Diplomacy in the Digital Age
- By Brian Hocking and Jan Melissen
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E-mail China.org.cn, October 26, 2015
2. The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA)
Almost as soon as the negotiations which produced ACTA had been concluded, it fell apart amidst recriminations, claims and counter-claims regarding its nature and the way in which the negotiations had been conducted. In part this reflected what was perceived as a lack of transparency surrounding the talks – a factor in the problems surrounding the TTIP negotiations mentioned in chapter 3 of this report. The purpose of ACTA was to address the problem of the growing trade in counterfeit and pirated products and the challenges that this presents to intellectual property and to consumers from the sale of fake products. The Romanian prime minister couldn't explain why he had signed the agreement whilst the Polish prime minister announced that he would suspend ratification. This followed on the collapse of the US Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), a piece of Hollywood sponsored anti-piracy legislation which had attracted vociferous opposition.
Whilst both TTIP and ACTA shared a place on the trade diplomacy agendas, the latter touched on highly sensitive areas of cyber politics and diplomacy. In other words, digitalization – specifically aspects of Internet freedom such as the principle of 'net neutrality' – was both the issue and provided the resources for opposing the treaty. Opposition reflected concerns at the potential impact of ACTA on Internet freedom but also at what was seen as the closed nature of the negotiations. An EU Commission Vice-president recognised the failure of the EU to listen to the growing voices of opposition and to engage with them through social media: 'We saw how our absence in the world of social media on this particular topic caused us a lot of troubles. I think this is a lesson for all of us that we have to be much more active and in a much more communicative mood when it comes to such sensitive topics in the future'. The Australian Government, one of the 37 countries involved in the negotiations, posted an 'ACTA Factsheet' on the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade website seeking to rebut nine 'myths' about the agreement. This was too little, too late. By this stage, a global campaign conducted by a growing community of activists had framed the issue and generated overwhelming opposition to it.
3. The Prevention of Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative
If ACTA provided a case study in the consequences of the failure to use social media, the Prevention of Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative (PSVI) has been taken as an example of their potential. Concern with the use of rape and sexual violence as a tactic in warfare and terrorism, and as a tool for ethnic cleansing has long been an issue of global concern but has generated little effective action. The picture changed in 2012 when the then British Foreign Secretary, William Hague, in conjunction with UNHCR special envoy Angelina Jolie, launched the PSVI. The overall goal was to end what was seen as a 'culture of impunity' whereby the perpetrators of mass rape – as in Bosnia, Rwanda, East Timor and Syria – went unpunished and the survivors received inadequate support.
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