M. Geuze
Introduction
With respect to geographical indications, the TRIPS Agreement reflects a very
sensitive compromise in an area that was one of the most difficult to negotiate
in the Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations, which took place between
1986 and 1994 among trading partners under the auspices of the GATT (General
Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) and which resulted in the establishment of the World
Trade Organization. In fact, on certain issues concerning geographical indications,
further work was still required once the negotiations were concluded and, as a result,
the TRIPS Agreement contains a number of provisions requiring such further work
within the framework of the WTO.
The history of the discussions on geographical indication protection at the
international level goes back to the late 19th century, and it is sometimes revealing to
see how that history has determined the issues in this area that present themselves
today in the international arena. I refer to the development towards sui generis
systems for geographical indication protection, such as in France; the debate resulting
in the incorporation of a number of provisions on the subject into the Paris
Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property in 1883; the conclusion of the
Madrid Agreement on the Repression of False Indications of Source in 1891; the
debate at, for example, the Paris Convention Revision Conference in 1911 in
Washington; the conclusion of the Lisbon Agreement for the Protection of
Appellations of Origin and their International Registration in 1958; and subsequent
attempts to arrive at, for example, a new international registration treaty.2 Many of the
questions that were on the negotiating table in the past continue to be issues dividing
governments on geographical indications under the built-in agenda items in the
WTO’s TRIPS Council, in discussions at WIPO’s Standing Committee on the Law of
Trademarks, Industrial Designs and Geographical Indications and in the negotiations
under the WTO’s Doha Development Agenda.
Of course, one big difference from the pre-WTO situation is that geographical
indications are now embedded in the WTO system, as they comprise one of the
categories of intellectual property that are the subject of the TRIPS Agreement, which
itself is an integral part of the WTO Agreement.3 Consequently, non-compliance with
TRIPS obligations on geographical indications can be challenged under the WTO
dispute settlement mechanism, and if a country fails to implement a ruling, if it is
indeed not in compliance, it could eventually be faced with sanctions in areas of
international trade governed by other parts of the WTO Agreement and lose benefits
that accrue to it under that agreement for as long as it does not remedy the situation.
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Estey Centre Journal of International Law and Trade Policy