SABIIA - Sistema Aberto e Integrado de Informação em Agricultura (Sabiia)

Charlier, Christophe; Ngo, Mai-Anh.

The dispute "European Communities - Protection of trademarks and geographical indications for agricultural products and foodstuffs" that opposes the European - Union to the United States and Australia, has been raised by the European regulation concerning the protection of geographical indications. This dispute has two important issues. First, the Panel demonstrated that the European regulation did not comply with national treatment promulgated by the TRIPS and the GATT 1994 Agreements. Second, the Panel affirmed the possibility of coexistence between GIs and identical prior trademarks. This article considers these two issues and depicts the position of the parties at the end of the dispute regarding GIs' protection. The first part of this article presents...

Agro Food’s Quality Signs and Free Movement of Goods. What Strategies for the European Operators?

Palavras-chave: Geographical indications; Intellectual property; National treatment; TRIPS; Dispute settlement.; International Relations/Trade; Marketing; F13; Q17; Q18.

Ano: 2006

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/10032

Charlier, Christophe; Ngo, Mai-Anh.

Several recent cases judged by the Court of Justice of the European Communities have raised interesting issues on the possibility for operators of food chains to use national quality signs indicating a territory of origin, different from the European regulatory ones (Protected Geographical Indications). These various attempts from France, Germany and Belgium were all condemned as protectionist policies contradicting the free movement of goods between Member States in the European Market. However, the condemned national policies can be seen as defending the viability of specific kinds of activities (of small enterprises) in specific places (rural areas). These cases as a consequence, form a good illustration of the difficulty that a government faces while...

Food Safety, Market Power and Private Standards: An Analysis of the Emerging Strategies of Food Operators

Palavras-chave: Free Movement of Goods; Geographical Indications; Collective Trademarks; Agribusiness.

Ano: 2008

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/44316

Traceability, Trust and Coordination in a Food Chain

Together with expected implications on food safety, the European Regulation 178/2002 has important consequences shaping the agrifood sector. This regulation gives latitude to operators in front of specific food safety objectives and promotes self‐control. Private standards are a way of addressing this problem. The paper shows that as soon as producers and retailers have different private standards, a problem of coordination among operators has to be solved. This coordination is important for the sanitary aims but involves strategic aspects too. The coordination problem is tougher when the standards developed by producers and retailers can be considered as two substitutes, even if each operators considers that a coordination of their practices shall be...

Tipo: Journal Article

Palavras-chave: Private standards; Food safety; Operators responsibility; Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety; Food Security and Poverty.

Ano: 2010

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/97227

In response to sanitary crisis, risk management has become a central issue for food producers and distributors in Europe. Organisational responses to sanitary risks usually implying traceability have been conceived by firms. One of the main tasks here is to deal with coordination of the different operators of a food chain. The European Union has developed a regulatory framework with the Regulation 178/2002. This regulation sets a mandatory traceability considered as a risk management tool. Traceability that was considered as a private initiative has therefore become an obligation with this regulation. This paper tries to evaluate if the problem of the operators coordination on specific traceability practices that any private organisational of a food chain...

Food Safety, Market Power and Private Standards. An Analysis of the Emerging Strategies of Food Operators

Palavras-chave: Traceability; Risk management; Food safety; Agribusiness; Industrial Organization; I18; K32; Q18..

Ano: 2006

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/7718

The European Union has developed a regulatory framework on food safety with the European Regulation 178/2002. Simultaneously growing consumers’ exigencies on food safety can be perceived. The European Regulation 178/2002 sets rules and procedures in the matter of food safety that, in many aspects, are novelties. The operators’ responsibilities and the mandatory traceability set by this regulation and put into practice since January 2005 are good examples of these regulatory innovations. These dispositions have important implications on the practices developed to ascertain food safety. The ‘traditional’ procedures indeed have been judged insufficient in front of the new regulatory exigencies.

Importance and Limits of the Cost-Benefit Analysis for GMOs Regulation

Palavras-chave: Agribusiness; Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety.

Ano: 2007

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/6575

New technologies and innovations suspected to affect environment or public health need to be regulated. Scientific risk assessment is considered as a key element for the regulation. Its role is reinforced when the regulation has the potential of constraining the international trade. The Sanitary and Phytosanitary Agreement of the WTO dealing with this kind of issues gives primacy to scientific risk assessment. Interesting situations arise with small risks that is to say situations where the probability of damage is tiny and/or expected damages are very small. If risk assessment is the only scientific element considered, the mere presence of risk – even small - should give reason for regulation. Does it rationalize the public decision for all that? If the...

Traceability and Labelling of GMOs as a Framework for Risk Management in European Regulation

Palavras-chave: Agribusiness; Agricultural and Food Policy; Farm Management; Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety; Industrial Organization.

Ano: 2008

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/49839

Charlier, Christophe.

Traceability and labelling are required by European regulation for food produced from GMOs. For this regulation one of the main advantages of traceability consists in providing information that should allow the precise withdrawal of products from the production process. This paper tests this idea. For that purpose, it seeks to establish whether the mandatory traceability will create an information set refined enough to locate GMO products in the production process. In this respect, the limits of the European regulation are pointed out. It is shown however that results are improved as soon as labelling is introduced alongside the requirement of traceability.