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The concept of terroir is often included in legal descriptions of Geographical Indicators (GIs). GIs are intellectual property that recognizes a food, beverage, or artisan product as holding distinct properties based on geographic origin. GIs are used to indicate these distinctions while deterring the sale of products carrying similar labels without having the GI determined qualities. Climate change and its effects on aspects of terroir such as rainfall, water availability, soil quality, and temperature is already having an effect on some production aspects crucial to what brings distinctiveness to GI products based on terroir. These factors raise questions as to how conceptions of terroir and the formalized rules underpinning the distinctiveness of GIs are evolving in the face of climatological changes. This paper discusses how climate change may influence how terroir is encoded in legally recognized GIs and how this will influence international regulation, recognition, and trade flows in GI-protected food and beverages. It discusses the relationship between GIs, credence attributes and the legal recognition of terroir. It then explores three options for products with GIs based on terroir that are experiencing climate change: product quality change, definitional change, or re-interpreting the boundaries of terroir relevant to the GI distinction.
