ACTA Referred To Europe's Top Court For Analysis 61
superglaze writes "The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement is to get an extra level of scrutiny in the EU after the European Commission said it would refer ACTA to the European Court of Justice, to check that it really does comply with fundamental freedoms in the union. This obviously follows mass protests over ACTA, and it seems justice commissioner Viviane Reding was the one who pushed for ECJ scrutiny. It's not currently clear if this will delay the European Parliament ratification process, but it is hard to imagine the parliament voting on ACTA (scheduled for June at the moment) before the ECJ has had its say — and no-one can say right now how long that will take to happen."
what is the EU? (Score:2, Informative)
The overriding purpose of the EU is to promote corporatism by pushing for "competition" with just enough regulation that only the big boys get a real say.
While today people think of the EU as some left wing socialist pinko monster, it was founded very much as a businessman's government neutering and takeover effort - the EEC - and the majority of philosophy and law are about promoting business, not promoting individual freedoms. As a result, EU law tends to be that which has been lobbied for by friendly businesses, including competition law which charges sufficiently large firms relatively small amounts and sufficiently small firms relatively large amounts - IOW protection money to the former, crippling fines for the latter.
Your government's being half-owned by private business, dear EU citizen, is based on competition principles pushed by the EU. The neutering of regulatory bodies which protect public property from the airwaves to energy supply is promoted by EU Directives. The US federal government has nothing on the EU when it comes to requiring individual states to favour business.
The best way of stopping international law is to neuter international legislators who gradually consolidate power and work toward a common aim: lining their own pockets.
Re:Kill it (Score:5, Informative)
All you need to do is to smuggle it under the radar. ACTA has been in the works for years now. Only the recent SOPA protests have drawn eyes of crowds to it, and only that encouraged politicians to scrutinize the act for conflicts with existing bills of rights.
Polish division of EFF got the government's declaration a YEAR ago that no step will be done towards accepting ACTA without getting it through a precise scrutinity. Then they outright broke the promise.