World Food Policy Volume 3, No. 2/Volume 4, No. 1, Fall16/Spring17 | Page 109

One Size Fits all or Tailor-Made? Building Appropriate Certification Systems for Geographical Indications in Southeast Asia and legitimacy among customers and to limit liability. In contrast, the literature on the control of GIs is much more lim- ited, with some works describing the evolution of the governance of controls in France {Marie-Vivien, 2017 #609}, the effect of the certification costs in It- aly (Belletti et al. 2007), or the issue of State intervention in controls in African developing countries (Hughes 2009). Other works aim to compare the gov- ernance of GIs with that of other volun- tary standards (e.g., ecofriendly labels) by analyzing how the standard is set (its content) rather than how it is controlled (Marie-Vivien et al. 2014). qualitative interviews conducted in each country, this paper details for each of the four countries: the GI system, the control mechanisms implemented for GIs (when these exist), the control mechanisms implemented for vol- untary/compulsory standards (when no GI control exists), and the control mechanisms in place for pilot GIs. Ulti- mately, the paper aims to provide poli- cymakers with relevant information on how to build efficient but appropriate GI control schemes at the country and regional level. The rest of the article is orga- nized as follows: Section 2 describes Third-party certification is now the GI control system in the EU; in clearly expressed as the preferred op- Section 3, an analytical grid is used to tion by the EU regulation on GIs and compare the GI control schemes in the is mandatory in France. It is, therefore, four countries. Section 4 is dedicated to important to understand how the need a discussion of the results of our survey. for third-party certification is handled in countries with a burgeoning GI A GI Control Model system, and how it builds on control Advocated by the EU mechanisms already in place for other 1.1 Towards third-party voluntary standards. The purpose of the paper is thus to analyze the options for GI control in four Asian countries—Thailand, Cam- bodia, Vietnam, and Laos—and to highlight the challenges faced by these countries, which have very different control capacities. We highlight the close relationship between the diffusion of the third-party certification model for GI certification in Asian countries and the shift in GI control in the EU (with a specific focus on France) from public bodies and collective producer organizations towards third-party cer- tification. Based on desk research and certification D rawing largely on the tradition of appellation of origin, born in France in 1905 (Sylvander, Casabianca, and Roncin 2008), GIs have been homogeneously protected in the EU since 1992 by Regulation 2081/92 on the Protection of Geographical Indica- tions (PGI) and Designations of Origin (PDO) for Agricultural Products and Foodstuffs. This is a two-tier system: the PDO/PGI application is first pro- cessed by the competent authority of the Member State in which the geographical area is located—e.g., the National Insti- 109