Cultural Diversity, Convention on

The UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions is relevant in several ways to the field of global studies since it was aimed at protecting local cultures against the forces of globalization and modernization. The convention, which is sometimes referred to as the UNESCO Convention on Cultural Diversity, was formally adopted in October 2005 and entered into force on March 27, 2007. On May 15, 2009, 98 members of UNESCO and the European Union, as a regional economic integration organization, ratified it.

The adoption of the convention was a direct answer to a perceived threat that the processes of globalization, if they afforded conditions for enhanced interaction among cultures, could also have a negative impact on the preservation of cultural identities and cultural diversity. Behind the convention also lies an issue of international governance regarding the precedence of trade agreements over cultural agreements. During the negotiations that led to the adoption of the convention, developmental issues concerning the need to cooperate to foster the emergence of a dynamic cultural sector in developing countries and the need to integrate culture in sustainable development were also considered and received attention.

The process that led to the adoption of the convention has been variously described as a debate over trade and culture, a fight in favor of cultural diversity, or a battle between free trade and cultural homogenization. Its origin goes back to the 1920s when European countries began resorting to screen quotas to protect their film industry [Page 326]from an influx of American films considered as a threat to their culture, a development that brought a strong reaction from the American film industry and the U.S. Department of State. From that moment until the end of the 1990s, the process was centered on the search for a cultural exception in trade agreements. At the turn of the century, however, the debate about trade and culture took a new direction: From a debate strictly about the treatment of cultural goods and services in trade agreements, it became one about the impact of globalization on cultural identities and cultural diversity. This was accompanied by a change of paradigm. The idea of a new international instrument on cultural diversity gradually emerged, an instrument that would no longer consider the protection and promotion of cultural diversity as an impediment to trade to be addressed from a trade law perspective but as a cultural problem in itself to be addressed from a cultural perspective.

A demand that UNESCO undertake the negotiation of such an instrument was formally submitted to the organization in February 2003, and the decision to move ahead with the negotiation of a convention regarding the diversity of cultural contents and artistic expression was taken by the General Assembly in October 2003. In October 2005, after three meetings of independent experts and three intergovernmental meetings of experts, with the active support of civil society, the convention was adopted by the General Assembly by a vote of 148 in favor, 2 against (the United States and Israel), and 4 abstentions.

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