The Greens/EFA group of Members of the European Parliament have issued an urgent appeal to retain transparency in the ACTA negotiations. The MEPs protest the decision to backtrack from releasing draft texts following last week’s meeting in Switzerland.
Post Tagged with: "anti-counterfeiting trade agreement"
The ACTA Timeline: An Update
Last December, I posted a timeline of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, with links to developments tracing back to 2004. With the ninth round of talks now concluded, I’ve updated the timeline with new links, documents, and videos from the past six months. The ACTA Timeline on Dipity.
ACTA Consensus on Transparency Breaks Down
The 9th round of ACTA talks concluded last week in Lucerne, Switzerland. I briefly noted the official statement last week, but a subsequent news report makes it clear that the most important development to come out of the meeting is the breakdown of a consensus on transparency. Following the New Zealand meeting in April, there was consensus achieved on the need to release a draft version of the text. It is now clear that the overwhelming majority of countries favoured continuing this approach by releasing updated versions at the conclusion of subsequent meetings. That did not happen after the Lucerne meeting, however, with both the Swiss and European Commission delegations indicating that they favoured releasing the text but that one delegation did not. It is a safe bet that the U.S. is once again the key holdout on the transparency issue.
INTA, ICC Oppose De Minimis Provision in ACTA
The International Trademark Association (INTA) and International Chamber of Commerce have issued a release on ACTA urging countries to drop the de minimis provision that is designed to allay fears of iPod searching border guards. The two associations argue that the exception "sends the wrong message to consumers."
EU Article 29 Working Party Puts ACTA on the Agenda
The EU Article 29 Working Party, which addresses privacy issues in Europe, has placed ACTA on its agenda for its next meeting on July 12-13, 2010.
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