Negotiators: ACTA Text To Be Public This Week

By Monika Ermert for Intellectual Property Watch

ACTA will be public. During the eighth round of negotiations for an Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) in Wellington, New Zealand that ended Friday, the negotiating countries decided to give in to persistent calls for greater transparency. According to their press release, available here [pdf], the countries committed to publish the draft ACTA text as soon as 21 April. There had been “a general sense from this session that negotiations that have now advanced to a point where making the draft text available to the public will help the process of reaching the final agreement,” they said. The draft ACTA text to be published would reflect the substantial progress made during the Wellington round, the participants wrote in their press release, but underlined that they “reserved the importance of maintaining the confidentiality of their respective positions in trade negotiations.” They also reacted to a few concerns raised in the Public ACTA Declaration from Wellington that has over 8,300 signatories.

“No participant is proposing to require governments to mandate a ‘graduated response’ or ‘three strikes’ approach to copyright infringement on the internet,” they said, and “ACTA will not address the cross-border transit of legitimate generic medicines”. Border authorities also would not be required to search travellers’ baggage or their personal electronic devices for IP rights infringement. On a more general note, participants underlined that ACTA would not interfere with the “signatory’s ability to respect its citizens’ fundamental rights and liberties,” would be “consistent with the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement) and will respect the [WTO] Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health.”