(censorship advances) Hague Conference: Globalists draft interjurisdictional legal maze to silence internet populists
Dick Eastman
court complicity, involving spent donations retroactivly awarded to an
affiliated company after its capture by a hostile takeover --bankrupting
liberty lobby -- but that is not the defeat of humanity I am reporting on
tonight) --- as I was saying, the Spotlight reported that the Bilderbergs
who run the world through the network billions of dollars of war
profiteering and monetary-system manipulation, insider corruption,
drug-money laundering, arms merchanting, and compound interest have given
them -- at their last meeting discussed silencing Internet criticism.
You knew that money talks, soon you will understand how well it also shuts
people up:
----
The Globalists have been hurt by the internet. Their shills could
not hold back the truth and manage the debate in the end. So
now they destroy it by constructing a tower of Babel -- endless litigation
and fear of litigation and liability as providers must meet the regulations
and stand under deliberately diverse definitions of slander -- so that the
globalist offeder who is caught in his offenses can choose the most
favorable set of defamation laws of any country with which to sue. This
will "chill" all providers, either limiting speech or getting out of the
business.
And the evidence is strong that this is exactly the effect intended:
WorldNetDaily.com June 30, 2001 -- Unlike most recent international
treaties, this new Internet Treaty was developed in relative secrecy, not by
the United Nations, but by the Council of Europe -- a 43 nation alliance,
with the United States, Canada, and Japan participating as "observers."
The treaty has been under development by a special committee of the Council
of Europe since 1997, but their work was classified, until recently.
Full story: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=23456
"Dick Eastman" <eas...@wolfenet.com> wrote in message news:...
> The elites make international law at the Hague and mankind looses its
> internet freedoms. The conference that ended on June 19th prepared the
> draft that will be rubberstamped at the showcase conference that the news
> media will cover -- but the debate is over and so is internet freedom.
>
> Here is an excerpt from James Love's assessment (June 19) of the
Conference
> he has been following, followed, below, by the entire altert. (Sorry am
so
> late distributing this.)
> -----------------
>
> "Today the Hague Conference on Private International Law will end its
first
> diplomatic conference on a new treaty to set the rules for jurisdiction
for
> nearly all commercial and civil litigation. In a world where everyone is
> struggling to understand how to address jurisdiction issues raised by the
> Internet, this new proposed treaty imposes a bold set of rules that will
> profoundly change the Internet, and not only that. As drafted.
> ....... it will strangle the Internet with a suffocating blanket of
> overlapping jurisdictional claims, expose every web page publisher to
> liabilities for libel, defamation and other speech offenses from virtually
> any country, effectively strip Internet Service Providers of protections
> from litigation over the content they carry, give business who sell or
> distribute goods and services the right to dictate via contracts the
> countries where disputes will be resolved and rights defended, and narrow
> the grounds under which countries can protect individual consumer rights.
> It provides a mechanism to greatly undermine national policies on the
"first
> sale" doctrine, potentially ending royalty free video rentals for
corporate
> entities with overseas assets, and it opens the door for cross border
> enforcement of a wide range of intellectual property claims, including new
> and novel rights that do not have broad international acceptance. It will
> lead to a great reduction in freedom, shrink the public domain, and
diminish
> national sovereignty. And practically no one knows anything about the
> treaty. "
> ------------
> From James Love
> Consumer Project on Technology
> P.O. Box 19367, Washington, DC 20036
> http://www.cptech.org
>
> > As the Hague Conference Diplomatic
> > Conference ends
> > the Internet and the Public Domain
> > are at risk
> >
> > James Love
> > June 20, 2001
> >
> >INTRODUCTION
> >
> > Today the Hague Conference on Private International Law will end
> its
> >first diplomatic conference on a new treaty to set the rules for
> >jurisdiction for nearly all commercial and civil litigation. In a world
> >where everyone is struggling to understand how to address jurisdiction
> >issues raised by the Internet, this new proposed treaty imposes a bold
> >set of rules that will profoundly change the Internet, and not only
> >that. As drafted, it will extend the reach of every country's
> >intellectual property laws, including those that have nothing to do with
> >the Internet.
> >
> > What exactly does this new treaty seek to do? In a nutshell, it
> will
> >strangle the Internet with a suffocating blanket of overlapping
> >jurisdictional claims, expose every web page publisher to liabilities
> >for libel, defamation and other speech offenses from virtually any
> >country, effectively strip Internet Service Providers of protections
> >from litigation over the content they carry, give business who sell or
> >distribute goods and services the right to dictate via contracts the
> >countries where disputes will be resolved and rights defended, and
> >narrow the grounds under which countries can protect individual consumer
> >rights. It provides a mechanism to greatly undermine national policies
> >on the "first sale" doctrine, potentially ending royalty free video
> >rentals for corporate entities with overseas assets, and it opens the
> >door for cross border enforcement of a wide range of intellectual
> >property claims, including new and novel rights that do not have broad
> >international acceptance. It will lead to a great reduction in freedom,
> >shrink the public domain, and diminish national sovereignty. And
> >practically no one knows anything about the treaty.
> >
> > This proposed Hague treaty stands the tradition globalization
> approach
> >on its head. It does not impose global rules on substantive laws --
> >countries are free to enact very different national laws on commercial
> >matters. The only treaty obligation is that member countries follows
> >rules on jurisdiction and agree to enforce foreign judgments. Rather
> >than a WTO or WIPO type approach of harmonization of substantive
> >policies, every country can march to its own drummer. The treaty is
> >about enforcing everyone's laws, regardless of their content, and
> >enforcing private contracts on which national courts will resolve
> >disputes. It is a treaty framework that made some sense in a world of
> >trade in pre-internet goods and services that lend themselves to easy
> >interpretation of jurisdiction based upon physical activity. It is a
> >treaty that makes little sense when applied to information published on
> >the Internet, and more generally for intellectual property claims, where
> >one should not leap into cross border enforcement without thinking.
> >
> >THE HAGUE CONFERENCE ON PRIVATE INTERNATIONAL LAW
> >
> > The Hague Conference on Private International Law is a little
> known
> >organization that held its first meetings in 1893, but did not have a
> >permanent status until 1951, and since then has adopted 34 international
> >conventions, mostly on very narrow and often obscure topics, such as the
> >taking of evidence abroad, the form of testamentary depositions, wills,
> >traffic accidents, and several dealing with children.
> >
> > In 1965, the Hague Conference adopted a Convention on the choice
> of
> >court for civil litigation, but it only was endorsed by one country --
> >Israel. The current effort is a renewed effort to deal with that
> >issue, and also the enforcement of judgments and other items, and the
> >scope is extremely wide -- nearly all civil and commercial litigation.
> >It is, without a doubt, the most ambitious project undertaken by
> >Convention, and the Secretariat and the member country delegates are
> >anxious to establish the Conference as a major league actor in the
> >rapidly changing global political economy. Despite its grand ambition,
> >the Hague Conference secretariat is tiny, about a dozen according to a
> >FAQ on its web page. The small size and low profile of the Hague
> >Conference has allowed this treaty, which has enormous significance, to
> >go virtually undetected, even though it is has been in discussions since
> >1992.
> >
> >POLITICS OF THE CONVENTION
> >
> > The official version of this particular convention on
jurisdiction
> and
> >enforcement of foreign judgments is that in 1992 the US began seeking
> >ways to obtain more equitable treatment of the enforcement of judgments
> >from commercial and civil litigation, and was willing to cut back on
> >some aspects of US "long arm" jurisdiction to do so. In the beginning,
> >none of the negotiators were thinking about the Internet, and the treaty
> >seemed to have limited interest to most persons. By 1996 it was obvious
> >to some that the Internet in general and e-commerce in particular would
> >pose special problems for the Convention. By 1999 there was
> >considerable attention given by business interests on how the Convention
> >could be drafted to resolve a number of jurisdiction problems they
> >faced, and in particular, the Hague Secretariat began suggesting the
> >Convention could be used to replace overlapping national laws on
> >consumer protection and privacy with industry lead alternative dispute
> >resolution systems -- a top priority for the biggest e-commerce
> >firms.
> >
> > Meanwhile, Europe was developing its own rules for jurisdiction
> that
> >made some sense in an environment where you had entities like the
> >European Parliament and the European Commission to force harmonization
> >of substantive law. Europe was also alarmed and jealous of the US
> >leadership in the development of the Internet. European negotiators
> >pushed hard to impose a treaty based upon the EU's Brussels Convention,
> >not only to preserve the European approach, but to lead, for once, in an
> >important area for the Internet.
> >
> > The European negotiators were also unhappy with the generally
free
> and
> >unruly nature of the Internet, and saw the convention as a mechanism to
> >reign in hate speech, libel and defamatory speech, "piracy" of
> >intellectual property, the publishing of government secrets and
> >documents on the Internet (the David Shayler case), and other unsettling
> >aspects of the Internet.
> >
> > The business community, meanwhile, was unhappy with the EU
> approach to
> >providing consumer protection, including privacy rights, and fearful
> >that the Convention could expose them to lawsuits from several different
> >countries for violating consumer protection and privacy laws.
> >
> > Meanwhile, Napster had mobilized the music and movie businesses,
> and
> >they increasing saw the need for stronger cross border enforcement of
> >copyrights, including the need for injunctive relief aimed at ISPs, and
> >the strong long and order (you can run but you can't hide) nature of the
> >Hague convention was very appealing to an industry afraid of losing
> >control over its own business models.
> >
> > A few IPS (Verizon and AT&T) and portals (Yahoo, following its
> >education over the French civil suit over Nazi artifacts) saw this as a
> >repeat of the fights over the digital copyright laws, and lobbied to
> >retain some form of common carrier status, which was greatly undermined
> >by the architecture of the Hague Convention, which was to make
> >everyone's judgments enforceable everywhere, even in countries that had
> >no connection to the tort or delict (greatly undermining the usefulness
> >of national "public policy" exceptions).
> >
> > Within the various member country delegations, you have some
that
> have
> >strong experience in contracts and business to business arbitration, and
> >who see the 1958 New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement
> >of Foreign Arbitral Awards as a successful model to emulate. You have
> >other members who are primarily interested in torts, which come at the
> >issues from a different perspective, and who don't see the convention
> >entirely as strengthening the enforcement of contracts.
> >
> > In 2000 some elements of civil society became aware of the
> convention,
> >and in particular, BEUC (the European consumer groups), the Trans
> >Atlantic Consumer Dialogue (TACD), including both US and EU members, the
> >American Library Association, the Free Software movement, and some US
> >free speech groups, such as the ACLU, began to follow the Convention.
> >In 2000 the Consumer Project on Technology made the Hague Convention its
> >top e-commerce priority, and by September 2000 the US government added
> >Manon Ress from Essential Information on the US delegation (which
> >already had several private sector members representing business
> >interests).
> >
> > For the past two years, in a series of meeting leading up to the
> June
> >Diplomatic Conference (which ends today), there were efforts to sort of
> >the impact of the convention on e-commerce and on intellectual
> >property. The US in particular was quite open in consulting with civil
> >society and the public in general, and Australia asked for public
> >consultations too, but it would appear that no other countries did.
> >However, while civil society concerns were presented at virtually every
> >negotiating meeting over the past year, this month's diplomatic
> >conference was a powerful illustration of the power of the business
> >lobbies.
> >
> > The EU seemed to undertaking a strategy of pushing for a
> "disconnect"
> >for regional agreements, and in particular, for its own EU directive on
> >Jurisdiction take precedence in EU to EU transactions, leaving intact
> >the stronger EU consumer protection measures for EU to EU transactions,
> >while bowing to US government pressure to gut consumer protection
> >provisions from the 1999 draft of the convention. This was a major
> >victory for the big e-commerce firms.
> >
> > One element of this was to essentially expand the definition of
> >"business to business" transactions, and to greatly strengthen the role
> >of contracts in the convention, making for example, choice of court
> >clauses mandatory in almost everything that does not involve personal or
> >household use (and sometimes even then), even when these are
> >"non-negotiated" contracts, such as shrink wrap or click-on contracts.
> >Despite repeated efforts by civil society to fix this, and to limit the
> >enforcement of such clauses where the contracts had been
> >
> > "obtained by an abuse of economic power
> > or other unfair means."
> >
> >the delegates refused, at least in this draft.
> >
> > So too there was a complete unwilling to address the importance
of
> >speech related torts, despite the fact that the membership in the Hague
> >Conference now includes China, Egypt and many other countries that
> >engage in harassment of dissent, and which can easily create repressive
> >civil actions to stop dissent. The EU delegates would not even
> >consider adding favorable speech language from the European convention
> >on human rights.
> >
> > A major objective of CPT, TACD, the Library community and the
free
> >software movement was to take intellectual property out of the
> >convention, a move initially supported by the trademark and patent
> >societies, due to the ham-handed way that patents and trademarks had
> >been addressed in the 1999 secretariat draft of the convention, and also
> >the subject of a WIPO sponsored meeting in Geneva in January 2001. In
> >February 2001, in Ottawa, the US government actually circulated a paper
> >to the delegates that said the US would not sign the convention if
> >intellectual property was included. AOL/Time Warner, Disney, the MPAA,
> >RIAA, publisher groups and other content owners went ballistic, and by
> >the June meeting the US position had changed, and yesterday,
> >intellectual property was included in the convention, in a form stronger
> >than ever. Also noteworthy was the new bracketed language:
> >
> > [In this Article, other registered industrial
> > property rights (but not copyright or
> > neighbouring rights, even when registration
> > or deposit is possible) shall be treated in the
> > same way as patents and marks.]
> >
> >"Other registered industrial property rights" will cover a lot of
> >ground.
> >
> > There are many more details of the negotiations from the URLs
> given
> >below.
> >
> > It's time for me to end this for now. For more information, and
> in
> >particular to understand better how the convention works, see:
> >
> >http://www.cptech.org/ecom/jurisdiction/hague.html
> >http://www.cptech.org/ecom/jurisdiction/whatyoushouldknow.html
>
>http://lists.essential.org/pipermail/hague-jur-commercial-law/2001-June/000
> 048.html
> >http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/hague.html
> >http://www.tacd.org/cgi-bin/db.cgi?page=view&config=admin/docs.cfg&id=94
> >http://lists.essential.org/pipermail/hague-jur-commercial-law/
> >
> >
> >To see which countries and agencies are engaged in the Hague
> >Negotiations, see:
> >http://www.hcch.net/e/members/members.html
> >
> >--
> >James Love
> >Consumer Project on Technology
> >P.O. Box 19367, Washington, DC 20036
> >http://www.cptech.org
> >lo...@cptech.org
> >1.202.387.8030 fax 1.202.234.5176
Dick Eastman
Yakima Washington
United States
Every man is responsible to every other man.