Geographical Indications as Development Tools: Promise, Limits, and Lived Realities

Geographical indications (GIs) have increasingly been conceptualised within international intellectual property law as development-oriented instruments associated with rural development, cultural heritage preservation, and improved market access, particularly in the Global South. This review essay examines how this developmental rationale is articulated and critically assessed in three recent contributions to GI scholarship. It argues that these works collectively challenge the assumption that legal recognition of GIs is sufficient to generate equitable economic outcomes. Instead, they show that GI regimes operate as institutionally mediated and politically contingent governance frameworks, whose distributive effects depend on regulatory capacity, producer organisation, and market structures. Drawing on comparative perspectives from Asia and Africa, the essay situates GI protection within broader debates on legal transplantation, development governance, and distributive justice in the Global South.