[ Thanks to Bernard Swiss
for this link. ]
“The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) isn’t
just another secret treaty—it’s a way of life. If ACTA passes
in anything like its current form, it will create an entirely new
international secretariat to administer and extend the agreement.“Knowledge Ecology International got its hands on more of the
leaked ACTA text this week, including a chapter on “Institutional
Arrangements” that has not leaked before. The chapter makes clear
that ACTA will be far more than a standard trade agreement; it
appears to be nothing less than an attempt to make a new
international institution that will handle some of the duties of
groups like the WTO and WIPO.“Why bother? Well, from the perspective of countries like the
US, the existing institutions have problems. For one, they feature
a huge number of nations, some of whom have blocked some of the
anti-counterfeiting provisions desired by the US and others. Call
this the UN problem—getting much done with so many people in
attendance can be tricky, and ACTA has become a “coalition of the
willing” who have decided to go form their own club instead.”