially now that many countries in the region are showing a growing interest for GIs, and GIs have appeared on the agenda in the bilateral or pluri-lateral negotiations for international trade agreements (FTAs) between countries in the region and other countries, in particular the European Union (EU). For example, the EU has recently concluded FTAs with South Korea, Singapore, and Vietnam and is also negotiating, or discussing the possibility to negotiate, similar agreements with Malaysia, India, and other countries in Asia-Pacific. And then there were the negotiations for a multilateral agreement of the Pacific that led to the adoption of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in 2015 (but whose fate is, at present time, uncertain due to the recent withdrawal of the United States therefrom). GIs were a sticky topic in the TPP, as negotiating parties were almost evenly divided between countries supporting strong protection, and others, such as the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, which were less enamored of GIs.