China before the trial system and bilateral agreements: An attempt in clarifying China’s position in the multilateral debate over the Protection of Geographical Indication.

Abstract

Despite nowadays PGI represent a well-established concept, what is behind the growth of its legal concept and thus protection is a very complex matter. In Europe the progress of establish policies to protect GI is a intrinsic feature of the culture, in China it is instead something inspired from outside. This thesis tries to reconstruct the history of the development of legal protection in China, putting special attention in the progression of China as an active player in the international most important multilateral agreement, i.e.the TRIPS agreement and its subsequent negotiations. China started protecting GI in the mid-80s, during the opening up phase. It was at that time, when struggling to become member to WTO that China has to shows its compliance with international standards and dispositions. At first, it puts strong effort in reaching the standard needed for becoming a WTO member, but this feature of a proactive player was completely inverted: after its accession to WTO China’s voice become lower, and many critiques arose since the participation which was expected from China was higher. But probably these critiques miss the real intention of China. This work tries to interpret China strategic choice of act as a distant player, and tries understand how can a so passive actor enact one, if not the most complex system of protecting GI, and striking deal which goes even beyond the disposition given by TRIPS agreement.