Extending the Protection of Geographical Indications: Case Studies of Agricultural Products in Africa

376 Pages·2012·3.21 MB·English

by  Michael Blakeney

Extending the
Protection of
Geographical
Indications
Case Studies of Agricultural
Products in Africa
Edited by
Michael Blakeney,
Thierry Coulet,
Getachew Mengistie and
Marcelin Tonye Mahop
EXTENDING THE PROTECTION OF
GEOGRAPHICAL INDICATIONS
TheTRIPSAgreement(fortrade-relatedintellectualpropertyrights)providesforthe
general protection of geographical indications (GIs) of product origin, including for
examplethespecialprotectionofwinesandspiritsandforthecreationofamultilateral
register for wines. The African Group of countries has been in the forefront of
countriesagitatingintheWorldTradeOrganizationTRIPSCouncilfortheextension
of this special protection and of the multilateral register to industries which are of
interest to developing countries, primarily agriculture. The so-called ‘extension
question’ is the central feature of the Doha Development Agenda at both the WTO
and World Intellectual Property Organization.
This book provides some empirical evidence and applied legal and economic
reasoning to this debate. It provides both a general review of the key issues and a
series of case studies from seven Anglophone and five Francophone countries in
Africa.Thesefocusonmajoragriculturalcommoditiessuchascoffee,cotton,cocoaand
tea,aswellasmorespecificandlocalproductssuchasArganoilandOkuwhitehoney.
Michael Blakeney isWinthropProfessorofLawattheUniversityofWesternAustralia
and Visiting Professor in IP and Agriculture at Queen Mary, University of London.
Heisan arbitratorwiththeInternationalCourtofArbitration,andfrequentlyadvises
a range of institutions and organizations on intellectual property management.
Thierry Coulet is Director of Euriane Consultants, Lyon and currently teaches the
principles of regional integration, trade policy and competition policy at the Institut
d’Etudes Politiques de Lyon. He has undertaken a number of projects in the areas of
trade policy and statistical information systems in Africa, South America, the Middle
East and Far East Asia.
Getachew Mengistie is an intellectual property consultant and former Director
General of the Ethiopian IP Office. He has undertaken a number of projects with
organizations such as UNECA (United Nations Economic Commission for Africa)
andWIPO,mostrecentlyconcerningtheestablishmentofGIsfortheclovesindustry
of Zanzibar and the cotton industry of Uganda.
MarcelinTonyeMahop isaProgrammeOfficerandpolicyexpertwiththeCongo
BasinEcosystemsConservationSupportProgrammeoftheEconomicCommunityof
Central African States, and provides technical support on genetic resources policies
in the context of the GIZ-implemented Access and Benefit Sharing Initiative
Programme ‘Implementing the Biodiversity Convention’.

EXTENDING THE
PROTECTION OF
GEOGRAPHICAL
INDICATIONS
Case Studies of Agricultural
Products in Africa
Edited by Michael Blakeney,
Thierry Coulet, Getachew Mengistie
and Marcelin Tonye Mahop
Firstpublished2012
byEarthscanfromRoutledge
2ParkSquare,MiltonPark,Abingdon,OxonOX144RN
SimultaneouslypublishedintheUSAandCanada
byEarthscanfromRoutledge
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EarthscanisanimprintoftheTaylor&FrancisGroup,aninformabusiness
©2012MichaelBlakeney,ThierryCoulet,GetachewMengistieandMarcelin
TonyeMahopfortheselectionandeditorialmaterialandtheauthorsfortheir
individualchapters
TherightofMichaelBlakeney,ThierryCoulet,GetachewMengistieand
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BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData
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LibraryofCongressCataloginginPublicationData
Extendingtheprotectionofgeographicalindications:casestudiesofagricultural
productsinAfrica/editedbyMichaelBlakeney...[etal.].
p.cm.
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
1.Producetrade–Africa.2.Marksoforigin–Africa.I.Blakeney,Michael.
HD9017.A2.E982012
3820.41096–dc23
2011040504
ISBN:978-0-415-50102-6(hbk)
ISBN:978-0-203-13331-6(ebk)
TypesetinBembo
byTaylorandFrancisBooks
CONTENTS
List of Contributors vii
Foreword x
Introduction 1
PARTI
The Policy Context 5
1 Geographical Indications and TRIPS 7
Michael Blakeney
2 Setting up a GI: Requirements and Difficulties at the
Producer Level 35
Audrey Aubard
3 Legal Infrastructure for the Protection of GIs 51
Michael Blakeney
4 Geographical Indications and Economic Development 84
Michael Blakeney and Getachew Mengistie
5 Assessing the Economic Impact of GI Protection 101
Thierry Coulet
6 Geographical Indications, Traditional Knowledge, Expressions
of Culture and the Protection of Cultural Products in Africa 120
Michael Blakeney
vi Contents
PARTII
Case Studies 135
7 Cameroon: Oku White Honey 137
Thierry Coulet in collaboration with Marcelin Tonye Mahop
8 Ethiopia: Fine Coffee 150
Getachew Mengistie
9 Gabon: Okoumé Wood 175
Thierry Coulet in collaboration with Marcelin Tonye Mahop
10 Ghana: Cocoa 197
Edgar Tabaro
11 Kenya: Tea 213
Michael Blakeney and Getachew Mengistie
12 Mauritius: Sugar 235
Michael Blakeney
13 Morocco: Argan Oil 255
Sophie Réviron with the collaboration of Nadja El Benni
14 Rwanda: Coffee 266
Thierry Coulet
15 Uganda: Cotton 289
Getachew Mengistie
16 Senegal: Yett of Joal 300
Thierry Coulet
17 South Africa: Rooibos Tea 314
Sophie Réviron with the collaboration of Nadja El Benni
18 Zanzibar: Cloves 330
M. Blakeney and G. Mengistie
Index 345
CONTRIBUTORS
Audrey Aubard is an international freelance consultant, specializing in quality signs
strategies and a senior legal expert on IP issues. She provides assistance for countries
thatwanttobuildaGIsystemandproducerswhowanttoprotecttheirproductsasa
GIs or other labels (Guatemala, Cambodia, Morocco, Lebanon, Benin). Since 2003,
shehashelpedtheproducersofArganoilinMoroccotobuildtheirPGI,recognizedin
2009. She also teaches labelling strategies at Bordeaux 3 University and the ENITA-
Agronomy School of Bordeaux. Previously, she worked at the French Institution of
qualityandorigin(INAO);intheLegalandInternationalDepartment,mainlyonthe
internationalprotectionofGIs andthedevelopmentofGIs internationalcooperation
(South America, Asia and Africa). Audrey Aubard holds a Master’s degree in
European and International law and postgraduate degrees in environmental law and
agro-foodlaw.
Michael Blakeney is Winthrop Professor of Law at the University of Western
Australia and Visiting Professor in IP and Agriculture at Queen Mary, University of
London, He formerly worked in the Asia Pacific Bureau of the World Intellectual
Property Organization. He is an arbitrator with the International Court of Arbitration.
Professor Blakeney has advised the Asian Development Bank, Consulting Group for
International Agriculture Research, European Commission (EC), European Patent
Office, Food and Agriculture Organization, World Intellectual Property Organization
and a number of university and publicresearch institutes on intellectual property man-
agement.Hehasalsodirectedandbeenashort-termexpertinanumberofprojectsto
assistdevelopingcountriestobecomemembersoftheWorldTradeOrganization.
ThierryCouletisDirectorofEurianeConsultants,Lyon.Heobtainedhisdoctorate
in applied economics at Pierre Mendès-France University, Grenoble, and currently
teaches the principles of regional integration, trade policy and competition policy at
viii ListofContributors
the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Lyon (Sciences Po Lyon, University of Lyon). He
previously worked as Director of Research with EM Lyon Business School.
DrCouletregularlycollaboratesasKeyExpertwithDevcoandEurostat(theEuropean
Commission). He has been involved in a number of EU and EU-ACP projects in
the areas of trade policy, related in particular to impact assessments of services trade
liberalization,andnationalstatisticalinformationsystems.Theseprojectsgavehimthe
opportunitytoworkinmanydifferentculturalenvironmentsinAfrica,NorthAfrica,
South America, the Middle East and Far East Asia. Dr Coulet has in particular
undertaken projects in several African countries (Cameroon, Centrafrique, Chad,
Gabon, Ivory Coast, Malawi, Rwanda, Senegal and Togo).
Nadja El Benni is research assistant at the Agri-Food and Agri-Environmental
Economics Group at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich. She was
involved in a Project on Geographical Indications funded by the Swiss National
Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR Trade). Within this project she
reviewed the literatureon seven products linked toa specific geographical origin and
their evolvement over time, including market developments, supply chain structures
and legal issues within the different countries considered.
Cheikh Alassane Fall works as a plant breeder and IP specialist with the Senegal
Institute of Agricultural Research. He has been Vice-President of the FAO
Commission of Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (CGFRA) and is a
Permanent Member of the Scientific and Technical Committee of the Agence
sénégalaise de la Propriété Industrielle et l’Innovation technologique (ASPIT) and
regional coordinator of the West and Central African Council for Agricultural
Research and Development (CORAF/WECARD).
Marcelin Tonye Mahop is a researcher on development policy issues, with a
backgroundinbiology,intellectualpropertylawandpolicyandinenvironmentallaw
and policy. He obtained his DESS (Diplôme d’Etudes Supérieures Spécialisées) in
naturalsciencesattheUniversityofYaoundéIinCameroonandwasawardedaPhD
by the University of London for his thesis ‘Community Rights and Biodiversity
Regulations:LessonsfromCameroonandSouthAfrica’.Heworkedasapostdoctoral
Research Fellow at the Queen Mary Intellectual Property Research Institute and the
Centre for Commercial Law Studies (CCLS), Queen Mary, University of London.
Subsequently he worked as international environmental law and genetic resources
policy expert for the African Development Bank-Funded Congo Basin Ecosystems
Conservation Support Programme of the Economic Community of Central African
States and is providing technical support on genetic resources policies to the African
Group in the context of the GIZ-implemented Access and Benefit Sharing Initiative
Programme ‘Implementing the Biodiversity Convention’. Dr Mahop’s bookIntellectual
Property,CommunityandHumanRights:theBiologicalandGeneticResourcesofDeveloping
Countries (Routledge 2010) reflects his multidisciplinary perspective in development
policy research.
ListofContributors ix
Getachew Mengistie is the former Director General of the Ethiopian Intellectual
Property Office (EIPO) and is currently an intellectual property consultant, having
undertakena number of projects for the EC, EU-ACP, UNCTAD, UNECA, FAO,
WIPO and WTO. As Director General of the EIPO, he was responsible for the
initiation of the Ethiopian Fine Coffees Project. His most recent consultancies with
WIPO have concerned the establishment of GIs for the cloves industry of Zanzibar
and the cotton industry of Uganda.
Sophie Réviron is head of the ‘agri-food markets and chains group’ at Agridea (the
Swiss Centre for Developing Agriculture and Rural Areas) Lausanne. She obtained
her doctorate from the Institut National Agronomique, Paris-Grignon for her thesis
on ‘La diversité des systèmes de marché, proposition d’une représentation du cadre
desnégociationscommerciales:lecasdesproduitsagro-alimentaires’.DrRévironwas
involved in two major EU research projects on GIs: DOLPHINS (Development of
Origin Labelled Products, Innovation and Sustainability) 2000–2004 and SINER-GI
(Strengthening of International Network Research on GIs) 2005–2008. She recently
workedonprojectsinMongoliaandJamaicatohelpproducerstobuildupGIssystems.
Edgar Tabaro is Senior Lecturer in Law at Uganda Christian University, Mukono,
and Visiting Lecturer at the Faculty of Arts and Science, Aga Khan University, East
Africa.HeobtainedhisMaster’sinLawattheUniversityoftheWitwatersrandandis
an Advocate in the High Court of Uganda. Mr Tabaro has served as a legal expert
with the UNESCO Global Committee on Bioethics and assisted in the formulation
of the Ugandan National Bioinformatics Node Policy, Republic of Uganda; the
Global Bioethics and Ethics related Guidelines and Legislation for UNESCO’s
Database Observatory and was a consultant to the Humanist Institute for Develop-
ment Cooperation on Access to Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture:
Issues and Concerns for Africa; and to the International Development Research
CouncilandHumanSciencesResearchCouncil-RSAonUniversityIndustryLinkages
in Sub Saharan Africa.