The Canadian government held an Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement consultation meeting today focused on pharmaceutical and access to medicines issues. The meeting was smaller than the earlier consultation in April, but featured some important new information about the ACTA process including a fuller description of planned negotiating meetings, details on the upcoming Morocco meeting, and confirmation on an inquiry from Brazil about joining the negotiations.
1. Negotiation schedule
The ACTA partners met on June 11th to discuss ACTA related issues and committed at the meeting to continue with the negotiations. The next meeting is set for Morocco in July with later meetings currently planned for October (Korea) and December (Mexico). There are additional tentative plans for meetings in February and April 2010.
2. The Morocco meeting
Officials advised that the Morocco meeting will be a two-day meeting that focuses on ACTA chapters involving international co-operation, enforcement, and institutional issues. The meeting will also address some "housekeeping" issues including ongoing transparency concerns. The Internet-related provisions will not be a focus and the Internet-related issues has not progressed beyond the U.S. non-paper that surveyed other ACTA participants on the state of their digital copyright laws (in other words, there is still no draft text).
