[3] As of November 2024, the treaty has 98 contracting parties covering 124 WIPO Member States because the European Union joined as a block.

[7] Before the implementation of the treaty, the World Blind Union estimated that over 90% of copyrighted works were not produced in accessible formats.

The United States has long had the Chafee Amendment, which among other things allows for the existence of the National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled.

[12] Establishing a treaty had as a goal creating one set of rules to help facilitate sharing of all manner of works across international borders.

It sets a norm for countries ratifying the treaty to have a domestic copyright exception covering these activities and allowing for the import and export of such materials.

On September 20, 2017, the EU Commission published a directive and a regulation on the Marrakesh treaty that had to be transposed into national law, in all 28 member states; the deadline for transposition was October 11, 2018.

[35] See table below: The Accessible Books Consortium (ABC), launched in 2014, was conceived as "one possible initiative, among others, to concretely achieve the goals of the Marrakesh Treaty".