As noted early on the week under 'upcoming events on this week', today is the day to attend the webinar by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) E-commerce and Intellectual Property for Indigenous Peoples and Local Community Entrepreneurs.
I will be in attendance, will you?
The majority, if not all of our countries in Latin America are rich in genetic resources and traditional knowledge. Many do indeed protect traditional handicraft under Geographical Indications and for instance, Panama has a sui generis Law 20 (2020) which aims to protect TK and TCEs.
In Brazil, there are many local products that have benefited from GI protection (as a sui generis system), and some of them were globally seen in the Olympic games Rio 2016 (opening ceremony). Here you can see a very helpful map of GIs in Brazil.
In Colombia, there are 11 Denominations of Origin granted to handicraft, one of them is the weaving products 'Wayuu' referring to the Wayuu indigenous people. Check out (here) the list of DOs already granted in Colombia.
For more inside in how TK is seen as economic activity, check out this paper (available here) that I wrote back in March 2019 (IIC). Remember, GI has the potential to benefit rural communities, but there is some instance that there is no gold at the end of the rainbow.
