Worldwide Perspectives on Geographical Indications

Geographical Indications (GI) are distinctive signs that associate products of quality and reputation with their place or area of production and thereby help identify and distinguish such products on the market.

In July 2022, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Centre de coopération internationale en recherche agronomique pour le dével oppement (CIRAD) in collaboration with the Swiss Intellectual Property Institute (IPI) and oriGIn (Organization for an International GI Network), brought together more than 200 representatives of researchers, public authorities, producers and their collective organizations, public authorities and international organizations from 47 countries to discuss recent research and practices on global perspectives on Geographical Indications. This book is a collection of selected contributions from those discussions authored by academics, practitioners and policy-makers and presenting key research and developments in the practices of geographical indications from across the globe. The book presents a rich analysis of GI’s from the nature and legal definition to public and private management, market forces, sustainable development, intellectual property rights as well as consumer rights and welfare. This is an open access book.

Emilie Vandecandelaere, PhD, is an agricultural and food economist, working at FAO since 2007 as food quality and geographical indications specialist, with areas of expertise in marketing, territorial markets, sustainable food systems, nutrition, investments.  Building on technical assistance in Latin America, Africa, Eastern Europe and Asia, she developed various publications to support concrete actions and benefits. Before joining FAO in 2007, Emilie was a civil servant during four years at the French ministry of agriculture, General directorate on food, working on labeling and nutrition standards, and the national food policy.

Delphine Marie-Vivien, PhD, joined CIRAD in 1999, a French public institute dedicated to agricultural research for developing countries. Visiting researcher at NLSIU, Bangalore, India from 2005-2008, she defended her PhD thesis on "The law of GI in India compared to French, EU and International laws", Paris University. She was from 2012 to 2018 in Vietnam, working on GIs for AFD, EUIPO, FAO, UNIDO, Swiss IPI in Asia, South America and Africa by elaborating GI laws, examination manual, specifications, control systems, producer’s association. She organises the international training on GIs InterGI. She teaches IP and GI law, writes scientific papers and supervises PhD students.

Erik Thévenod-Mottet is advisor for geographical indications at the Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property. He has previously taken part in a number of European scientific research projects on GIs, worked for a GI certification body and for wine organisations in Switzerland. His work focuses both on legal issues relating to GIs and on the ethnobiological aspects of GIs.

Maria Bouhaddane is a researcher at Cirad (French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development). She holds a PhD in Management Science from University Clermont Auvergne and specializes in Food economics and marketing. Her research centers around sustainable and origin-linked labelling strategies, in particular Geographical Indications, and their impact on consumer behavior.

Valérie Pieprzownik works as an expert in Geographical Indications at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in the Food and Nutrition Division since 2023. She is an agricultural and environmental engineer with a master's degree in law. She comes from the French Ministry of Agriculture where she dealt with the whole economy of the wine sector as Head of the Wine and Other Beverages Office and where she was also for many years the Head of the Quality Office, being in charge of all the official modes of valorization of products including GIs and organic farming. 

Florence Tartanac works at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) since 2001 and she is Senior Officer in the Food and Nutrition Division at FAO Headquarters in Rome, Italy.  She is Team Leader of the Market linkages and value chains team and her areas of expertise are the following: sustainable food value chain development; geographical indications; public food procurement; small and medium food enterprises development. Before FAO, she worked 10 years in Guatemala, for the French Cooperation, the Institute of Nutrition for Central America and Panama (INCAP) and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO). She also worked 5 years in the FAO regional office for Latin America and the Caribbean in Santiago, Chile. As academic background, she is a food engineer and has a PhD in Economical Geography from Paris University.   

Ida Puzone

is the Operations and Member Relations Manager at oriGIn, the global alliance of GIs. In this role, she works with the Managing Director to implement the organization's strategies and main activities, oversee specific projects, and manage relationships with members. Ida began her career at an Italian law firm. Following this, after a period at the international group "Pirelli Cavi e Sistemi Spa”, she moved to the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (OHIM, now EUIPO) in Alicante, Spain, where she focused on intellectual property. Ida holds a law degree from the University Federico II in Naples, Italy, and an LL.M in Intellectual Property and Information Technology (Magister Lvcentinvs) from the University of Alicante.