Politicians Worldwide Asking Questions About ACTA 101
An anonymous reader writes "Legislators around the world are demanding more information on the secret Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. US Senator Ron Wyden demanded answers in a letter to the USTR (PDF) this week, ACTA arose in the UK House of Commons yesterday,
and French Deputy Nicolas Dupont-Aignan raised ACTA questions in the National Assembly late last year. All of this comes on top of earlier efforts from Swedish Member of the European Parliament Jens Holm, as well as New Zealand MP Clare Curran, who has repeatedly raised concerns about ACTA, and NDP MP Charlie Angus, who posed questions about ACTA in the Canadian House of Commons late last year."
It's almost like a democracy at work (Score:2, Interesting)
It's almost as if representatives of people around the world are demanding information about legislation before it is passed / agreed upon by their respective countries -- i.e. during negotiations. It's like some people care about legislation that will affect them, and our representatives in government are doing their jobs by being answerable to the people's wishes for more information, regardless of the power and money of lobbyists trying to influence the outcome for commercial reasons.
I know it's craziness to think this way, but bear with me for a moment: we might be seeing genuine democracy in action!
Multilateral treaties are hard to pass (Score:5, Interesting)
From what I've seen, multilateral treaties are difficult to pass. That's not to say that they're impossible to pass, but the fact that you have N number of countries with N number of political calculations to make (even if they're not democracies) makes it difficult to come to a solid agreement. That's why the FTAA seems to have failed. There was just too much disagreement.
Exceptions are whatever copyright treaty got passed, WTO, etc)
(BTW, slightly off topic, I saw a Blu-Ray movie with the FBI copyright warning in French, which I had never seen before on any DVD. That was a little creepy and funny at the same time.)
The U.S. has been much more successful by pushing its agenda through bilateral (U.S.-Canada free trade agreement) or trilateral agreements (NAFTA).
My guess is that instead of the ACTA passing, there will instead be a series of bilateral and trilateral agreements with various countries, such as how the U.S. pushed Singapore to adopt DMCA-like laws in a "free trade agreement".
Partly right, partly wrong (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, multilateral treaties are hard to negotiate. That's exactly why the U.S. et al. are not pursuing ACTA's provisions in the proper forum - WIPO. They know there is too much opposition from developing countries at WIPO, and such proposals would go nowhere.
Their solution has been what is referred to as "forum shifting" - all the like-minded governments (US, EU, Japan, plus some other who want to play ball - Mexico, South Korea) are taking their marbles and finding somewhere else to play. For the most part, these states agree on basic IP policy. Sure, there is disagreement on specific details - sui generis database rights in the EU, for example. But on the whole, the parties negotiating ACTA are much less diverse when it comes to IP policy than we might think.
By they way, the U.S. has also been pushing its IP policy through practically every bilateral free-trade agreement at the same time. The EU is doing the same thing. Both have decide that IP is important enough to warrant its own agreement. Initially ACTA will be between these like-minded countries, but after it is passed, we can expect it to become a necessity for future bilateral agreements. New FTA between US and country X? Sure, but on the condition that you join ACTA, which means reforming your IP laws to TRIPS-plus, "first-world" standards. Want to become a member of the OECD? Sure, but you also need to join ACTA to show us you're ready.