A forest-based, but also desert-based, vineyard of Israel’s Yatir Winery. Photo: Yatir Winery.

JNS.org – France suspended a discriminatory requirement earlier this month over labeling Israeli products made in the West Bank and the Golan Heights, as it awaits a ruling by the European Court of Justice.

The Lawfare Project, a nonprofit human-rights legal think tank, brought the lawsuit against the French Minister for Economic Affairs and Finance in 2017 on behalf of the Israeli winemaker Psagot Winery LTD, whose European distributors must adhere to the labeling protocol.

“We are glad the French government will not be applying its discriminatory and unlawful policies, pending the outcome of the case,” said Lawfare Project executive director Brooke Goldstein. “However, we should not have reached this point in the first place, where an Israeli company must rely on European courts to enforce basic economic rights.

“The entire issue could easily have been rendered moot had the French government announced that the policy, which clearly contradicts EU and French trade laws, would be suspended indefinitely,” she said.