East Africans Fail to Remove Technical Market Access Barriers Amongst Themselves, Despite Adverse Impact on Trade Flows

East Africa: Remove Trade Barriers


http://allafrica.com/stories/200802120616.html


The Citizen (Dar es Salaam)


EDITORIAL


11 February 2008


Posted to the web 12 February 2008


A workshop was told In Dar es Salaam recently that no member of the East African Community (EAC) has removed non-tariff barriers. This is despite approval of the EAC Council of Ministers that partner states form committees to oversee the issue.


Formation of the national committees was an attempt to address the problem of non-tariff barriers on trade which would now be removed in order to make the movement of goods between member states smooth.


We are a bit perplexed why partner states have not taken steps to implement such an important issue which affects the trade pattern of member states.


For, as it is now, there are many impediments towards smooth trade among them. These hinder the movement of goods from one country to another, contrary to the very purpose of forming the EAC.


Leading forms of barriers include police road blocks, standards requirements, customs procedures, documentation and poor application of the rules of origin.


It is disheartening that while other economic blocks take steps towards closer cooperation the EAC seems to be marking time. And with the turmoil in Kenya it is anybody's guess if member states will ever take steps to implement the resolution of the EAC council of ministers. Let's wait and see.

Sudden EU Commission Change of Heart on CO2 Rules Against Industry???? It's the Economy Stupid!!

http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/46516/story.htm


EU to Set Easier CO2 Regime for Heavy Industries


Paul Taylor


Planet Ark


January 21, 2008


BRUSSELS - Europe's steel, aluminium and cement industries will have a special, less strict regime for greenhouse gas emissions under European Commission proposals to fight climate change to be announced this week.


After weeks of intense lobbying by business and governments, EU sources said on Sunday those three energy-intensive industries would be introduced more slowly into a new system for auctioning permits to emit carbon dioxide (CO2) from 2013.


The sources insisted on anonymity because wrangling is continuing in the Commission on final details of the proposals on CO2 emissions, renewable energy sources, biofuels and carbon sequestration to be unveiled on Wednesday.


A key flaw of the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme -- the main instrument for curbing pollution blamed for global warming -- has been that governments issued emission permits for free, handing industry windfall profits.


Under a planned reform, the sources said most sectors covered by the ETS will have to buy about one-fifth of emission permits from 2013 -- fewer than in early drafts of the proposal -- rising annually to reach 100 percent in 2020.


Those sectors include energy and power generation, including refineries, despite fierce lobbying by European oil majors BP and Shell to go easy on refineries.


The overall aim is to reduce European emissions of CO2 by at least 20 percent by 2020 compared to 1990 levels.


[MY, MY: HOW EU ASPIRATIONS FOR ENLIGHTENED ENVIRONMENTALISM HAVE FALLEN!!]


However, the sources said the EU executive was sensitive to concerns that the three big energy-intensive industries could be driven out of Europe if subjected to the same regime.


[EU COMMISSION SMELLS THE COFFEE!!]


"Those concerns are being sufficiently taken into account through the benchmarking regime and a different allocation regime," one official said.


WHITTLED DOWN


He declined to give figures but said energy-intensive industries would have a bigger initial allocation than originally planned, a lower starting point for the percentage of emissions permits to be auctioned and a slower phase-in.


The Carbon Trust, a British government-funded body charged with helping companies cut emissions, warned earlier this month that cement, steel, aluminium, chemicals, fertiliser and pulp and paper businesses might be hurt by the stricter EU regime.


But the sources said officials had whittled down the number of energy-intensive sectors likely to enjoy special treatment to just the three.


Europe's top business lobby last week attacked Commission plans to implement the deep emissions cuts agreed by EU leaders last year, saying that auctioning pollution permits could hurt industry in global competition.


"In the absence of a comprehensive international agreement, auctioning of allowances will harm the competitiveness of European companies, especially in energy-intensive industries," BusinessEurope Secretary-General Philippe de Buck wrote in a letter to Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso.


The draft proposal provides for a review in 2011 of the impact on energy-intensive industries, depending on whether there has been an international pact on curbing emissions by then.


The EU package will also propose mandatory national targets for cutting CO2 emissions from buildings, heating and cooling and transport, as well as binding national targets for using renewable energy sources in power generation. (Editing by Caroline Drees)

Environmental Demagoguery: Measuring and Labeling Wine's Carbon Footprint is Needless Undertaking; Will Raise Consumer Costs & Reduces Quality of Life

Bordeaux To Measure Wine’s CO2 Footprint


Environmental Leader


January 29, 2008


http://www.environmentalleader.com/2008/01/29/bordeaux-to-measure-wines-co2-footprint


The Bordeaux Wine Board (CIVB) is launching a project to measure the GHG the region’s industry is producing. The project, called “Bilan Carbone” in French, will run for the next six months in association with the French Environment Agency, and the CIVB says the results will be released in September.


The aim of the study is to give an overview of all emissions resulting from growing and tending vines, making wine, and bottling, storage and delivery. It will also look at associated activities such as personnel, packaging, vine treatments and waste management. According to Roland Feredj, CIVB director, the study will cost about $70,000.Last November, the first-ever attempt at a carbon neutral vineyard in France began in Bordeaux’s Medoc region.

[MORE FRENCH PROTECTIONISM]


Another Bordeaux winemaking family, the Despagne Family, has already launched a carbon reduction project, planting 25 acres of sunflowers that will be used to produce fuel for tractors, but they said studying carbon emissions was a challenge. The Despagnes are using an Australian protocol, developed by Australian wine industry consultant, Provisor, and the Yalumba Wine Company, to measure their GHG and compare them with global standards.

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http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gnFLyvTdnNFpzMEUeeN5bbRa0teg

Associated France Presse


Bordeaux to measure wine's CO2 footprint

BORDEAUX, France (AFP) —

The Bordeaux region, one of France's premier wine growing regions, is launching an ambitious project to measure the industry's greenhouse gas emissions to bolster its environmental standards.

The Bordeaux Wine Board (Conseil Interprofessionel des Vins de Bordeaux or CIVB) said it wanted to find out just how much carbon dioxide, one of the main culprits in global warming, it generated.

"We know we produce 756 million bottles of wine per year and that 40 percent of that is exported," said Laurent Charlier of the CIVB, who will be working with environmental consultant Jean Marc Jancovici on the project.

"This study should give a clear idea of what different methods of production or shipment mean, in terms of environmental cost," he said.

[THIS IS NOTHING MORE THAN FRENCH CLIMATE CHANGE CHICANERY - THE FRENCH WINE INDUSTRY IS UNDER INCREASING COMPETITION FROM LOWER COST PRODUCERS FROM AROUND THE WORLD...]

The project, called "Bilan Carbone" in French, will run for the next six months in association with the French Environment Agency (ADEME), and the CIVB says the results will be released in September.

Jancovici, who has worked with the French government, France Telecom, Sony, Alcatel and luxury goods company LVMH, was also responsible for a similar project for producers in the Champagne region.

CIVB director, Roland Feredj, said the launch in October last year of France¹s national environmental action plan was in part responsible for the CIVB initiative but there is a practical side as well.

"Everyone is concerned with the costs of (wine) production, so if we can find ways of saving money and reducing carbon emissions, that would be ideal."

The aim of the study, which Feredj said would cost about 50,000 euros (70,000 dollars), are to give an overview of all emissions resulting from growing and tending vines, making wine, and bottling, storage and delivery.

It will also look at associated activities such as personnel, packaging, vine treatments and waste management.

"We intend to find out the carbon emissions for making different styles of wine," Charlier said. "And at what stages we need to concentrate our efforts to mitigate the emissions."

One Bordeaux winemaking family that has already launched a carbon reduction project, planting 10 hectares (25 acres) of sunflowers that will be used to produce fuel for tractors, welcomed the move, but said studying carbon emissions was a challenge.

"We think it's good and we are going to be part of the study group," said Aymeric Fournier for the Despagne Family which owns 300 hectares of vineyards in Bordeaux.

"This will give us an overview of the situation but it is a complicated thing to do," he warned.
"We started seriously in the spring of 2007 -- although we had already planted the sunflowers -- to look at our carbon emissions but deciding how far to take each measurement is not easy," Fournier said.

"For example, with any of the products needed for the vineyard we need to ask, how far has this come, how much carbon was emitted in its making? Or take the different cars and different distances that employees drive to work. It is a very detailed calculation," he said.

The Despagnes are already using an Australian protocol, developed by Australian wine industry consultant, Provisor, and the Yalumba Wine Company, to to measure their greenhouse gas emissions and compare them with global standards.

"It is quite a piece of work but we are determined to go ahead with it. It helps so much to have this kind of framework. We were a bit stumped as to where to go next before we saw this," Fournier said. "

India and Pakistan Make Effort to Avoid Using Geographical Indicators for Pashmina Shawls as Protectionist Cloak

http://spicyipindia.blogspot.com/2007/12/basmati-redux-pashmina-story.html


Basmati redux: the Pashmina story


You can see them being sold everywhere: in the open-air stalls of Dilli Haat in the capital; in the crowded, winding lanes of Chinatown in Singapore; in the fashionable streets by the Hotel de Ville in Paris… Pashmina shawls, both real and fake, have become a global fashion statement, and can be found draped around every neck this winter. But where exactly do they originate?


In a replay of the Super Basmati yarn, troubles between India and Pakistan have been raging over the registration of the Geographical Indication (GI) tag for Kashmir-made Pashmina wool. HT reports that while Pakistan is “open to a joint GI tag”, India has said that this would be possible only if Pakistani Pashmina is proven to be of the same quality as the Indian variety.


The dispute originated when the Srinagar-based Craft Development Institute filed an application with the Geographical Indications Registry in Chennai to protect Pashmina weavers from others claiming to be authentic (See this earlier SpicyIP post). The Rawalpindi Chamber of Commerce and Industry immediately challenged this on grounds that Pashmina shawls are also woven in Pakistan’s Gilgit Baltistan region and that India could not solely claim the GI, Mint reported a few months ago.


Pashmina is not the sole case in point of a GI being disputed by different countries; Basmati has received more media attention. But there are several obvious examples that emerge, particularly in the arts and crafts, where antecedents of origin lie along the border lines in the sub-continent: Kutchi-work in Gujarat and Kantha embroidery, Madhubani paintings in Bihar…


While all of these have not been registered as GIs, there remains the nagging question: how are these entities to be treated? Neither TRIPS nor the national legislation provides for the joint registration of GIs. At best, such an arrangement will have to be arrived at through bilateral or plurilateral agreements, as the case may be.


In disputes with Pakistan over GIs, the problem is twofold, as Spicy IP’s Prashant Reddy reported earlier: the political state of affairs in the country has beset legislators with more immediate concerns; and Pakistan is yet to have a GI law in place.


One suggested solution is that of countries simultaneously registering homonymous GIs, similar to the provision under section 3, Art 22.3 of TRIPs (‘homonyms’ are names which consist of, or contain, the same identifier for different geographical places):


In the case of homonymous geographical indications for wines, protection shall be accorded to each indication, subject to the provisions of paragraph 4 of Article 22. Each Member shall determine the practical conditions under which the homonymous indications in question will be differentiated from each other, taking into account the need to ensure equitable treatment of the producers concerned and that consumers are not misled.


In Beijing earlier this year, at the International Symposium on GIs, the International Trademark Association (INTA) recommended a multilateral registry for GIs along the lines of the Patent Cooperation Treaty and the Madrid System for the International Registration of Marks.


The conflict resolution mechanism recommended by INTA is in-built in the principles of territoriality, priority and exclusivity that the PCT and the Madrid system espouse. The paper cites the example of Veracruz coffee beans, and Budweiser beer, illustrating that national offices and courts were best positioned to undertake an IPR priority examination. This model assumes that the question of priority of an IPR registration will differ from one country to another and prior IPR will not be registered in all countries where protection of the conflicting geographical indication is sought.



Lack of precedent makes it hard to evaluate whether the INTA model is workable; or if a joint-homonymous GI is feasible. There is little consensus between WTO member countries on GIs such as these; and clearly, there is an urgent need to evolve and implement a working model before the GI protection system loses legitimacy in the wake of such issues.


http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/trips_e/gi_background_e.htm


TRIPS: GEOGRAPHICAL INDICATIONS


Background and the current situation


A product’s quality, reputation or other characteristics can be determined by where it comes from. Geographical indications are place names (in some countries also words associated with a place) used to identify products that come from these places and have these characteristics (for example, “Champagne”, “Tequila” or “Roquefort”).


Two issues are debated in the TRIPS Council under the Doha mandate: creating a multilateral register for wines and spirits; and extending the higher (Article 23) level of protection beyond wines and spirits.