US embassy cable - 05PARIS1946

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 PARIS 001946 
 
SIPDIS 
 
 
FROM USMISSION UNESCO PARIS 
FOR IO/T BOOTH/COWLEY 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: SCUL, ETRD, UNESCO 
SUBJECT: March 21-22 Informal Discussions on the draft 
UNESCO convention on cultural diversity 
 
RE:  PARIS 01857 (NOTAL), STATE 49529 (NOTAL) 
 
1. SUMMARY.   A day and a half meeting in Paris organized by 
the Canadian government to discuss the UNESCO draft 
convention on cultural diversity brought us no closer to 
consensus on the final document.  The meeting was a rehash 
of positions on such important issues as the relationship of 
the convention to other international agreements, on the use 
of the word "protect" rather than "promote" in the 
convention and the "dual nature of cultural goods and 
services."  While the role of culture in development 
received limited discussion, EC participation in the next 
round of negotiations was not mentioned at all.  End Summary 
 
2. The March 21-22 meeting at the Canadian Cultural Center 
in Paris was chaired by Janette Mark and Denny Gelinas of 
Heritage Canada.  Also attending were Ambassador Oliver and 
DCM Koss, Xavier Troussard of the European Commission (ref. 
A), Yves Fischer of the Swiss cultural ministry, and members 
of the Luxembourg, Brazilian, Japanese and Indian 
delegations to UNESCO. 
 
3. The last round of negotiations on the cultural diversity 
convention at UNESCO in February ended with major 
substantive issues unresolved.  This week's meeting was 
billed as a discussion of some of those outstanding issues, 
rather than a negotiation. 
 
4. The tone of the meetings was set by the Brazilian 
representative's opening observation that the last 
negotiation had made progress but had been "hijacked" by 
trade considerations. The Brazilian delegate also made the 
first of many interventions about the importance of keeping 
the word protect in the convention.  He vehemently denied 
that the word has any trade protectionist connotations. 
 
5. Ambassador Oliver made the point that we are saddled with 
the word protect in the convention as it was a word chosen 
by UNESCO for the Universal Declaration on Cultural 
Diversity before the US return to the organization.  She 
also pointed out that the last negotiations had centered on 
cultural contents and not on true cultural diversity.  The 
Ambassador expressed the hope that the excellent work begun 
at the last negotiating round to refocus the convention on 
the role of culture in development would continue. 
 
6.  Despite the Brazilian's concern about trade hijacking 
the agenda, the discussion was almost exclusively about 
trade.  The EC rep reiterated on several occasions that it 
would be impossible to draft a convention that would not 
defer to the WTO but that it is also not possible to draft a 
convention without overlap.  He also stated that it would be 
nave to draft an agreement that affects the WTO.  At a 
later point the EC rep averred that US concerns about trade 
could turn the convention into one about trade.  His views 
were consistently echoed by Canada and Brazil with Brazil 
asserting that the purpose of the convention is to create 
new rights and obligations in the cultural area, not in the 
trade area. 
 
7. There also was an insistence by the EC, Canada and Brazil 
that the terms "protect" and "cultural goods and services" 
must remain in the convention.  According to these 
delegations the words "have no trade connotations."  They 
also argued that "promote" was a feeble replacement for 
"protect." 
 
8. The Japanese delegate was insistent that the trade 
implications of the agreement must be considered, but he 
also consistently looked for areas of compromise (though 
none presented themselves).  The Indian delegate took no 
positions.  The Swiss representative indicated that his 
country sought the placement of cultural diversity in the 
international legal order.  They did, however, agree with us 
that promote is better than protect because it avoids 
possible trade inferences. 
 
9. On the second morning, the Brazilian representatives read 
a communiqu signed the day before by the Brazilian, French 
and Spanish cultural ministers that among other things 
"recognized the dual nature of cultural products" and called 
for the new convention to have equal standing with other 
international obligations.  When we pointed out the 
inconsistency between the declaration and what we were being 
told by the Brazilian and EC reps, we were told that the 
ministers did not mean to imply that the cultural diversity 
convention has trade aspects. 
 
10.  Comment:  While the Ambassador and DCM made consistent 
interventions that the proposed agreement must not touch 
upon WTO competencies, should avoid ambiguous terms like 
protect and must avoid terminology like cultural goods and 
services and the dual nature of cultural products we made 
little headway. 
 
11. The EC, Brazil and Canada were like a Roman chorus 
predicting doom to the international legal order if we did 
not place culture in its "proper" place among international 
agreements.  But they never were able to articulate why. 
Though they may not have liked our message, they heard loud 
and clear that we are determined to have this convention be 
truly about the promotion of cultural diversity and its role 
in development and not a trade agreement in sheep's clothes. 
 
Koss