Geographical indication laws in the Caribbean:: towards post-colonial justice for former plantation economy crops? The case of rum

Geographical indication laws in the Caribbean:: towards post-colonial justice for former plantation economy crops? The case of rum

Journal article

1 online resource

Geographical Indications (GIs) are signs which protect the reputation, quality, and characteristics of goods originating in a specific territory. They have gained prominence as subject matter in international trade, especially via their inclusions in Free Trade Agreements (FTAs). While they have been developed and used in the European context for two centuries, they have only recently been implemented in law in CARICOM countries (2000s) as they have become compliant with their obligations under the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Agreement on Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). This emergence of GI laws in the Caribbean prompts important questions about GIs in the contemporary context of globalization, calls for reparative justice and the pursuit of sustainable development to eradicate global inequalities through economic liberalization. This paper applies an inter–disciplinary approach–law, socio–legal and political economy analyses–to assess out how GI laws can be harnessed as emancipatory legal tools to contribute to sustainable development and the aspirations of poverty eradication sought by Caribbean small island developing states (SIDS) in today’s post-colonial setting, specifically for former plantation economy communities historically deprived of this opportunity. It draws on the case study of Caribbean rum GIs, a quintessentially Caribbean product made from the colonial cash crop, sugar. The paper seeks to assess how the commercial origin of GI products, in this case rum GIs, may impact the ability of GIs to serve as tools for sustainable development, and by extension a form of reparatory justice for former plantation economy communities in the Caribbean.

Crossref

European Intellectual Property Review, 0142-0461 ; E.I.P.R. 2025, 47(1), 42-50

[New York, NY] : Thomson Reuters, 2025.

English

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