Treatment of Geographical Indications (GIs) in the European Union (EU) TRIPS-Plus Initiatives: Implications for Bangladesh

Abstract

Geographical Indications (GIs) are an important aspect of intellectual property rights. Over the years both developed and developing countries have been trying to promote GI standards worldwide to seek protection of their locally produced products. It is a source identifier and protection of the integrity, specialty, and commercial value of products whose uniqueness is identified with their geographic origin and customary process of manufacture. The European Union has been at the forefront of promoting GI standards worldwide through its negotiation process with other nation states under the TRIPS-plus initiatives. The TRIPS-plus initiatives originated from the discontent with WTO multilateral forum sometime sluggishly responding to the member countries’ demands. Worldwide GIs protection has been demanded by most of the WTO nations. However such demands were not met. Therefore EU opted for TRIPS-plus initiatives to promote the protection of GIs. From this background, the article explores the genesis and nature of treatment of GIs under the EU led TRIPS-plus initiatives for promoting global notions of GIs and their impacts on the socio-economic sectors of developing countries like Bangladesh. The central research question of this paper is how the treatment of GIs in EU led TRIPS-plus initiatives changes the global landscape of GIs protection. Do TRIPS-plus FTAs provisions on GIs help developing countries? The paper also looks at how Bangladesh can benefit from enacting GIs protection law.

Keywords: Geographical Indications, TRIPS, TRIPS-Plus, WTO, Origin of Appellations, EU

JEL Classification: K10, K23, K33