According to rumours – the process is kept clandestine – an Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) would be signed at the WTO meeting this week by EU member states, Commission and Council. 14 Dec 2011, South Pole Day suites for Member States to adopt the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) in the Council although important legal usances are still open (which would be resolved by simply not asking the ECJ)
Anti-counterfeiting trade agreement
The Council is expected to adopt a decision authorising the signing of an anti-counterfeiting trade agreement (ACTA) between the EU and Australia, Canada, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland and the United States. ACTA is aimed at establishing an international framework to improve the enforcement of intellectual property right laws and create improved international standards for actions against large-scale infringements of intellectual property. Negotiations were concluded in November 2010.
I like their humour:
“The Council will meet at 15:00 on Wednesday to prepare the EU’s position at the WTO ministerial meeting, which will be held in Geneva on 15-17 December, with the aim of providing political guidance for the organisation’s work during 2012-13 and taking decisions related mainly to least developed countries.”
100 years after Amundsen reached the South Pole in the Antartics our European member states sent ACTA on a mission to benefit the South. No, kidding?
Sure, an Medicines Sans Frontiers representative once indicated ACTA may generate some serious effects on pharmaceutical supply for their emergency operations in the least developed nations and patients’ access to retroviral drugs etc. But these effect he argued would be rather negative.
[…] 100 years after Amundsen ACTA goes South 100 years after Amundsen reached the South Pole in the Antartics our European member states sent ACTA on a mission to benefit the South. No, kidding? […]