“Either ACTA is useless, or it is a threat”
The Wall Street Journals has an interview with Kader Arif, who recently resigned as the EP’s rapporteur for ACTA. He says that “either ACTA is useless, or it is a threat”.
I recommend you go read the whole thing. It’s a concise summary of some of ACTA’s greatest risks, plus interesting background on goings-on in the European Parliament.
Arif makes clear that ACTA cannot come into effect in the EU unless all 27 member states sign the agreement. The reason is that ACTA contains a chapter on criminal measures, and those are a competence of the member states.
And here I am very much concerned because I (and many international experts) consider that the text of the agreement breaks this very fragile equilibrium between interests of right holders and protection of civil liberties. […]
First is the article 11 of the agreement, which states that the right holder has the right to ask for information “regarding any person involved in any aspect of the infringement or alleged infringement”. This article is worded in such wide and unclear terms that it leaves a great deal of room for interpretation. In practice, almost anyone could be linked to an infringement of intellectual property rights and face criminal sanctions under such a vague definition. It is our responsibility as legislators and people’s representatives not to leave it to a judicial authority to decide of the scope of an agreement which could affect people’s civil liberties.
He says that if the EU and member states sign ACTA, and then discover at some point that it’s incompatible with the acquis communautaire (ie. accumulated current EU law), then EU/national laws would have to change — not ACTA.
The European Commission claims that national law would take precedent over ACTA. But Arif says that this doesn’t make sense, as it would render ACTA ineffective. Why negotiate an international agreement if it can be overriden by national laws? So these claims are probably bogus.
At the same time as it says that ACTA will not bring changes in Europe, it claims that the agreement would make it easier for European companies to enforce their copyright and patents abroad. But most ACTA parties are countries where this isn’t a problem today. Those countries where enforcement is difficult – Arif names India and China – are not party to ACTA.