Archive for November, 2009

UK Digital Economy Bill Introduced, Unlikely To Become Law

The UK has introduced its Digital Economy Bill, though government officials admit it is unlikely to pass before the next election.

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November 20, 2009 Comments are Disabled News

Huntsville Considers Internet Voting For Next Election

Huntsville, Ontario is considering implementing Internet and telephone voting for its next municipal election in 2010.

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November 20, 2009 Comments are Disabled News

Why The Lack of ACTA Transparency Is Not Standard

In the face of widespread criticism of the lack of ACTA transparency, participating governments and music industry lobbyists have claimed that the transparency issue is much ado about nothing.  As governments seek to keep relevant information secret, those same governments released a joint statement last week arguing that "it is accepted practice during trade negotiations among sovereign states to not share negotiating texts with the public at large, particularly at earlier stages of the negotiation."

It is important to emphatically state that this is simply not the case for many multilateral agreements and the activities of international organizations that typically serve as the forum for global agreement discussions.  U.S. NGO groups have made a strong case for how ACTA's lack of transparency is out-of-step with many other global norm setting exercises.  With regard to international fora, they note that the WTO, WIPO, WHO, UNCITRAL, UNIDROIT, UNCTAD, OECD, Hague Conference on Private International Law, and an assortment of other conventions have all been far more open than ACTA.  For example, it notes that the WIPO Internet treaties, which offer the closest substantive parallel to the ACTA Internet provisions, were by comparison very transparent:

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November 19, 2009 9 comments News

Stopping the ACTA Juggernaut

EFF's Eddan Katz posts a great U.S. legislative analysis of ACTA complete with dozens of links to underlying documents and reports.

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November 19, 2009 Comments are Disabled News

Bannerman on the ACTA Choice

Sara Bannerman has an interesting post on whether to participate or walk away from ACTA.

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November 19, 2009 2 comments News