China and India, supported by a number of developing countries raised their concerns about the Anti - Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA)[1] in the last meetings of WTO’s TRIPS Council, held from 8 to 9/6/2010. [2] They requested the inclusion of an item in the council’s agenda under the title “Enforcement Trends “ to discuss the ACTA agreement.

These concerns were supported by a number of developing countries, including Mauritius, Peru, Cuba, Bolivia, Ecuador, Egypt, South Africa, Brazil, and the African Group.  The concerns were mainly based upon the argument that the ACTA went beyond the obligations established under the TRIPS Agreement (TRIPS Plus), especially on enforcement. The ACTA opponents accused it of undermining the flexibilities contained in the TRIPS Agreement, including those related to access to medicines at affordable prices for developing countries. They also said that it creates barriers to legitimate trade in a way that contradicts with one of the main objectives of the WTO. This objective of the elimination of trade barriers could be disrupted by the applicability of the ACTA on goods in transit.

On the other hand, the countries that support the ACTA are basically developed, or developing countries that are engaged in free trade arrangements with developed countries. These countries include the E.U., Japan, Korea, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland, and the U.S. These ACTA participants voiced their concerns in the TRIPS meetings about the steadily increasing levels of counterfeiting and piracy. They countered that the ACTA will not be in conflict with the TRIPS or other WTO agreements.  They also denied that it would upset the negotiated TRIPS balances, distort legitimate trade or undermine TRIPS flexibilities. They assert that developing countries’ access to generic medicines will not be affected since the ACTA does not deal with patents. They clarified that they had to bring the issue of enforcement outside the WTO auspices because many countries had opposed its discussion in the TRIPS Council, as requested by the EU and widely supported by developed countries.

At the end of the discussions, the chair of the TRIPS Council took note of the comments. He said that these discussions may continue in the TRIPS Council in its next meetings to be held in October, if the Members decide to proceed in tackling this issue.