Lawmakers in Holland have voted to strike down the international Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). Members of the Dutch parliament ruled no such agreement will ever be signed by the government.
The Dutch parliamentarians have opted not to wait for the EU’s vote on ACTA which is set for June-July.
"The treaty should be taken off table, whatever the decision the European Parliament should take," said MP Kees Verhoeven, a major sponsor of Tuesday’s motion in the Dutch Parliament.
Lisa Neves Goncalves, a spokeswoman for the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation, said the government had earlier this year stated it would not sign off on the treaty until it was clear it did not breach the Dutch or EU constitution.
ACTA is an international agreement aimed at protecting intellectual property. It somewhat resembles the US’s Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which was shelved by lawmakers after protests.
The European Union suspended efforts to ratify the treaty in February amid a storm of protest from activists who say the agreement would stifle free speech and access to information. Thousands demonstrated across the EU against giving big firms the power to ban people from using the Internet for illegally swapping files. Twenty-two countries in the bloc signed up to the agreement, with a vote on its ratification due this summer in Brussels.
The US, most of the EU, Australia, Canada, Japan and several other countries have signed the ACTA treaty, but none of these signatories has yet ratified it. This last step would make the agreement viable. As soon as ACTA is ratified by any six countries, the convention will come into force.
No comments:
Post a Comment