Geraldine Juarez in Mexico, geraldine@hipertextual.com, reports that the Mexican Congress has approved a resolution asking the president to not sign ACTA.
She reports that, in a public hearing after the voting with citizens, senators from the presidential party PAN assured Mexican civil society that ACTA will not be approved by parliament during this administration.
Link to resolution in Spanish.
Unofficial English translation.
This presents an interesting development in the context of major challenges to the legality of the implementation of ACTA in the EU and US. In the EU, there is a challenge under the Lisbon Treaty to the competence of the Commission to enter agreements on criminal provisions. And in the US, legal academics have questioned (without response by the administration) the authority of the executive to enter the agreement as a sole executive order without any congressional approval. So — is ACTA just a soft law declaration by its executive branch negotiators?
For more information, see a blog post by Geraldine Juarez, who has translated part of the resolution.
