By Gustavo Capdevila
GENEVA, Jun 12 2003 (IPS)

A new pressure group has appeared on the international trade scenario, with strong backing from the European Union, inserting the "geographical indications" debate into the already troubled but crucial negotiations intended to liberalise trade in agricultural products.

The newly created ORIGIN (Organisation for an International Geographical Indications Network) aims to expand and protect the recognition that the multilateral trade system grants certain products that come from specific regions.

Geographic indications, according to the World Trade Organisation (WTO), "identify a good as originating in the territory of a member, or a region or locality in that territory, where a given quality, reputation or other characteristic of the good is essentially attributable to its geographical origin."

The WTO, which oversees the multilateral trade system, covers the question of geographic indications in the annex to its rules on trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights (TRIPS).

In this category are products like certain European cheeses and dairy products, as well as hams unique to specific regions of Italy and Spain. But it also includes products originating in developing countries, say the founders of ORIGIN, citing the examples of basmati rice from India, Darjeeling tea from India and Sri Lanka, and Antigua coffee from Guatemala.

But of all these products, the WTO only grants additional protection to geographic indications for wines and spirits, such as the cases of cognac, champagne, Scotch whisky, sherry and Borgoña wine, among others.

Those negotiations should be defined at the fifth ministerial conference, slated to take place in the Mexican resort city of Cancún Sep. 10-14. The talks have bogged down, as they have in other areas of WTO-led efforts to liberalise international trade. But in this case it is because there is no agreement on the geographic scope that would be obligated under the registration system.

The issue of geographic indications is being used to block negotiations on agricultural trade, says Alfredo Chiaradía, chief negotiator for Argentina.

"But the Europeans know that the we are not going to agree to it," he adds.

The creators of ORIGIN, founded this week in Geneva and directed by Pedro Echeverría, a coffee-grower from Guatemala, describe themselves as producers of regional foods and beverages that aim to ensure that the Cancún conference affords them the same protections as those given producers of geographically-specific wines and spirits.

The idea is to extend to cheeses, rice, and teas the same protections given wines and spirits to prevent their imitation by agricultural producers in other countries who use simple labels like "Roquefort-style cheese" or the like, says Carlo Trojan, the EU’s negotiator at the WTO.

For example, the TRIPS Agreement calls for legal protections to prevent the use of geographical indications in identifying wines that do not originate in the place indicated by the name of the product.

"This applies even where the public is not being misled, there is no unfair competition and the true origin of the good is indicated or the geographical indication is accompanied be expressions such as ‘kind’, ‘type’, ‘style’, ‘imitation’ or the like."

EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy said this week in regards to the founding of ORIGIN that the 15-member bloc considers it of utmost importance to ensure complete protection for geographic indications in the context of current trade negotiations.

Farm trade talks, scheduled to wrap up Jan. 1, 2005, are part of the Doha Round agenda, which also includes negotiations on services trade and discussion of the relationship between drugs patents and the right of states to protect public health.

The issue of agricultural trade has become a determining factor for the outcome of the Doha Round. Most of the countries of the industrialised North subsidise their farming sectors, which developing countries criticise, saying the practice pushes down farm commodity prices and undermines access of their exports to northern markets.

The sticking points in the negotiations have to do with the elimination of the export subsidies applied by the EU and, to a lesser extent, the United States, the reduction of state support for farming and cuts in tariffs for farm imports coming from the developing world.

But the EU, with the promotion of geographic indications, is trying to deny farmers in developing countries the right to benefit from the difference in prices, says Argentine negotiator Chiaradía.

In producing grains, meat, dairy products, beverages and tropical products, and even in other farm commodities, these nations of the South hold a comparative advantage in that costs are lower than those in industrialised countries, he explained.

The current multilateral trade regime ignores this situation, and agriculture remains the most protected sector, said Chiaradía.

With the geographic indications, the Europeans intend to require a surcharge on certain products, while the developing countries are not receiving even the minimum price for their products, he said.

Even while the fate of the agricultural trade negotiations is on the rocks, the Europeans "want to advance on the prices for certain fine products, while we don’t even have the right to receive the minimum price for basic commodities," noted the Argentine diplomat.

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