[Chapter-delegates] Note regarding the EC ACTA Stakeholders' Consultation Meeting on 22 March 2010

[Christine Runnegar]

Hello all.

Frédéric Donck, Christopher Wilkinson and I attended the European Commission
(EC) ACTA Stakeholders’ Consultation Meeting in Brussels on 22 March 2010. 

The meeting commenced with a presentation from the EC (given by the Head of
Intellectual Property and Public procurement in DG for Trade (Luc-Pierre
Devigne)). The substance of that presentation is contained in the PowerPoint
slides available here
http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2010/march/tradoc_145930.pdf.

The next round of ACTA negotiations will be held in New Zealand (12-16 April
2010). It was also announced that there would be a civil society meeting in
Wellington NZ during the negotiations and that all chapters of the proposed
treaty will be on the agenda.

Following this presentation, the EC opened the floor for questions and/or
comments. 

This is my understanding of the salient points made by the EC representative
during the course of that discussion:

•	ACTA only concerns enforcement of existing Intellectual Property
rights – It will not affect substantive Intellectual Property laws
•	None of the parties to the ACTA negotiations has proposed “three
strikes” or a “graduated response” – “It is a non-issue.”
•	Re ISP liability – existing European law provides for conditional
exemption of liability for ISPs – the EC will not go beyond existing
European law
•	The EC will not comment on “leaked documents”.
•	The negotiations in Mexico touched upon the first part of the
“Internet environment” but not the “technical protection measures” – these
will be discussed in the next round of negotiations.
•	The parties to the ACTA negotiations have not yet discussed
“institutional arrangements”. The EC intends to have a stakeholders’ meeting
when it knows more about this issue.
•	At the next round of negotiations, the EC will be asking for the
texts under discussion to be released.
•	The parties to the ACTA negotiations have not yet discussed
arrangements for amending the treaty (assuming there is a treaty) in
response to technological progress, changes in the law of parties to the
treaty, etc.

And specifically, vis-à-vis Europe and the European negotiating position:

•	The EC is hoping to export European law for the protection of
Intellectual Property rights to other countries for its own citizens’
benefit (and also for the benefit of citizens of other countries).
•	The EC’s guidelines for negotiating ACTA (issued by the Council of
the European Union) are to respect existing European law (the "acquis") and
negotiate a position that is consistent with that law – no further.
Additionally, Europe has a lot of laws protecting fundamental human rights,
privacy and data protection which other countries do not have.
•	The EC indicated it would have liked to have conducted these
negotiations through the WTO, but some members (unnamed) will not permit
enforcement of Intellectual Property rights on the agenda.

As to what this means for the EU, I will defer to my colleague, Frédéric
Donck, Director of the European Regional Bureau, who was also present.

We hope that the parties to the ACTA negotiations will agree to release the
texts under consideration at their next meeting in April 2010 so that ISOC
and others may contribute their voice and expertise to these important
issues.

ISOC will continue to follow the ongoing ACTA negotiations as they unfold.
If anyone has any news about public consultations in their region or other
news pertaining to ACTA, please let me know. 

Footnote: Even though the EC representative said ACTA “will not induce” ISPs
to impose “a graduated response” or other technical measures, it may be
premature to be confident that the text under discussion does not include
ISP liability conditional on ISPs having such measures in place.

Best regards,
Christine

______________________

Christine Runnegar
Senior Manager Public Policy
Internet Society
Galerie Jean-Malbuisson 15
CH-1204 Geneva
Switzerland

Tel: +41 22 807 1455
www.isoc.org