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.

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