Geographical Indications Between the Old World and the New World, and the Impact of Migration

Abstract

The article focuses on the use of European geographical names in certain countries of the so-called ‘New World’ (i.e. nations reached in the past by waves of European migration) and the impact of such migration on the debate around the protection of geographical indications (GIs). Specifically, the article analyses four GIs case studies – ‘Prosecco’, ‘Budweiser’, ‘Rioja’ and 'Parmesan' – which highlight the role of migration in this context and how countries of the New World (e.g. US, Canada, Australia, etc.) emphasise this role to argue that several European geographical names of food and wine products are just the generic terms for the products themselves. The ‘migration’ factor however is downplayed by the EU (i.e. the Old World), which stresses that European GIs still have a distinctive function linked to the geographical origin of the underlying product and should be protected in Europe and beyond.