The Protection of Geographical Indications Under Comparative Lens: Whether Law Artificially Creates Scarcity of Goods

The economic principles of supply and demand dictate that market prices are contingent on the conditions under which supply and demand converge. Within this theoretical framework, the concepts of scarcity and abundance assume paramount significance. When goods are scarce, prices tend to escalate, while in cases of abundant supply, prices tend to decline. But what factors determine scarcity and abundance? In many cases, scarcity is inherent to the nature of the commodity (for example, diamonds are rarer than common stones). In other cases, such as geographical indications, scarcity is constructed through the legal denomination associated with the commodity, thereby creating an artificial scarcity by accentuating certain particularities—geographical, physical, or cultural—regardless of their actual availability in nature. From this economic perspective, geographical indications represent the legal name under which, and through which, such market engineering is carried out, giving rise to different and conflicting interests. To what extent does this legal engineering of markets invite a negative reading, and to what extent a positive one?