[Infowarrior] - As US Insists ACTA Is Not A Treaty, EU Trade Commissioner Admits It's A Treaty

[Richard Forno]

As US Insists ACTA Is Not A Treaty, EU Trade Commissioner Admits It's A Treaty

from the ooooops dept

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101117/12403111915/as-us-insists-acta-is-not-a-treaty-eu-trade-commissioner-admits-it-s-a-treaty.shtml

We've already posted about David Kappos' non-response to legality questions about ACTA, but at the bottom of KEI's coverage of this story there's another interesting point. ACTA supporters in the US have been bending over backwards to insist that ACTA is not a treaty. Any time anyone mentions it as a treaty in the comments here, one of the ACTA supporters among our readership will quickly admonish them for being clueless about the law and will insist that this is nothing more than an "executive agreement," which does not need Senate approval. It's one of ACTA supporters' favorite talking points. Of course, there are some serious constitutional questions about that. 

However, much more telling is that many ACTA supporters will outright admit it's a treaty. We already noted that the Business Software Alliance (BSA) did just that a few weeks ago (and also falsely claimed it had already been signed by 37 countries). However, much more telling is that the EU's Commissioner for Trade, Karel De Gucht, has also admitted that the document is really a treaty. Apparently in a communication to the EU Parliament, De Gucht specifically and formally noted three times that ACTA is, in fact, a treaty. I can't wait for the responses in our comments about how it's not a treaty now.