Política internacional da União Europeia em relação às indicações geográficas: bilateralismo estratégico e suas implicações no Acordo de Associação Mercosul-União Europeia

Abstract

In the last 15 years, there has been a strategic shift in the European Union's international policy in relation to geographical indications. The bloc started to prioritize the negotiation of its intellectual property agenda in its bilateral agreements, to the detriment of the effort for a multilateral solution. This new posture stems from the desire to expand the levels of international protection of the referred signs beyond what is foreseen in the TRIPS Agreement. The bilateral approach is justified by the difficulties faced multilaterally, considering that its main discussion forum, the Doha Round, extends since 2001 and remains inconclusive. The European Union then began to ensure that its trading partners were, one by one, bound by a standard of protection deemed acceptable. The present work aims to analyze the international policy of the European Union in relation to geographical indications and to understand its implications in the recent Association Agreement signed between Mercosur and the European Union. Therefore, the research was divided into three sections. In the first, general aspects of the multilateral regime for the protection of geographical indications were presented. In the second, ten of the most recent bilateral trade agreements signed by the bloc were examined, with the purpose of identifying standards related to the treatment of signs of origin. In the third, the subsection destined to the treatment of geographical indications in the Mercosur-EU Association Agreement was examined, with the aim of identifying the standards observed in the other agreements and their implications for the members of the South American bloc.