The paper aims at studying the role of local government on the registration and implementation of Geographical Indications (GI) protection on Pandanwangi Cianjur Rice. This study covers the journey of Pandanwangi Cianjur Rice during identification and qualification of GI and how local government played the role for this purpose based on Indonesian GI law. Qualification includes developing the Code of Practice to determine the product in relation to its origins, establishing GI protection to community organization to ensure product conformity, and governing the coordination among local stakeholders. For those objectives, the paper investigates some related documents governing subject matter. The role of the local government has been analyzed in accordance with the law related to GI, international law perspective, Indonesian law implementation, and in accordance with the Code of Practice of GI Pandanwangi Cianjur Rice itself. Further, the paper examines the role of the local government in the strategy of local economic development through GI legal protection. The paper concludes that the involvement of local stakeholders in the value chain within the territory plays a greater role as they must act as facilitators to register and execute legal protection of GI. The role of local government in building an understanding must use the sociocultural approach at the stage of the understanding GI so that it can be carried out in a mediated partnership model, as it will bring greater economic benefits to the GI and regional economy. The approach of the mediated partnership model is part of a producerdriven bottom-up strategy. The paper also suggests that if the producer-driven bottom-up strategy approach receives a negative response after maturity assessment, accordingly the local government needs to consider the approach from the importance of cultural preservation or ecological conservation. It is necessary to approach bureaucracy on the application of a top-down strategy that is state-driven.
Diah et al. (Sun,) studied this question.