[Ecommerce] IPS on UNESCO CCD

[Manon Ress]

UNESCO Adopts Convention to Protect Diversity
Julio Godoy
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=3D30714

PARIS, Oct 20 (IPS) - The United Nations cultural body adopted an
international treaty Thursday to protect cultural diversity, marking
what experts say is a first but important moral victory in the long-
running fight to preserve the world's cultural richness.

After more than three years of sometimes cantankerous debates, the
General Conference of UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific,
and Cultural Organisation), meeting at the Paris headquarters,
adopted by overwhelming majority the Convention on the Protection of
the Diversity of Cultural Contents and Artistic Expressions.

In the Thursday vote, 148 countries approved the convention, two --
the United States and Israel -- voted against it, and four abstained.
The new rules will enter into force three months after its
ratification by 30 states.

Although the treaty is seen as a triumph for developing and European
countries in the struggle to preserve their unique cultural
identities from domination by the so-called "entertainment industry",
=E0 la Hollywood, many experts see it as only a first step.

"The adoption of this convention is a moral victory, but the real
test is whether developing countries will resist U.S. pressure to
commit their audiovisual services and information services during
trade negotiations," Sasha Constanza Koch, media expert with the
coalition Communication Rights in the Information Society, told IPS.

Constanza Koch, who followed these UNESCO debates since their
inception in late 2003, says the U.S. government has been luring
developing countries into signing bilateral trade agreements in which
they give up their rights to preserve and support their own unique
audiovisual and information services, including film, television and
music.

During the debates the U.S. delegation to UNESCO argued that because
cultural goods are also an object of international trade, the UN
agency does not have the authority to establish global binding rules
on the matter.

The U.S. government remained staunch in its opposition to the
convention until the very end of the UNESCO cultural diversity debates.

"This convention is actually about trade=85 clearly exceeds the mandate
of UNESCO," Richard Martin, co-head of the U.S. delegation, said in
one debate. He called the convention's text "deeply flawed and
fundamentally incompatible with (the agency's) obligation to promote
the free flow of ideas by word and image."

Some observers said that Martin's remarks served as proof that the
United States views cultural goods as mere merchandise -- exactly the
opposite view shared by, they say, most of the rest of world.

Martin added that the convention "could impair rights and obligations
under other international agreements and adversely impact prospects
for successful completion of the Doha Development Round negotiations."

The World Trade Organisation (WTO) is struggling to reach consensus
on the global trade talks, named for the Qatari capital, where it was
launched in 2001. The world's trade ministers are meeting in Hong
Kong in December for what is widely seen as the final effort to save
the Doha Round.

Despite the strong U.S. opposition, the cultural diversity convention
draft steadily gained support, including from countries that earlier
in the UNESCO discussions had appeared to side with the United States
against it.

Countries such as Japan, India, Brazil, and Mexico -- all strong in
exports of their own national film, music, radio, books, television
programming and other cultural goods -- approved the convention's
central notion, that these diverse goods produced around the world
are not simply merchandise, but expressions of rich individual
uniqueness and cultural identities.

For that very reason, they argued, cultural goods deserve to be
preserved and supported, even financially, by states.

In its first article, the treaty reaffirms the sovereign right of
states to elaborate cultural policies "to protect and promote the
diversity of cultural expressions" and "to create the conditions for
cultures to flourish and to freely interact in a mutually beneficial
manner."

In its Guiding Principle, the convention guarantees that all measures
aimed at protecting and promoting the diversity of cultural
expressions shall not hinder respect for human rights and fundamental
freedoms, "such as freedom of expression, information and
communication, as well as the ability of individuals to choose (them)=85"

In its Principle of Openness and Balance, the convention also ensures
that when states adopt measures in favour of the cultural diversity,
"they should seek to promote, in an appropriate manner, openness to
other cultures of the world."

Despite these declarations of principles, many experts see the
convention as only a first step in a long-term struggle to guarantee
the survival of the world's cultural heritage.

David Kessler, who served as cultural policy adviser to the former
French prime minister Lionel Jospin, greeted the convention as a
"considerable advancement" in enhancing the value of cultural goods
in the face of international rules.

However, he said, "The convention does not rule on the real
difficulty to come, namely, how this new juridical instrument will be
treated in the discussions within the World Trade Organisation."

"Is it going to be considered as an exception within the framework of
the WTO, or are people at it going to say, 'Oh, this has been signed
at UNESCO, but it does not touch our work.' This question will be at
the heart of the battles to come," Kessler added.

At the same time, he said the convention will be a helpful instrument
for those states trying to resist pressures to sign bilateral trade
agreements. "Tomorrow, national authorities all over the world can
say: 'This convention is an instrument that recognises our rights to
preserve our culture, which allows us to say that our cultural goods
cannot be treated like other trade sectors."

Other experts underlined what they see as additional virtues of the
treaty.

On the one side, the convention, if approved by 30 states, will have
the same legal value of all other international sets of rules. "This
disposition, if properly used, can weaken the power of the general
agreement on services at the WTO," says Mohamed Lotfi M'rini,
professor of international trade at the University of Laval, in Canada.

However, M'rini says, this would not be applicable to the rights and
obligations contracted by countries under bilateral or multilateral
trade agreements, such as the North American and the Central American
free trade agreements (NAFTA and CAFTA), in which the United States
is the central player.

In addition, M'rini warned that the convention has other major flaws:
For instance, its disputes mechanism has no real juridical standing.
And the so-called Indian clause, added by the Indian government at
the last minute of the debates, allows for non-ratifying countries to
ignore the validity of the convention.

This means that, despite the existence of the convention to protect
cultural diversity, the WTO's legal structure will remain the sole
valid framework for resolving disputes concerning trade questions on
cultural goods.

It is a reality that will likely test the strength of the conviction
of the states that approved the convention in Paris. (END/2005)

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Manon Anne Ress
manon.ress@cptech.org,
www.cptech.org

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