Today, the Mexican Senate approved unanimously a resolution urging the President to suspend the ACTA negotiations based on public interest concerns.
“We recognize the legitimacy of intellectual property rights…, but ACTA negotiations can not violate fundamental rights, such as free speech, privacy, (access) to knowledge, and the right to protect personal data”, stated Senator Carlos Sotelo García, during its supporting speech in the Senate. According to the Senator, ACTA would increase the digital divide and would require Internet service providers to police the Internet.
The main tree points of the resolution adopted by the Mexican Senate today are the following:
First. The Senate of the Republic agrees to constitute a diverse working group to follow the ACTA negotiations, with the objective of assisting in the transparency of the multilateral negotiations, and guaranting that the provisions of that agreement are consistent with the fundamental guarantees and rights set forth by the Constitution.
Second. The Senate of the Republic agrees to celebrate, through the diverse working group aforementioned, public consultations with officers, academics, experts and interested public with the objective to build a position on the matter and, if it is necessary, to adopt an agenda and alternative route to ACTA, in order to elaborate and introduce bills related to the Internet, the industrial property rights and copyright, and free speech and the right to privacy, also.”
Third. While the Senate considers adopting a position on ACTA, it urges the head of the Federal Executive (Branch) to suspend the ACTA negotiations.
During the discussion that preceded the adoption of the resolution by the Mexican Senate, a Senator mentioned that the final text of the agreement will be released tomorrow Wednesday, according to the Minister of Economy, who is in charge of the negotiations for Mexico. Also, a Senator rejected the words of the Director of the Mexican Institute of Industrial Property (INAPI), who had said that the opponents to ACTA “were just a few nuts or some people in the Internet who did not know or did not understand the issues”.
The resolution is available in Spanish here. The transcripts of Senate`s session today are available here.