Post Tagged with: "india"

Developing Country Opposition to ACTA Mounts

Just as the G8-G20 meetings conclude in Muskoka and Toronto, another round of negotiations on the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement resumes in Switzerland today. In the aftermath of the last round of discussions in New Zealand, a draft version of the ACTA text was publicly released, temporarily quieting criticism about the lack of transparency associated with an agreement that currently touches on all forms of intellectual property, including patents, trademark, and copyright.

While the transparency concerns are no longer in the spotlight, my weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) notes that mounting opposition to the agreement from the developing world, particularly powerhouse economies such as India, China, and Brazil, is attracting considerable attention. The public opposition from those countries – India has threatened to establish a coalition of countries against the treaty – dramatically raise the political stakes and place Canada between a proverbial rock and hard place, given its close ties to the U.S. and ambition to increase economic ties with India and China.

June 29, 2010 — 9 comments — Columns

WTO Report on TRIPS Council and ACTA

The World Trade Organization has posted further information on last week's Council meeting where India, China, and other developing countries raised concerns with the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. The report notes the following:

Briefly, China’s and India’s lengthy statements argued that ACTA and other agreements could:

Conflict with TRIPS Agreement (a reference to TRIPS Art.1.1) and other WTO agreements, and cause legal uncertainty
Undermine the balance of rights, obligations and flexibilities that were carefully negotiated in the various WTO agreements
Distort trade or create trade barriers, and disrupt goods in transit or transhipment
Undermine flexibilities built into TRIPS (such as for public health, and trade in generic medicines)
Undermine governments’ freedom to allocate resources on intellectual property by forcing them to focus on enforcement
Set a precedent that would require regional and other agreements to follow suit. (One example cited was negotiations involving CARIFORUM, the group of Caribbean states. However, a delegation representing CARIFORUM said it understood the concerns but denied that CARIFORUM would have to apply ACTA’s provisions.)

They also argued that the focus on enforcement did not take into account a country’s level of development. A number of developing countries broadly supported the concern.

June 16, 2010 — Comments are Disabled — News

India Comes Out Swinging Against ACTA at WTO

The Government of India came out forcefully against ACTA this week in an intervention at the World Trade Organization. The India position, which may well reflect the views of other ACTA-excluded countries, demonstrates that ACTA is emerging as a contentious political issue that extends well beyond civil society and business groups concerned with the agreement. Countries excluded from the ACTA process have to come to recognize the serious threat it represents both substantively as well as for the future of multilateral organizations.

This growing concern from countries such as India represents a major new pressure point on the ACTA discussions. The notion that ACTA countries could negotiate an agreement that would ultimately be used to pressure non-ACTA countries to conform without attracting opposition from those very countries was always unrealistic. If the April ACTA round of talks was marked by the mounting pressure for greater transparency, the late June ACTA round of talks will undoubtedly have developing country opposition as its core concern.

India's intervention includes the following comments:

June 10, 2010 — 4 comments — News

China, India To Raise ACTA Concerns at the WTO

IP Watch reports on plans by China and India to raise concerns about ACTA at the World Trade Organization this week.

June 7, 2010 — Comments are Disabled — News

India Seeking Allies To Oppose ACTA

With the next round of Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement negotiations scheduled for later this month in Lucerne, Switzerland (governments have been painfully slow this round in confirming dates, location, and agenda), the global politics behind the agreement escalated over the weekend with Indian officials acknowledging that they plan to establish a […]

June 1, 2010 — 6 comments — News