The SpicyIP Blog notes that Canada is one of several countries that have asked to join consultations on the World Trade Organization dispute between India and the EU over in-transit seizures of generic medicines (ie. seizures of the meds originating in India and traveling through Europe to another destination). The […]
Post Tagged with: "wto"
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.
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:
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.
European Parliament Members Follow-Up With WTO on ACTA
The Greens/EFA Members of the European Parliament have written a follow-up letter to the WTO, asking for clarification on whether ACTA might supercede the WTO's own dispute resolution policy.
Recent Posts
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 231: Sara Bannerman on How Canadian Political Parties Maximize Voter Data Collection and Minimize Privacy Safeguards 
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 230: Aengus Bridgman on the 2025 Federal Election, Social Media Platforms, and Misinformation 
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 229: My Digital Access Day Keynote – Assessing the Canadian Digital Policy Record 
Queen’s University Trustees Reject Divestment Efforts Emphasizing the Importance of Institutional Neutrality 
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 228: Kumanan Wilson on Why Canadian Health Data Requires Stronger Privacy Protection in the Trump Era
