The political dimensions of the Convention on diversity of cultural expressions: discontinuities and steps forward

The political dimensions

of the CDCE

Antonios Vlassis

Researcher, Center for International Relations Studies, University of Liege, Belgium

Introduction



Convention on diversity of cultural expressions: cultural

public policies; specificity of cultural goods and services; culture

in the development policies; reinforcement of the international

cultural cooperation.



Political dimensions of an international law instrument



CDCE within the global governance of culture



CDCE as a part of a whole picture



Global governance of cultural industries: system for

organizing the relations of power and of regulation at the world

level, affecting several aspects of cultural goods and services

(creation, production, distribution, exhibition, etc.).

Introduction



An international law instrument is not built and it is not

implemented in a vacuum



Understanding the nature and objectives of the CDCE



A. CDCE’s building



B. CDCE’s implementation



C. CDCE’s perspectives

A. CDCE building



Cultural

exception/international-regional economic integration



General Agreement on Trade

in Services



North Atlantic Free Trade

Agreement



Negotiations on a Multilateral

Agreement on Investment



Culture and

development/UNESCO



MONDIACULT, 1982



World Decade for Cultural

Development



Report “Creative Diversity”



Stockholm Intergovernmental

Conference on Cultural

Policies for Development,

1998

A. CDCE building

 The diversity of cultural expressions is built both on the overrun of a cultural exception from trade negotiations and on the creative diversity, conceptualized by UNESCO

 Economic globalization and cultural identities/cultural policies  Big coalition of actors

 International negotiations and controversial points  Compromises and ambiguous consensus

B. CDCE implementation



The CDCE is the first multilateral legal instrument to include

concrete provisions for the link between culture and development



The IFCD is one of the main tools of the CDCE for promoting

sustainable development and poverty reduction in economically

“developing” and “least developed” countries through the development

of cultural industries and of cultural sector.



Big hopes and low resources



Irregular contributions

B. CDCE implementation

 Trade-culture interface: US bilateral agreements challenging the CDCE

objectives.

 Lack of expertise, lack of pressure, lack of political will, culture as secondary priority, lack of alliances.

 Seven countries - Oman, Panama, Bahrain, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua

and El Salvador - have not submitted specific reservations, whereas six

countries, namely Australia, Singapore, Chile, Costa Rica, Peru and Colombia

have developed some reservation lists for the cultural sector.

 EU protocol on cultural cooperation: new policy instrument in order to promote the CDCE via trade agreements.

 Cariforum, South Korea, Central America, Peru/Colombia.

 Beyond the dichotomy ‘inclusion or exclusion’ of cultural goods and services within the agenda of trade negotiations.

C. CDCE perspectives

 Digital cultural services, US administration and new trade agreements

 Transpacific Partnership including 12 countries; Transatlantic Partnership between European Union-US; Trade in Services Agreement including 24 economies.

 Traditional cultural services # Digital media services

 2009-2013: Apple iTunes division from 4 billion USD to 16 billion USD; Amazon (sales audiovisual media) from 7.6 billion USD to 13 million USD; YouTube from 0.5 billion USD to 5.6 billion USD; Netflix from 1.6 billion USD to 4.3 billion USD.

 US surplus in cross-border trade in audiovisual services: 13.6 billion USD in 2012 (11.4 billion USD in 2008).

 Prevent the capacity of States to take regulatory and financial policies within the digital cultural sector

C. CDCE perspectives



International debate on the place of culture within the

post-2015 development agenda



Broad and composite coalition of actors



Group of friends ‘Culture and development’ (UN Assembly)



Agenda post-2015: mentions to culture in the broadest sense

are minor



Reluctance and resistance from the majority of European

and North-American countries

In closing

A. Adapt the CDCE to the digital challenges

Two reports, the first prepared by the ‘International Network of Lawyers for the Diversity of Cultural Expressions’ (Quebec’s Laval University) and the second by the ‘Research Center on the integration and globalization studies’ based at the Quebec University of Montreal.

Making the CDCE’s normative framework consistent to the development of new technologies Challenge: convince a big number of Parties about the importance of the cultural policies in an digital era, something that is not so evident for some countries.

B. Maintain the largest policy space as possible in the cultural field, by excluding commitments in cultural sectors from new trade agreements.

Exclusion covering the digital cultural sector

Building a common position on the way the Convention should be applied to the « trade

In closing

C. The CDCE should play a key role for the persuasion of many

international actors about the importance of culture in development policies

Key instrument in order to prove and to show the multiple impact of

culture at the grassroots levels

D. Debate based on the distinction between traditional cultural services

and new cultural services

This distinction would mean the death sentence of the cultural policies,

which would be confined only to the traditional cultural services (Lescure

Report 2013)

CDCE: main law instrument in order to maintain the unique treatment to the

cultural services.