Cultural Diversity and the Kyoto protocol: fighting on common grounds!

The UNESCO convention on cultural diversity which many observers have taken for granted and which bears comparison in its own scope with that of the Kyoto protocol regarding the importance of its implementation is not coming off well, and is perhaps even being threatened. The intergovernmental work session on the preliminary draft convention that took place in Paris for two weeks in February has led to uncertainties as well as it has led to progress when it was meant to be decisive for the continuation of the process. Action must be taken consequently without delay to prevent the substantial amount of work that has been carried out by the international community since the Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity approved on November 2, 2001 from resulting in a failure fraught with consequences in a few months. As a matter of fact, this convention –whose objectives were set by the 32nd General Conference in 2003 – is to be passed in October 2005, during the 33rd session of UNESCO’s General Conference.

Let us remember that the idea of such a convention is to create a binding international legal instrument that would enable the different involved parties (whether they are multinational, regional, national, local, professional, labour unions, associations…) to assert it in order better to defend and protect cultural diversity, but also in order to promote and diffuse the latter in all its different aspects. It should then become a legal reference which justifies:
i) the carrying out of independent cultural policies by sovereign governments, as well as ii) developing sectional strategies for the preservation of cultural heritages, or iii) resisting the offers of liberalization concerning cultural industries. Adopting this convention seems crucial at a moment when the United States are accelerating the signature of bilateral free-trade agreements with countries such as Morocco or central American states whom they are asking precisely to give up protecting their cultural industries. This Convention is also decisive as the WTO is attempting to give a new start to the Doha Round and as its rescheduling should be completed by September 2005. And lastly, it is a well known fact that this convention project receives massive support from the international civil society, from academic circles and culture professionals, with the help of first rank allies such as national coalitions and the International network for cultural diversity, or the eminent role taken on by the French, Brazilian, Argentine, German, Algerian, Senegalese or Lebanese governments (non exhaustive list!) in favour of the success of this essential multilateral project.

So why is this enterprise endangered? And what is there to be done about it? The negotiations that took place last February were marked by repeated US obstructions of the project which they obviously wish to drain of its substance since it cannot be stopped. Hence the correlative questions: Should we go on negotiating this convention with one of its participants that refuses to discuss the economic and commercial aspects of culture within UNESCO because it considers the latter as an institution that has a “cultural vocation (only!)”? Should negotiations be carried on with the United States? And what sort of negotiations given the fact they insist that the coming convention be subordinated to other international conventions that are currently in force, especially those in the commercial or legal domains (WTO, WIPO), and consequently that it have no authority or constraining legal status? Is it still desirable today –a year and one half after their tense return to UNESCO– to make efforts to keep the United States onboard the Convention rather than letting them face their responsibilities? In fact, after the International Criminal Court, after the Kyoto protocol, why would not the same causes have the same effects if the United States do persist in their careless attitude and in their exclusive claiming of their particular interest against the rest of the world?

So, such is the situation as we wait for a third and unexpected intergovernmental session that will take place from May 25th to June 4th, 2005. Either a vast majority of the states represented at UNESCO make further concessions to the United States and to their supporters with the pathetic and vain hope of seeing them agree on a text they radically disapprove, or the same majority remains true to the November 2001 Universal Declaration as well as to the October 2003 agenda, considering that a compromise has been reached that is satisfactory except for the two substantial problems that remain to be settled. First, Article 19 –which establishes the independence of the convention in accordance with the European wording proposition– must be sealed and second, acceptable dispute settlement modes must be specified.

On the first assumption, because there is no more “negotiation margin”, the concessions mentioned above will necessarily be prejudicial, perhaps even fatal for the Convention, not mentioning that the United States would still be likely not to sign at all: one can imagine what a waste such an event would be! On the second assumption, the achievements of a convention project that will prove useful and efficient –despite its imperfections– will be preserved, and scarifying one or a few signatures seems only relatively problematic, especially if we judge by the Kyoto experience that has clearly shown that the “big Other” non-participation was no real threat… In fact, although the federal government abides by its determination not to join the protocol, involved American industries have announced they would conform to its standards on the grounds that two different industrial pollution standards could not coexist on the international scene. This indicates quite clearly that even if all countries do not acknowledge the protocol, the latter imposes its majority rule on all economic agents that are likely to play an active role in its implementation.

If we stick to this logic, US refusal to sign the Convention on Cultural Diversity should prove to have no serious and lasting negative consequences as to the actual enforcement of the Convention nor as to its effective results.

Let us stress the fact that adopting a “weak” convention (that is to say one that is not binding in terms of international law, and especially one that is subject to existing WTO and WIPO regulation) would in fact be the worst scenario that can be imagined by those who have long been mobilized in favour of cultural diversity. Such a convention would precisely enable those who use it as an advertising slogan and as a selling argument in favour of their diversity-annihilating policies to continue and amplify their hegemony strategy. Does not Jack Valenti, former almighty head of the MPAA –Motion Picture Association of America–, already joke about it with his provocative phrase that goes: “Hollywood is cultural diversity”? This is why one cannot be satisfied with signing just “any convention”. The issue here is not ending up with whatever convention but, expressly, adopting a convention that, as it happens, will be legally binding and will make a difference in terms of political, economic, social and cultural international relations!

The authors of this article who have worked for the success of the ongoing process in many respects and for many years accordingly call for an unprecedented mobilization in favour of the adoption of a UNESCO convention that will be binding and will prove equal to the current multifaceted and ceaseless threats to cultural diversity in the fall of 2005.