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The Wellington Declaration on ACTA: Sign Today

By Michael Geist

This weekend I had the opportunity to deliver a keynote address at PublicACTA, a full-day event on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement held in Wellington, New Zealand just in advance of the next round of ACTA talks that run all this week in the city.  The event was a model to be emulated in other communities - over 100 people from the community spent an entire sunny Saturday examining the implications of the draft treaty and discussing what should be done about it. 

I will post a video of my talk shortly, but the more immediate action point is the outcome of PublicACTA - the Wellington Declaration. The Wellington Declaration was fashioned as a true grassroots effort to give voice to public concern about ACTA.  The participants spent hours discussing their concerns and then gradually drafting a declaration consistent with those views.  Event organizers plan to submit the Declaration with supporting signatures on Tuesday, so add your name to the list today.  The Wellington Declaration begins:

The participants at the PublicACTA Conference of 10 April 2010 respectfully submit this, the Wellington Declaration, to the parties negotiating the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), for their consideration during the Wellington round of negotiations.

Consistent with the European Parliament's Resolution of 10 March 2010 on the Transparency and State of Play of the ACTA Negotiations (P7_TA(2010)0058), ACTA should be limited to an Agreement regarding enforcement against counterfeiting (the large scale commercial production of illicit physical goods).

The first part of the Declaration deals with general matters and principles.

The second part of the Declaration deals with some of the specific points under discussion in Wellington.

Read the whole thing and sign today (German and Spanish versions also available).

Full post as published by Michael Geist on April 11, 2010 (boomark / email).