More Insights into ACTA

"[...] While the substance of the treaty will remain fodder for much debate, Canadian officials recently hosted a public consultation during which they acknowledged the true motivation behind the ACTA. Senior officials stated that there were really two reasons for the treaty. The first, unsurprisingly, was concerns over counterfeiting. The second was the perceived stalemate at WIPO, where the growing emphasis on the Development Agenda and the heightened participation of developing countries and non-governmental organisations have stymied attempts by countries such as the United States to bull their way toward new treaties with little resistance.

Given the challenge of obtaining multilateral consensus at WIPO, the ACTA negotiating partners have instead opted for a plurilateral approach that circumvents possible opposition from developing countries such as Brazil, Argentina, India, Russia, or China. There have been hints of this in the past - an EU FAQ [frequently asked questions] document noted that “the membership and priorities of those organisations [G8, WTO, WIPO] simply are not the most conducive” to an ACTA-like initiative - yet the willingness to now state publicly what has been only speculated privately sends a shot across the bow for WIPO and the countries that support its commitment to multilateral policymaking. [...]"

According to Mr Geist, heightened participation of two players had been identified by the former Bush administration as troublemakers: developing countries and non-governmental organisations. Cutting them out by means of simply imposing secrecy orders appears to be a typical case of mis-use of executive powers in a hubris-like manner. Still more worrying is that, inter alia, also the EU quickly had joined such "Coalition of the Willing" under that terms. Mr Obama should take care of that matter, otherwise he will violate his own dogma of transparency, losing credibility.