Acta — which is supported by many rights owners – has been met with widespread criticism from open rights activists, who argue that the legislation has been rushed through the legal system under the guise of being a trade agreement, when in fact it is a new copyright law. They also argue that it blurs the distinction between piracy and counterfeiting and that it criminalises copyright infringement when there are civil sanctions already.

Representatives from the European Union and 22 member states — including the UK, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden — attended a ceremony at Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs .

The five remaining member states — Cyprus, Germany, Estonia Netherlands and Slovakia, are expected to sign up soon. The EU now joins other signatories Australia, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore and the US, who signed up to the treaty in October 2011.

Hans Dietmar Schweisgut, Ambassador and Head of the Delegation of the European Union to Japan said that Acta aims to improve enforcement mechanism to help its members combat intellectual property rights infringement more effectively.