Bridges Trade BioRes • Volume 5 • Number 4 • 4th March 2005
‘Rough Row’ Erupts Over Subsidies on Cultural Goods
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European and several developing country representatives clashed with the United States, Japan, Mexico and India on subsidies to protect cultural diversity at a UNESCO meeting held from 31 January to 14 February in Paris. The second session of the intergovernmental meeting of experts on the Preliminary Draft Convention on the Protection of the Diversity of Cultural Contents and Artistic Expressions convened to negotiate the Convention, which was mandated by a UNESCO General Council decision in 2003. European countries along with many developing countries want an international agreement that would allow state subsidies for national cultural ‘products’ such as cinema, music and books, and would allow for the taxation of imports of foreign films, music and television programmes. However, talks broke out into what a Caribbean participant described as a “rough row” when the United States and others opposed such protection. At dispute in particular was the drafting of Article 19, which says that signatories would have the right to subsidise “cultural products” such as an emerging local audiovisual sector, or a particular music or film production, and that the right granted by the binding convention would override any other agreements. This would imply that the right to subsidise cultural products in the UNESCO agreement would supersede WTO disciplines on subsidies and other measures if the article and convention were signed, turning cultural products into an exception from WTO rules.
Another round of negotiations will be held at the intergovernmental meeting of experts planned for late May. UNESCO hopes to have a text prepared in advance of its general assembly in October 2005.
“’Rough Row’ Breaks Out on Diversity,” IPS, 18 February 2005.
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