Is Government paying lip service to transparency?

The National Government should demand that the details of secret trade talks are made public when the Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) negotiations start in Wellington tomorrow, says Labour’s Communications and IT spokesperson Clare Curran.

“The Government has an important opportunity to show New Zealand citizens that it is not just paying lip service to its claims of transparency. We’ve heard countless claims by the Government that it is about being transparent, Here’s the chance to prove it.

“The Government also needs to show New Zealanders that it is putting their interests first in these secret talks which could result in criminal prosecutions against private citizens who breach copyright for non-commercial purposes,” Clare Curran said.

At a conference of more than 100 people in Wellington yesterday highlighting the issues behind ACTA, widespread concern was expressed about the leaked content of the secret talks. The conference included highly regarded intellectual property lawyers who expressed grave concerns about ACTA’s intent and impact on the rights of citizens.

Clare Curran said ACTA is described as a trade agreement about stopping the counterfeiting and sale of counterfeited goods across the developed world, but it has been revealed to be a lot more than that.

“While in name it is about protecting consumers from counterfeit merchandise, the agreement is much wider in scope and addresses the regulation of Internet use by private citizens in an attempt to prevent unauthorised sharing of copyrighted works. This could have implications for all New Zealanders.

“There has been no case provided that there is a need for ACTA. There has been no economic analysis done on the extent of the problem and the need to toughen enforcement of copyright. And there has been no work done in New Zealand to determine ACTA’s impact on the New Zealand economy,” Clare Curran said.

“There are important questions that need answering about the intent of ACTA and what New Zealand’s negotiating position is.

“It is heartening that the Government has called for transparency in the negotiations. This week is an opportunity for them to show they really mean it.

“I understand that this week the European Parliament will call for ACTA to be limited to a Treaty about counterfeiting and not to include enforcement measure on intellectual property and copyright. The best thing the Government could do is to release its negotiating position to all New Zealanders, and demand that the full text is made public.”

Background
ACTA is proposed as a plurilateral trade agreement for establishing international standards on intellectual property rights enforcement. It is being negotiated between the US, Canada, Japan, the European Union, South Korea, Mexico, Switzerland, Australia and New Zealand. Unfortunately, the negotiations have extended beyond trade and physical counterfeiting to potentially cover non-commercial infringement of copyright material by ordinary citizens and issues of digital rights management.

ENDS

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