Belangrijke waarden moeten wel beschermd worden en blijven
Inleiding
De ideologische basis van de World Trade Organization, waarover ik hiervoor in mijn website bericht heb, was van een volstrekt neoliberale snit. Zoveel mogelijk ongeremde handel tussen landen zou de welvaart en het welzijn van een ieder op onze planeet verhogen. Zo werkt dat dus niet. Op zich is handel tussen landen een groot goed dat, om handelsoorlogen te voorkomen, geregeld moet worden. Aan dat vereiste voldoet de WTO, min of meer. We moeten ondertussen zeggen: voldeed, sinds de VS zand in de wielen van de WTO gooit en die onwerkzaam maakt.
Maar, in het ideologische bouwwerk van de WTO ontbrak het gegeven dat handel gepaard moet gaan met het beschermen van belangrijke waarden, zoals daar zijn: vakbondsrechten, he op waarde schatten van het milieu, het bestrijden, c.q. onmogelijk maken van corruptie en belastingontduiking, c.q. –ontwijking, het versterken van economieën die niet al te sterk zijn. Wat ook ontbreekt is het recht van nationale staten om te zorgen dat culturele diversiteit in hun contreien kan bestaan en floreren en dat, onder meer, daardoor de democratie versterkt wordt.
Vanaf het begin van de 21e eeuw was ik nauw betrokken bij het initiatief om die lacune in WTO – het beschermen van culturele diversiteit – op te vullen, middels een Verdrag dat ondergebracht zou worden bij Unesco. Dat resulteerde in enkele uitvoerige analyses van mij waarom en hoe dat zou moeten gerealiseerd worden. In 2005 wordt de Conventie over de Bescherming en Bevordering van Culturele Diversiteit aangenomen. Zie daarover, hier bijgaand, de tekst van de Conventie en de link naar een boek over die Conventie dat ik, samen met Nina Obuljen – op dit moment Minister van Cultuur in Kroatië – geredigeerd heb.
Helaas, de Conventie is niet geworden wat ervan gehoopt werd. Het werd een vrijblijvende tekst die de ongeremde vrijhandel, in dit geval op cultureel terrein, niet aan banden legde. Dat gegeven heb ik ook geanalyseerd, in een Engelse tekst die ook vertaald is in het Duits.
Teksten en analyses, van mijzelf
- Regulations in Favour of Cultural Diversity (2003)
- Artistic Expression in a Corporate World (2004)
- Human, cultural rights: Universalism or/and cultural relativism
- UNESCO’s Convention on the Protection and the Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions: Making it Work (Book, 2006)
- Cultural Diversity as a Political Concept: Chance and Failure
- Kulturelle Diversität: Ein vielschichtiges Konzept in den Mühlen der Realität
Regulations in Favour of Cultural Diversity (2003)
Research paper I prepared for the conference Regulations in favour of cultural diversity, Cultural Centre De Balie, Amsterdam, 25, 26, 27 September 2003, and the comments on this paper by some participants of the conference.
In the fields of film, music, theatre, dance, visual arts, design, and publishing (whether presented in the real world, or by audiovisual or digital means) there are dominant market positions that harm broad access to cultural communication. From a human rights perspective this is a loss. Some of these market-dominating cultural conglomerates are foreign to a country; others are national, as in the USA or Brazil. Left to the market, mergers and take-overs will continue.
However, democracy demands the reverse. In all fields of the arts and media, there should be producers, distributors and promoters, who have strong local affinities, and yet originate from many different parts of the world. National states should regulate the cultural market in favour of diversity in order to reach this ideal. A Convention on Cultural Diversity, that would bring culture out of the neo-liberal WTO context, would give states the full right to implement the kinds of regulations they judge necessary for the protection and promotion of cultural diversity.
Read full text of my paper here.
Artistic Expression in a Corporate World (2004)
Most of the rumblings around the World Trade Organisation (WTO) have been linked to questions on the divide between rich and poor countries, agriculture, health and the pharmaceutical industries. In Seattle, Cancún and all these other cities where the present economic globalisation was contested, cultural movements were in the opinion of the public, remarkably invisible. Therefore, it might be surprising to know that the cultural sectors in our societies have set a far reaching proposal on the agenda that could contribute to the weakening of the WTO system: the establishment of a Convention on Cultural Diversity. The purpose of such a Convention is that culture must be freed from the liberalising grip of the world trade system. It should strengthen a countries sovereign right to maintain and install all those measures they feel appropriate for the protection and the promotion of cultural diversity within their society and in their relationships with other countries too. To reach this ideal, serious juridical pitfalls should be overcome, not to mention fierce political struggles.
This Convention, once ratified and signed by a substantial number of countries, must shield them from trade retaliations because of their cultural policies that may include subsidy systems, preferential tax treatments for domestic cultural initiatives, ownership and content regulations, and regulations that would make cultural industries publicly accountable. In the present economically dominated world order all kinds of protective measures have been considered as distortions of the glorified free trade and are therefore meant to be abolished. This is also the purpose of the new round of trade negotiations within WTO (the so-called Doha Round) that was started in 2001. Cultural conglomerates wanting to attain even more exhibition space and selling points world-wide than they have already, press hard to make countries open their cultural markets completely and remove all protective measures that stand in their way.
Read full text of my paper here.
Human, cultural rights: Universalism or/and cultural relativism
The Preamble of the preliminary draft of a Convention on the protection of the diversity of cultural contents and artistic expressions (to be indicated as Convention on Cultural Diversity) celebrates ‘the importance of cultural diversity for the full realization of the human rights and fundamental freedoms proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other universally recognized instruments.’ This text implicitly refers, for instance, to the article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights from 1948 that says: ‘Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes the freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.’ Article 27.1 of this Universal Declaration states: ‘Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in the scientific advancement and its benefits.’
The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights from 1966 stresses in its article 15 that the State Parties to this Covenant recognize the right of everyone to take part in cultural life. In its clause 2 there has been mentioned that the steps to be taken by the State Parties ‘to achieve the full realization of this right shall include those necessary for the conservation, the development and the diffusion of science and culture.’ Also the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights speaks in its articles 18 and 19 about such kinds of rights.
One might wonder why it is necessary to have a Convention on Cultural Diversity in the beginning of the twenty first century while apparently we have already for decades the, at least moral obligation for states to take care that everyone can take part in the cultural life of the community; that everyone should have the freedom to hold opinions and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas; and that the states shall take steps that promote the conservation, development and diffusion of science and culture. “Everyone” does mean that no one should have a privileged and dominant position in cultural life and would be able to exclude others from cultural communication and participation, whether, for instance, by censorship or by actual market behaviour.
Read full text of my paper here. And full text in pdf-format here.
UNESCO’s Convention on the Protection and the Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions: Making it Work (Book, 2006; edited together with Nina Obuljen.)
On 20 October 2005, the General Conference of UNESCO adopted the Convention on the Protection and the Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions. It is designed to give states the possibility to take those measures they deem necessary for the protection and the promotion of the flourishing of the diversity of artistic expressions.
This international legally binding instrument cannot remove all threats to cultural diversity; the future will bring new challenges, both in the old media and the new digital world. Therefore, one will see described in the different chapters some of the huge pitfalls that lie ahead. However, the Convention and the struggle for cultural diversity – on the theoretical level and in daily practice – are extraordinarily valuable for those who do not want to live in a world where state censorship is supplanted by monopoly control of the media and cultural industries.
This book provides the history behind the adoption of the Convention, analyses its legal value and potential impact, and tries to envisage the most appropriate strategies for its effective implementation.
We believe we are at critical crossroads. Down one road lies a flourishing of cultural expressions and more balanced global cultural exchanges. Down the other road lies increasing homogenisation of content and domination of markets by even fewer players. We believe it is make or break time for cultural diversity.
Please find Further book and pdf-version information here.
Cultural Diversity as a Political Concept: Chance and Failure
The concept of cultural diversity looks like a self-evident notion, however, it started its politically meaningful life only at the end of the nineteen nineties of the last century. The sudden appearance of this concept is the result of a huge global struggle about the question whether big commercial forces have the right to exploit cultural markets at their wish, or, alternatively, whether individual countries should have the right to limit the activities of – mostly transnational – corporations in order to protect the diversity of cultural expressions. These expressions may come from within the country or from many other parts of the world and should – according to this opinion – not be pushed to the margins of the market by overwhelmingly powerful cultural industries.
The main protagonists of this struggle have been, and still are, on one side the United States, and on the other side countries such as France and Canada; both parties were supported by groups of other countries. The main battlefield was Geneva where the organisation of global trade has its headquarters. The struggle erupted in 1985 when a new global round of trade negotiations started. The topic of this round was a further opening of the markets of the different countries. This opening should include all products and, for the first time, services and copyrights as well. The name of this round of trade negotiations is Uruguay Round, because the whole process of global dealing and wheeling happened to start in Uruguay. However, the name is less important than what was – and still is – at stake.
In order to understand this – and why cultural diversity became such a loaded concept – we have to go back to the years immediately after the Second World War, and even before that. One of the reasons of the long continuation of the Great Depression in the thirties of the twentieth century might have been that more and more countries started to close their borders for goods coming from other parts of the world in order to protect their own industries. Consequently, the economies of all those countries continued to stagnate because import restrictions were catastrophic for exporting enterprises, and thus for the entire economic system. After the war, the idea was: never again such a mistake. Would it be possible that many countries agreed, in common negotiations, to reduce their tariffs on imports and to have in successive stages more freedom of trade, and hopefully more prosperity? Indeed, in 1948, this idea became materialized in the so called GATT, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.
Read full text of my paper here. And full text in pdf-format here.
Kulturelle Diversität: Ein vielschichtiges Konzept in den Mühlen der Realität
Der Begriff „kulturelle Diversität“ scheint einen ganz selbstverständlichen Gedanken zu umschreiben, doch als politisch bedeutsames Konzept wurde er erst am Ende der 90er Jahre des vorigen Jahrhunderts zum Leben erweckt. Sein plötzliches Auftreten ist das Ergebnis eines gewaltigen globalen Ringens um die Frage, ob mächtige kommerzielle Kräfte das Recht haben, kulturelle Märkte nach Belieben zu erschließen und auszuschöpfen. Oder sollte nicht stattdessen jeder einzelne Staat dazu berechtigt sein, die Unternehmungen der – größtenteils transnationalen – Konzerne einzuschränken, um so die Vielfalt kultureller Äußerungen zu schützen? Nach dieser Auffassung sollten solche Äußerungen – mögen sie aus dem Inland stammen oder aus den unterschiedlichsten Regionen der Welt – durch keine übermächtige Kulturindustrie an den Rand des Marktes gedrängt werden können.
Hauptakteure dieser Auseinandersetzung waren – und sind es noch immer – die USA einerseits und Staaten wie Frankreich und Kanada andererseits, jeweils unterstützt von Gruppierungen anderer Länder. Hauptschauplatz war Genf, Hauptsitz der Welthandelsorganisation. Der Disput brach sich im Jahr 1985 Bahn, als eine neue Welthandelsrunde eröffnet wurde, deren Gegenstand die weitere Öffnung der Märkte der beteiligten Staaten war: Sie sollte sich nicht nur über die gesamte Produktion erstrecken, sondern zum ersten Mal auch über alle Dienstleistungen sowie das geistige Eigentum. Diese Verhandlungsrunde trägt den Namen „Uruguay-Runde“, denn es war in Uruguay, wo dieser Prozess der globalisierten Kungelei begonnen wurde. Nun, der Name ist lange nicht so wichtig wie all das, was hier auf dem Spiel stand – und noch immer steht.