Free Trade versus Cultural Diversity: WTO Negotiations in the Field of Audiovisual Services
Lucerne, 10 June 2003
This Symposium essentially traced questions regarding the relation between free trade and cultural diversity in the era of globalised media markets. Considering the plethora of technological and economic issues and issues of public international law in this discussion, it is not easy for businessmen practicing in the audiovisual industry to find the orientation. Thus at the symposium, international experts discussed the following aspects: • Technological and economic changes since the dispute about the "exception culturelle" in the early 1990s
• Who protects cultural diversity?
• Which is the position of the EU-Commission, which is the view point of Hollywood, and which is the preferred position of negotiation for
Free Trade versus Cultural Diversity, Schulthess, Zurich, 2004
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The relation between free trade and cultural diversity has been one of the most disputed issues in the negotiations concerning the liberalisation of international markets for audiovisual media. This was true for the Uruguay Round of the GATT and will hold true for the ongoing trade talks of the Doha Development Agenda.The reason for the dispute is the dual reality of audiovisual media as commodities and as cultural artefacts, as well as their intrinsic importance in economic and societal terms. The positions on how audiovisual media should be addressed and regulated vary from the extreme of the notorious "exception culturelle" to that of absolute liberalisation, with plenty of nuances in between. From a global perspective, the compromise to be found between these positions in the current
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