“TRIPS is the floor, not the ceiling”
Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), the proposed plurilateral trade agreement is trying to do what has failed elsewhere (including at WIPO). In fact, the primary reason why the discussion that is occurring at ACTA is not occurring at WIPO is because that latter body is actually international. As such, there is, among certain developed countries, a “perceived stalemate at WIPO, where the growing emphasis on the Development Agenda and the heightened participation of developing countries and non-governmental organizations have stymied attempts by countries such as the United States to bull their way toward new treaties with little resistance.” (Geist)
Monika Ermert at the Intellectual Property watch reports on some of the recent developments relating to the ACTA. What struck me is the statement that Luc Devigne, a negotiator for the EU Commission’s trade directorate, made: “[The EU Commission is] “committed to improve the international legal framework for IP protection…ACTA as one way to reach that goal.” “[W]e want to go beyond [TRIPS], TRIPS is the floor, not the ceiling.”
More and more, the manner in which copyright-related collectives and industries have managed to influence various governmental bodies to adopt ever-stronger copyright laws is one of regulatory capture. As Dutfield has written:
the public interest is bound to become sub-ordinate to the [the joint interests of the regulators and regulated]. In contrast to the public interest approach, then, regulation is not about achieving economic efficiency at all, but about distributing income from some sectors of the economy to others. The winners are likely to be the special interests (firms, regulators, and politicians) and the losers the weaker and/or more dispersed interests such as consumers.
Are these groups truly interested at achieving a “balance”? To some, it appears, the balance will always lie just beyond the horizon.
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