Peter Gallagher

In the intro­duc­tion to the sum­mary, the nego­ti­at­ing par­ties dis­cuss the objec­tives of the pro­posed agree­ment in a lit­tle more detail than in their pre­vi­ous state­ments in a way that seems designed to com­fort consumers:

“The intended focus is on coun­ter­feit­ing and piracy activ­i­ties that sig­nif­i­cantly affect com­mer­cial inter­ests, rather than on the activ­i­ties of ordi­nary cit­i­zens. ACTA is not intended to inter­fere with a signatory’s abil­ity to respect its cit­i­zens’ fun­da­men­tal rights and civil lib­er­ties, and will be con­sis­tent with the WTO Agree­ment on Trade-Related Aspects of Intel­lec­tual Prop­erty Rights (TRIPS Agree­ment) and will respect the Dec­la­ra­tion on TRIPS and Pub­lic Health” Extract from DFAT’s Sum­mary of Key Ele­ments Under Discussion

But, if this is so, why do gov­ern­ments need to keep the talks <a href=“http://www.petergallagher.com.au/index.php/site/article/a-secret-copyright-treaty/” title=“Peter Gal­lagher | A