Two days ahead of the eighth round of the government negotiations on a “Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement“ (ACTA) in Wellington, New Zealand, from 12 to 16 April, a public conference organized by InternetNZ has resulted in a petition that summarizes the most important concerns over the secret treaty. “The Wellington Declaration was fashioned as a true grassroots effort to give voice to public concern about ACTA,“ wrote keynote speaker Michael Geist in his blog.

The Committee for a Democratic U.N. (KDUN) has repeatedly critizised the secretive and intransparent nature of the ACTA procedure, calling it “an alarming defiance of democratic values and principles on behalf of the participating governments“ and an “attempt to establish a successful precedent for undemocratic and intransparent global rule-making.”

The Wellington Declaration that was now adopted at the PublicACTA conference states that the World Intellectual Property Organisation is a preferable forum for negotiations on copyright, trademark and patent rights as it provides for “public, inclusive and transparent processes.”

According to the declaration, ACTA’s process must change and has to become fully transparent and open for public scrutiny. The draft text shall be released after each round and “an independent impact analysis covering economic, social, environmental and cultural impacts of the agreement on their respective countries” should take place before ACTA is signed by governments.

The declaration says that “the negotiation and consultation process must enable full participation and informed input into reviewing and developing drafts.”

Other points of concern addressed in the declaration include privacy, rule of law, internet access, disconnection policies and low bars for criminal liability.

“The Committee for a Democratic U.N. supports the Wellington Declaration. This not only concerns the call for an open, democratic and transparent procedure, but also the statements on the treaty’s content, in particular with regard to disconnection policies” said KDUN Chairman Andreas Bummel.

A position paper on “The Future Governance of the Internet”  released by KDUN on the occasion of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSISII) in Tunis in 2005, states that “the internet is a resource meant to be utilized by all human beings. The goal for accessibility has to be free and continuous access for all people to all basic communication and transaction functionalities as well as to public domain information.”

“We agree with the Wellington Declaration that disconnection, account suspension, or limitation of service, have disproportionately negative consequences for civil rights and that ACTA cannot require or allow that it be an acceptable sanction for copyright or trademark infringement,“ said Mr Bummel

Sign the Wellington Declaration here.