ACTA To Be Public

Countries involved in ACTA negotiations have unanimously decided to release the text of ACTA for public scrutiny. This news comes after over eight thousand people signed a petition in support of the Wellington Declaration, a document developed at PublicACTA, a public conference to discuss the implications of ACTA held in Wellington last week. [Update]: ACTA Text now attached to this article.

The Wellington Declaration called for full transparency and public scrutiny of the ACTA process including release of the text after each round of negotiations. They claim that this will help to ensure the Agreement has no unintended consequences and has maximum positive benefit. While the delegation from the United States attempted to tie a public release of ACTA to setting in concrete certain provisions of ACTA it appears that they relented the the face of public pressure.

See also ComputerworldNZ coverage.