Amnesty International believes the pact's content, process, and institutional structure impact in a number of ways on human rights -- especially the rights to due process, privacy, freedom of information, freedom of expression, and access to essential medicines.

Amnesty International is also gravely concerned about the ACTA’s vague and meaningless safeguards. Instead of using well-defined and accepted terminology, the text refers to concepts such as "fundamental principles" and even invents a concept of "fair process", which currently has no definition in international law.

"Worryingly, ACTA’s text does not even contain references to safeguards like 'fundamental rights', 'fair use' or 'due process', which are universally understood and clearly defined in international law," said Widney Brown.

At international level, freedom of expression and privacy are recognised as fundamental rights in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and not as mere 'principles'. Furthermore, the notion of 'fair process' does not correspond to any generally recognised human right.

Many of the measures envisaged in the Agreement in the context of enforcement of IP rights in the digital environment would involve the monitoring of users' behaviour and of their electronic communications on the Internet. These measures are highly intrusive to the private sphere of individuals and, if not implemented properly, may therefore interfere with their rights and freedoms to, inter alia, privacy, data protection and the confidentiality of their communications.

These forms of enforcement cooperation mechanisms which entail the processing by ISPs of personal data for the purpose of IP rights enforcement and/or the monitoring of individuals' behaviour, including electronic communications, on a large scale raise serious concerns from a privacy and data protection perspective. They furthermore may lead to the disconnection of Internet access or the blocking of websites, which may interfere with fundamental freedoms such as the freedom of expression, the freedom to receive or impart information and access to culture.

Each Party shall endeavour to promote cooperative efforts within the business community to effectively address trademark and copyright or related rights infringement while preserving legitimate competition and, consistent with that Party’s law, preserving fundamental principles such as freedom of expression, fair process, and privacy.

These include various forms of voluntary enforcement cooperation mechanisms, such as three strikes mechanisms, blocking and filtering of peer to peer traffic, or the blocking of websites allegedly infringing copyrights.