From: Hans Aberg (haberg@math.su.se)
Date: Fri Jun 19 2009 - 13:17:49 CDT
On 19 Jun 2009, at 18:45, Mark Crispin wrote:
> On Fri, 19 Jun 2009, Hans Aberg wrote:
>> In general, though, copyright, trademarks, and patents are
>> regulated all by local law, and though there may be treaties to
>> adjust them, these treaties are not law.
>
> I don't know about Sweden, but treaties are most emphatically law in
> the USA; in fact, they are co-equal to the US Constitution.
>
> The US government has refused to sign some (otherwise high-minded
> and noble) treaties because certain provisions can be construed to
> overturn or limit rights guaranteed by the US Constitution.
In Sweden this is not the case: treaties must be legislated
separately, which is controversial in the case of human rights and
such, which haven't been made into Swedish laws, though being signed.
Looking around for the US, I got the Constitution, article 6, which
says that also treaties are the law of the land, but
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_Money_Cases
says that Congress may override it.
The article
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_Clause
says that what internationally is called a treaty may have a different
classification in US law, giving as reference:
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/congress/treaties_senate_role.pdf
So it would be nice to know if the WIPO copyright treaty is also US law:
http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/wct/trtdocs_wo033.html
Hans
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Jun 19 2009 - 13:21:03 CDT