In addition to calling for strong legal frameworks, the agreement also includes innovative provisions to deepen international cooperation and to promote strong intellectual property rights IPR enforcement practices. Together, these provisions will help to support American jobs in innovative and creative industries against intellectual property theft. Representatives of the remaining ACTA negotiating parties, the European Union, Mexico, and Switzerland, attended the ceremony and confirmed their continuing strong support for and preparations to sign the Agreement as soon as practicable.
The next step in bringing the ACTA into force is the deposit of instruments of ratification, acceptance, or approval from each of the signatories. The agreement will enter into force following the deposit of the sixth such instrument.
If they had done that, then the one on physical goods would have gone through the Parliament with virtually no comment. Nobody accepts fraudulent medicines or fake Gucci bags coming into the EU.
But the freedom of the internet was a much more sensitive issue. If you are in favour of ACTA, then it is a very rational thing to do. But if you're against ACTA, there is no point waiting for the ruling, because no matter what the court says, your position doesn't change. What do you think of trade commissioner Karel De Gucht's suggestion to send ACTA back to Parliament with clarifications once there is a court ruling on the agreement?
Karel De Gucht is also a very eminent lawyer, so I was a little bit puzzled by his comments. No assurances the Commission could give to the Parliament would change a legal text. Five parliamentary committees came out against ACTA. The legal affairs committee voted against a draft opinion recommending approval, while the industry committee and the civil liberties committees approved reports recommending rejection.
Although this committee was in charge of the dossier, it was given input by four other committees, namely the ones dedicated to legal affairs, civil liberties, industry and development. British Social-Democrat David Martin, who was responsible for steering the agreement through Parliament, called on his fellow MEPs to reject the agreement in his report.
The international trade committee approved the report on 21 June. On 10 May it referred the agreement to the European Court of Justice for a ruling on whether it is compatible with the EU's fundamental rights and freedoms. ACTA is aimed at more effectively enforcing intellectual property rights on an international level. However, opponents are concerned that it will favour large companies' interests at the expense of citizens' rights.
They also deplore the secrecy of the negotiations. Does ACTA pose a threat to civil liberties and developing countries' access to generic medicine? Many people oppose the controversial anti-counterfeiting agreement because of concerns over these two issues.
Find out how they think the treaty would have affected civil liberties and access to generic medicine. Dr Olivier Vrins, of Altius Lawyers, said ACTA states that its provisions should be transposed with respect to fundamental rights such as freedom of expression and freedom to have a fair trial.
The idea of proportionality is particularly important because it is applied as well by the European Court of Human Rights when balancing out various fundamental rights which might be in conflict, here the right on property on the one hand and on the other the right of protection of private life, freedom of speech and freedom of access to information. This preservation of fundamental rights means that not only that people would be able to say that certain acts do not infringe intellectual property, but parties must foresee certain exceptions and limits to intellectual property.
Rupert Schlegelmilch, of the European Commission's directorate-general for trade, said that the Commission took concerns over civil rights extremely seriously, but there was no real reason to be worried. Privacy and access to the net are just as important.
We believe the treaty strikes a fair balance in that respect. ACTA does not impose a new standard. What will be imposed is what we have. Nothing new will be enforced. What is legal is legal, what is illegal is illegal. ACTA is just about making sure that people do something about it. Dr Meir Pugatch, of the University of Haifa, argued that ACTA would not have an impact on access to generic medicine, as the agreement does not cover patents. The problem is counterfeited medicines and substandard medicines.
If you end up using counterfeited medicine or substandard medicine, it could seriously damage your health. Those who suffer the most from substandard medicines and counterfeited medicines are poor populations.
Commission representative Mr Schlegelmilch later added: "Developing countries will be able to continue to buy the generic medicines that they need just as before. However, the British Social Democrat David Martin, who was responsible for steering ACTA through Parliament, said many questions still remained about how the treaty would have affected access to generic medicine.
How will this operate? Mr Martin said the workshop showed there was a need for more information, which is why it would have been good for the European Court of Justice to give a ruling on questions to be prepared by Parliament. The problem with ACTA is that the devil is in the lack of details. We don't have enough information on many of the areas where in the end we will have to make a judgment on. International Trade Committee MEPs from all political groups wanted to know more about how the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement ACTA would be enforced before advising Parliament as a whole on whether or not to approve it, it emerged from the committee's first debate on it in early Mr Martin suggested that while the Court of Justice referral is being prepared, the time set aside for Parliament's assent to ACTA should instead be used to prepare an interim report setting out questions to the European Commission and EU Member States on how it is to be enforced.
He stressed that Parliament should prepare its own questions, rather than simply associating itself with the European Commission's parallel referral of ACTA to the court. Examples could include questions about how border control agencies would be expected to deal with counterfeit imports, or whether internet service providers would have to enforce ACTA against users, and if so what legislation would require them to do so.
ACTA lacks detail. The main concern is how the text might be read". For example, "There is no 'three strikes' rule in ACTA, but we do not know how internet service providers will interpret the tasks given to them and if they will feel that they have the duty to cut people off the internet".
I will not take your word for it. We need to scrutinize it". Mr Martin and other speakers objected to the "lack of transparency" in the ACTA negotiations to date and reiterated Parliament's many requests to be more closely involved, and not merely left with the option of accepting or rejecting the existing text.
He also observed that if the aim now was to spread ACTA via bilateral agreements with countries not yet party to it, this would not be a democratic way to influence other countries. Several MEPs said the Commission must accept its share of responsibility for civil society protests against ACT, since it had not kept people properly informed of the progress of negotiations.
This might be a lesson to the future. We need to change things", said Mr Fjellner. In such circumstances you have to expect citizens to be afraid from the possible consequences", he said.
Inese Vaidere EPP, LV , said the Commission had done too little to explain ACTA's benefits, even though there was much to be explained, such as the definitions of terms "counterfeiting" or "commercial scale".
I fear that we don't have much chance of reviving ACTA. The Commission has not done its job", she said. He was sure that properly interpreted, ACTA would not threaten fundamental freedoms. You are also responsible for that" he said, suggesting that Parliament should pay more attention to Member States' laws that threaten fundamental freedoms. On the contrary, ACTA explicitly states that you can not impose anything similar to three-strikes rule on the international level", he said.
Commissioner De Gucht reiterated his view that referring ACTA to the European Court of Justice would be the right decision, as "our responsibility as politicians is to establish the facts and not follow the crowd" and the "Court will provide much needed clarity on our concerns". The EP received a petition signed by more than 2. They fear that the agreement will pose a threat to a free and open internet.
The petition was organised by Avaaz, an organisation which uses internet to campaign on various issues. The petitions committee works to resolve infringements of citizens' rights through cooperation with local, regional and national authorities on the application of EU law on a range of issues. It is an investigative committee and has no legal power, but tries to find non-judicial remedies for citizens whose claims are substantiated. But the right holder can also address the intermediaries as gatekeepers to the Internet and its copyright treasures: in this case the ISP is the final target of the legal action, as the one person able to actually prevent copyright infringements, notably by filtering the traffic.
Nonetheless, this solution is also subject to legal constraints, such as the limitation of liability of ISPs, stringent conditions for injunctions and, not the least, the limits drawn by competing fundamental rights. In the Scarlet decision of 24 November , the CJEU examined the legality of an injunction to set up a preventive technical system filtering all electronic communications, applied indiscriminately to all the customers for an unlimited period and at its own expense.
The Court held that this particular measure could not be imposed without disrespect of the European norms. Although a right holder may request such injunctions to prevent or end an infringement, such measure may not amount to an obligation for the ISP to carry out a general monitoring of the information it transmits.
Moreover, the Court found that such measure violates the fair balance between fundamental rights, in more than one respect. Indeed a filtering system that sieves all communications, collects and identifies IP addresses i. However efficient the actions against intermediaries seem, this short overview of measures shows how difficult it is to reconcile fundamental rights and copyright enforcement in a digital environment.
The question is whether the ACTA provisions would have shed different light on this situation. Firstly, ACTA provided the possibility of requesting an order aiming at the disclosure of information to identify the subscriber whose account is allegedly used for an infringement. Yet the last wordings of ACTA could still be read as a euphemistic reformulation and there was little doubt that graduated response policies, on a voluntary basis, were covered.
ACTA would have sneakily given leeway to signatory states to implement invasive procedures and powerful sanctions to copyright infringements, even if the determination of the concrete measures were left to the signatory states. True, under the general obligations with respect to enforcement, ACTA stated the proportionality principle — in particular between the seriousness of the infringement, the interests of third parties, and the applicable measures, remedies and penalties — but this statement was not convincing to that end and beyond ACTA it remains to be seen how the EU institutions will construct this fundamental principle.
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