[Hague-jur-commercial-law] Open Letter to Delegates

[Michael Sondow]

sarah.b.deutsch wrote:

> We'll
> need to get many more NGOs to the next meeting.

Any ideas how to do this?

> Even if they don't want
> you there, it is fairly easy to become accredited.

The problem, as I see it, is not so much in getting a better diversity
at the general meetings, but in getting a better diversity at the
drafting sessions where the real work is being done. Unfortunately, the
Hague secretariate seems to have its own criteria for who's invited to
participate in them, and they're all or almost all IP advocates.

To offset this, it would be particularly useful to have some
representatives of the international Internet open-source movement
insist on attending, as well as the more progressive elements from, say,
EFF. I don't know why they haven't already done so. Maybe they don't
know what's at stake here, which wouldn't surprise me considering how
this whole thing has been done on the hush-hush insofar as the media is
concerned.

Especially disconcerting to me is the almost total absence of the
international consumers' rights movement, and the top-level associations
of not-for-profit corporations and NGOs (such associations do exist).
Perhaps if they were notified and informed of what's going on they would
request accreditation and entry to the drafting sessions. It may not be
too late, even now.

The pretended exclusion of "consumers" from the treaty has been a very
clever gambit by the IP and big-business coalitions. It has defused what
interest in the treaty there was outside their sphere, while doing
little or nothing to protect consumers from the effects of the treaty.
It may yet be possible to make this insidious trick apparent to those
who will eventually suffer from it, but it will require some hard
thinking.

I am perplexed as to why the European consumer protection organizations
have stepped back from this affair. Perhaps they believe that their EU
treaties will protect them. If so, they're in for a surprise.
International treaties trump regional ones, as they will learn to their
dismay.

As far as I am concerned, the sweeping interim relief granted by Article
6 is a call to arms. But will anyone hear it?

M. Sondow (ICCIU)
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"We need to be able to judge which is more important - the
images on the screen, the mechanisms that produce them, or 
the world that they are striving to represent."
                               -Oscar Kenshur
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   Int'l Congress of Independent Internet Users (ICIIU) 
                   iciiu@iciiu.org 
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