European academicians say that the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is not fully in consonance with the laws of European Union (EU). A group of intellectual property law experts from universities in Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, France and Spain have come up with a declaration on ACTA which is expected to be accepted by the college of commissioners by early February as reports suggest. The experts after discussing various aspects of the Agreement have concluded that ACTA is not fully consistent with European Union law and goes beyond international law in some of its aspects (especially criminal enforcement). Moreover the scholars have invited the EU institutions and national legislators who are to give their consent to ACTA by 7th February to look into this declaration and withhold consent to ACTA until ACTA has been made compatible with EU law.
Whole declaration can be read here:
http://www.iri.uni-hannover.de/tl_files/pdf/ACTA_opinion_200111_2.pdf.
About ACTA
ACTA has been under the limelight since its first round of discussion in 2008. The agreement is a proposed multilateral agreement for the purpose of establishing new international legal framework on enforcement of intellectual property rights which is both stringent and highly effective. It seeks to establish a new order independent of TRIPS, WIPO and UN, to which nations may subscribe voluntarily. It has been regarded as a response to the increase in global trade of counterfeit goods and pirated copyright protected works. The scope of ACTA includes counterfeit goods, generic medicines and copyright infringement on the Internet.
Japan and USA first came up with an idea to have a stringent agreement in place to combat piracy and counterfeiting. Nations like Canada, the European Union and Switzerland subsequently joined the preliminary talks held in 2007. Official negotiations began in June 2008, with Australia, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, the Republic of Korea and Singapore joining the talks.
On 15th October 2010, participants in the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) negotiations announced that they have finalized the text of the agreement. After the legal verification of the draft, the proposed agreement was to be ready to be submitted to the participants’ respective authorities to undertake relevant domestic processes; meanwhile the above said declaration by the European academicians came up. The declaration by the academicians has, to the delight of many countries including India, set a blow to the capitalist approach of the developed nations. It is expected to be signed by 7th February, 2011.
http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/2011/01/23/acta-inconsistent-with-european-law-legal-experts-say/
Authored by: Ms. Sharada Kalamadi
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