The Green/EFA Group in the European Parliament officially envoked 36 of the Rules of Procedure concerning ACTA. In a letter to the Parliament President Jerzy Buzek from October 2011 group leaders Rebecca Harms and Daniel Cohn-Bendit officially envoked RoP 36(2). With Human rights groups like Amnesty International rallying against the ACTA treaty that call makes a lot of sense. Rule 36 : Respect for...
Your nation has already signed the agreement and ratification is pending. You don’t get anything from unprofessional apologies from diplomates who signed ACTA. Simply request your government to file an Article 41 note. The Ultimate Answer to the Ultimate Question of Democracy, The Internet, and Everything is 41. ARTICLE 41: WITHDRAWAL A Party may withdraw from this Agreement by means of a written notification...
We discovered a smoking gun on the criminal sanctions aspect of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). A declassified document reveals that the Commission made proposals and fundamentally steered the negotiations on criminal sanctions in ACTA for which no corresponding EU harmonisation exists. There is no “Acquis” element on criminal enforcement of intellectual property rights, yet. Criminal sanctions in ACTA were formally negotiated by the...
A few years ago, an amendment making sure that parallel importation was not criminalised in the EU disappeared after it was adopted in the European Parliament. This summer, the Chairman of the International Trade committee (INTA), Mr Vital Moreira, rewrote a question the INTA committee asked the Parliament’s Legal Services regarding ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement). The INTA Chairman among others things left out a...
Pedro Velasco Martins, EU ACTA negotiator, today answered FFII’s 30 December 2010 questions on the initialling of ACTA. ACTA was initialed on 25 November 2010, through an electronic procedure. The Commission chief-negotiator initialled all the pages of the text, including the criminal measures. The Commission added negotiators’ notes in the course of the negotiations. The EU has not decided yet whether it will publish...
Will ACTA be binding on the US, EU, France, Romania, the Netherlands and Singapore? Confusion over whether the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is binding is mounting. On 1 December 2010, Dutch Trade Minister Verhagen said in a parliamentary commission meeting: “It has never come up to implement ACTA in the Netherlands. It so happens that ACTA is not superior to European or national law.”...
For the past past months Commissioner Karel De Gucht cheated the Members of the European Parliament about the lack of competence of the European Union to negotiate ACTA criminal measures, and overplayed the known fact in Plenary that there is no related Acquis existing. Many Members of Parliament trust De Gucht’s promises made that ACTA fully complies with the Acquis. Compliance with the Acquis...
Question for written answer P-9459/2010 to the Commission Rule 117 Emine Bozkurt (S&D) Subject: ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) The Commission submitted the final text on ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) on 6 October. Regarding the text of the agreement and the finalising of the details, can the Commission answer the following questions: 1. The ACTA agreement proposes an annual meeting of signatories where amendments to...
The Dutch foundation Vrijschrift requested publication of ACTA documents. The request was denied. Vrijschrift filed an objection, below a translation: 1. Many provisions in ACTA are mandatory: “Each Party shall”. Substantially, often they regard legislation, eg “Each Party shall provide for criminal procedures and penalties to be applied at (…)”. There is a binding relationship between ACTA and legislation. 2. ACTA creates an obligation...
Berlin, Sept 15th 2010 — A European Parliament majority accepted a written declaration on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) which iterates the calls to European Commissioner Karel de Gucht for more legislative transparency. In a speech before the European Parliament Commissioner Karel De Gucht threatened the United States to leave negotiations when geographical indications would be “discriminated”, that is excluded from the scope of...
