Trade and Culture in International Law: Paths to (Re)Conciliation

Abstract

The UNESCO Convention on cultural diversity marks a wilful separation between the issues of trade and culture on the international level. The present article explores this intensified institutional, policy- and decision-making disconnect and exposes its flaws and the considerable drawbacks it brings with it. These drawbacks, the article argues, become particularly pronounced in the digital media environment that has impacted upon both the conditions of trade with cultural products and services and upon the diversity of cultural expressions in local and global contexts. Criticising the strong and now increasingly meaningless path dependencies of the analogue age, the article sketches some possible ways to reconciling trade and culture, most of which lead back to the WTO, rather than to UNESCO.

Keywords: trade, culture, WTO, UNESCO, cultural diversity, audiovisual services, digital media