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UNESCO Assistant DG Bouchenaki to Speak at Third International Meeting June 1-4 in Seoul , Korea Mounir Bouchenaki, UNESCO’s Assistant Director General for Culture, is among the confirmed speakers for the Third International Meeting of Cultural Professional Organizations, to be held June 1-4 in Seoul , Korea , the Organizing Committee has announced. Mr. Bouchenaki, along with culture ministers and representatives of multilateral organizations such as the Organization of la Francophonie, will join more than 400 delegates of cultural professional organizations from more than 60 countries in Seoul . At the Seoul Meeting, delegates of organizations representing actors, directors, composers, writers, live performers and visual artists, as well as publishers, independent producers, broadcasters and distributors, will engage in an in-depth discussion of the current state of the trade and culture debate, including the process now underway at UNESCO to develop a convention on diversity of cultural contents and artistic expressions. Such a convention would reaffirm the sovereign right of countries to develop, implement and maintain policies designed to ensure their citizens have meaningful access to cultural content produced domestically as well as a range of cultural content from other countries. The Third Meeting, which builds on previous meetings held in Paris in February 2003 and in Montreal in September 2001, is being held at a critical moment in the trade and culture debate. But while this process is moving ahead, cultural professional organizations face a major challenge in ensuring that countries do not sharply limit their right to have cultural policies by making liberalization commitments on culture in the context of international trade agreements (a growing risk covered most recently in the March issue of Coalition Currents ). For these reasons, the Third Meeting will be an unparalleled opportunity for leaders of cultural professional organizations from around the world to share views on the challenges to cultural diversity they face in each of their countries—while developing a collective strategy for ensuring a strong convention is secured at the 2005 UNESCO General Conference and advocating a moratorium on commitments affecting culture in trade agreements while this convention is being developed, adopted and implemented. Added Co-Chair Yong Tae Kim, “Here in Korea we face a major threat to our nation’s ability to maintain cultural policies through U.S. pressure in a Bilateral Investment Treaty negotiation to eliminate or drastically reduce our screen quota for domestic cinema”. “But we know we are not alone in facing such pressure from a trade negotiation,” noted the third Co-Chair for the meeting, Choon man Lee. “And we are convinced that the most effective response to this pressure is to build a truly global alliance of cultural professional organizations that can work together to put in place a counterweight to trade agreements in the form of a UNESCO convention on diversity of cultural contents and artistic expressions. Through this, each country can preserve the freedom to maintain and develop policies that are appropriate for its needs.” In addition to posting a detailed program on the official website for the Third Meeting, the Organizing Committee also announced it has posted information about the main conference hotel—the Grand Hilton—as well as other hotels for which it has secured special rates for delegates attending the meeting. Links to more general information about Korea and the city of Seoul are also featured on the site: http://www.kccd.or.kr. UNESCO DG’s Timetable Places UNESCO Director General Koïchiro Matsuura has laid out a detailed timetable for developing the proposed convention on cultural diversity that would see a preliminary draft text in the hands of UNESCO member states this July, and inter-governmental negotiations concerning its content underway by this fall—all in time for a vote to take place on adoption of the convention at the agency’s Fall 2005 General Conference. In a remarkably candid address on April 7 to permanent delegates at UNESCO—just days after the second four-day meeting of the 15-member experts group meeting working to develop a preliminary draft of the convention—the Director General not only laid out the key milestones for the convention process on the way to the 2005 General Conference, but also signalled the elements of the convention that will likely be the focus of intense debate among Member States when the preliminary draft heads into the inter-governmental negotiation phase starting this fall. For organizations representing cultural professionals, the Director General’s timetable underscores the importance of starting discussions with their national governments as soon as possible concerning the content of the convention. This implies initiating discussions through several channels—with ministries responsible for culture, for foreign affairs (generally the department to which national UNESCO ambassadors report), as well as with their country’s National Commission for UNESCO. Early indications are that some countries envisage starting their consultations (the form of which will vary country to country) as early as May—even before the third and final experts meeting May 28-31, and before the projected release of a preliminary draft in July. Matsuura himself implicitly endorsed such early consultations by noting that his decision to circulate the report on the first experts meeting last December to all Member States was driven by the desire “to enable you to initiate, on your side, the process of consultation and reflection with the various project stakeholders in your respective countries.” Matsuura’s timetable lays out the following key milestones on the way to the 2005 General Conference, expected to take place in October: May 28-31: the third, and final, meeting of the Category VI multi-disciplinary experts group appointed by the Director General which began its work last December. Mid-July 2004: a preliminary report accompanied by a preliminary draft of the convention, to be delivered to Member-States 14 months in advance of the opening of the General Conference in order to enable them to furnish comments and observations 10 months in advance of the General Conference. Mid-July 2004 onward: Formal consultations regarding the convention with the World Trade Organization (WTO), World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and UNCTAD, as specified in the resolution on the proposed convention adopted unanimously by UNESCO’s Member States at last October’s General Conference. This process, as well as consultations with non-governmental organizations, can be expected to be an ongoing one from summer of 2004 right up to the 2005 General Conference. September-October 2004: Convocation of the first Category II meeting of inter-governmental experts. In practice, this means a meeting involving representatives of all of UNESCO’s 191 Member States. This initial meeting would be held after the first round of comments has been received from Member States regarding the preliminary draft, and would lay the groundwork for one or two subsequent inter-governmental sessions expected to take place leading up to the General Conference. Mid-November 2004: Deadline for Member States to deliver their comments and observations regarding the preliminary report and draft 10 months prior to the opening of the 2005 General Conference. February-March 2005: Target date for the Director General to deliver a report on the convention process along with a draft text that takes into account the comments and observations UNESCO has received from Member States, other inter-governmental agencies, and NGOs—seven months prior to the opening of the General Conference. October 2005: Date for the report on the convention project and draft to be submitted to the 33 rd Session of the Unesco General Conference for adoption. In his address, the Director General expressed “great satisfaction at the results achieved so far, all the more so since this is a complex subject that initially promised great difficulties.” At the same time, his speech highlights a number of elements of the convention which it appears will be the focus of debate and negotiation among UNESCO’s Member States. These include: Guiding principles. Among other principles, the Director General stated that there was some consensus that the convention “should conform to the principle of freedom of expression and communication as well as freedom of access and choice.” (our translation) At the same time, he noted that a number of other principles were advocated, including the principle of free trade of cultural products or, by contrast, the principles of balance, openness, proportionality and transparence. Advocates of wide-open international markets for their country’s cultural goods and services consistently insist on the principle of freedom of access and choice as an absolute value. Principles such as balance and proportionality reflect a different perspective—that of experts guided by the conviction that meaningful freedom of access or choice can exist only if citizens have genuine access to cultural content from their own country, complemented by access to a balanced mix of cultural content from a range of other countries. Rights and obligations of States Parties. There was support for the principle of the “sovereign right of States to adopt policies and appropriate measures to protect and promote the diversity of cultural expressions in their territories,” although the experts were not able to reach a consensus position on this point by the end of the second meeting. The outcome of this debate when it shifts into the forum of inter-governmental negotiations will be critical because what is at stake is the fundamental right of countries to have (or introduce) policies that ensure there is a meaningful space for local cultural content, and to pursue measures to encourage the existence of healthy national cultural industries capable of producing and distributing such content. These measures can include quotas for domestic content, rules with respect to acceptable levels of foreign ownership of cultural enterprises such as broadcasters, cable and satellite services, and cultural support programs reserved for domestically-owned enterprises producing national cultural content—whether books, theatre, music, film, television or content in other media, to name just a few. Relationship with other international treaties. The experts affirmed the need for coordination at the international level to respect the spirit of the convention in other international contexts. At the same time, experts agreed on the principle that States Parties must act in conformity with their rights and obligations in the context of other international instruments. At the same time, a clause was proposed to the effect that this requirement be mitigated in situations where ‘the respect for these obligations would result in serious damage to culture diversity or would constitute a menace to it.” The issue of how the new convention would affect the rights and obligations of a country arising from other international agreements is a major one. The approach contemplated by the experts—one modelled on similar qualifying language contained in the Convention on Biodiversity—could provide a foundation for countries proceed with policies designed to promote or protect cultural diversity, even if this appeared to conflict with commitments under an international trade agreement. The central question would be under what circumstances this would be permitted—how heavy will the burden of justification be? But that this clause is being discussed at all is an extremely positive development. A number of the dates indicated by the Director General are provisional, and could be adjusted in response to feedback from UNESCO’s 58-member Executive Board at their April 14-29 meeting, or in response to the evolution of the convention process itself. But Matsuura’s timeline shows that it is entirely realistic for the process to be completed in time for the convention to be adopted at the 2005 General Conference. Also on the table at the Executive Board meeting will be a proposal by the Director General that the International Liaison Committee of Coalitions for Cultural Diversity be invited to send an observer to one or more of the UNESCO sessions once the process moves out of the current closed-door experts’ process. The question of consultation with cultural professional organization in this process will also be discussed at a May 4 meeting of representatives of the International Liaison Committee of Coalitions for Cultural Diversity with Katerina Stenou, Director of UNESCO’s Division of Cultural Policies and Intercultural Dialogue. But a crucial point implicit in the Director General’s speech is that each Member State of UNESCO will carry out its own process for developing its bottom line with respect to the convention—and the challenge for cultural professionals in each country is to make sure they are part of that process. USTR Report Labels National Content Quotas, Foreign Ownership Rules ‘Barriers to Trade’The United States Trade Representative (USTR) has released its annual listing of measures it considers significant barriers to U.S. exports and in the cultural sector national content quotas for radio, film and television along with foreign ownership limits for national publishing companies, broadcasters, and cable and satellite companies figure prominently on this list. Entitled the 2004 National Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Barriers, the report is a country-by-country listing of measures the USTR views as constituting barriers to U.S. exports in 58 countries. France ’s national content requirements for television broadcasters are singled out as being “a significant barrier to access of U.S. programs in the French market.” France goes beyond the European Union’s Television Without Frontiers Directive of 51% European content by requiring 60% European content (including a sub-quota of 40% French content)—and further specifies that this quota must be met in prime time, not simply over the course of the broadcast day. The report also states that the U.S. continues to be concerned about the French radio broadcast quota (40 per cent of songs on French private and public radio stations must be Francophone) because “the measure limits the broadcast share of American music.” France is hardly alone in having quotas for radio, television or film, however. Similar quotas in Australia , Brazil , Canada , Colombia , Italy , Korea , Malaysia , Spain and Sri Lanka —to name just a sampling of countries—are also cited as barriers in the USTR report. The same holds true for limits on foreign ownership of cultural enterprises. Countries including Brazil , Canada , Italy , Turkey , Venezuela and Vietnam are cited. US-Morocco , US - Dominican Republic
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Coalition Currents is published by the Secretariat for the International Liaison Committee of Coalitions for Cultural Diversity (ILC). Member Coalitions: Argentina,
Australia, Burkina Faso, www.comitedevigilance.org Editor:
Jim McKee We welcome re-use of material from this bulletin with attribution. |
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