U.S. continues to oppose new global accord that puts culture outside trade agreements

Canada is taking a misguided approach in its attempt to develop new global trade rules for culture, according to a senior official with the U.S.-based Motion Picture Production Association (MPPA). Speaking to delegates at a forum held in Toronto earlier this week, Bonnie Richardson, VP of trade and federal affairs at MPPA, said Canada’s efforts to build multilateral support for a new international instrument on cultural diversity (NIICD) will continue to face opposition from the U.S. as long as negotiations are taking place outside of traditional trade bodies. "I think a process of talking about cultural issues is fine, except that if it tries to create trade policy," she said. "Trade policy should be made in a trade forum. Cultural policy should be made in a cultural forum. Yes, there is this overlap, and finding a way to talk about the issues that overlap is where we had our problems." Rich-ardson made the comments at a forum entitled, Trading Identity: Policy in Perspective, held Sept. 10 in conjunction with the Toronto International Film Festival. But Ken Stein, chair of Canada’s Cultural Industries Sectoral Advisory Group on International Trade (SAGIT), remains optimistic that progress on the NIICD will be made at a meeting of cultural ministers Sept. 22 in Luzern, Switzerland. Stein, a panelist at the Toronto forum, told CCR that the upcoming meeting will review the basis for international law under which such an instrument would operate. The instrument, he says, would include a set of principles and mechanisms for protecting cultural diversity outside of trade agreements. "I think it should cover specifically what you can do, and what you can’t do. For example, you can’t interfere with copyright, and you can’t ban a product, and you can’t interfere with freedom of expression," he explains (CCR, June 21/01). Stein agrees that more education is needed on the matter. "Part of the issue that you have to sell in your own country is why should culture be treated differently than agriculture. Are you more important than a farmer? No, but the thing is wheat is wheat is wheat. A film or a television show or a book can be very different thing. It’s always been recognized as that. It’s just now we’re saying we should be able to come up with a new strategy to deal with it that gets away from the exemption route," he says. Richardson sees value in cultural ministers meeting to discuss and compare what tools various countries have used to protect their cultures. But she remains adamant that cultural policy be dealt with in trade agreements. "There’s nothing wrong with coalition building; it’s done all the time in lots of other sectors. As long as the eventual understanding is the rules on trade are written in a trade agreement," she told CCR. Richardson complained that the United States is being left out of the NIICD discussion, but Stein notes that you get a "dysfunctional debate" if you have someone at the table who believes there is no problem with the existing approach. Cultural items are currently dealt with as exemptions in trade agreements. "I think one of the reasons the Americans so dislike what we’re trying to do is because we want to take it out of the trade rules. So the trade rules have to fit in with your overall approach to cultural diversity not the other way around," argues Stein. "We wouldn’t have the (World Trade Organization) set rules about how we finance our banks. So why would we have them determine our cultural policies?"

U.S. continues to oppose new global accord that puts culture outside trade agreements

Broadcast | September 13, 2001

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U.S. continues to oppose new global accord that puts culture outside trade agreements

Broadcast | September 13, 2001

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