Public ACTA Declaration Open For Signature

When government negotiators start the next round of closed meetings on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) this week in Wellington, New Zealand, they will be served a declaration by “Public ACTA”, an initiative of New Zealand’s country code registry InternetNZ. The declaration prepared by the Public ACTA conference on Saturday in Wellington, just before the start of ACTA round eight is now open for signatures from around the world. The declaration sides with the call of the European Parliament to limit ACTA enforcement against large-scale commercial counterfeiting and asks for a clear problem statement and impact analysis before the governments proceed. As the 100 people gathered in Wellington for Public ACTA do not expect ACTA negotiators are eager to limit ACTA’s scope to counterfeiting, Jordan Carter, InternetNZ policy director and a spokesperson for Public ACTA explained to Intellectual Property Watch, they also listed several fundamental issues on ACTA. These include the protection of the fundamental right to access to the internet (against “three-strikes-and-you’re-out” internet cutoffs) and unconditional safe harbours for intermediaries as providers of that access. Needless to say, Public ACTA also calls for much greater transparency.

The declaration is here:
http://publicacta.org.nz/wellington-declaration/#more-330