I understand it as international harmonisation effort to European IP law standards.
It's an effort to harmonize international law with US law. It's essentially the DMCA in treaty form, and important provisions of the DMCA find no close analogue in most nations' laws -- or indeed almost any nation's laws until very recently. Certainly they are not universal to Europe.
Not to rebut your main point, but if so why is a new law needed? Seems unnecessary to me if it's already law.