Press Release
Free Press endorses changes to draft UNESCO Convention on Cultural Diversity
Contact: Timothy Karr, 201-533-8838
Washington – Free Press today joined the Communication Rights in the Information Society (CRIS) campaign, the Consumer Project on Technology, the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters, and other organizations in proposing concrete suggestions to the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) draft Convention on the Protection of the Diversity of Cultural Contents and Artistic Expressions.
UNESCO is the body within the United Nations system responsible for promoting educational, scientific, and cultural progress. This new Convention is designed to allow countries to protect their public service media, local content requirements, and other media and cultural policies (such as media ownership limits) from being undermined by the World Trade Organization (WTO) or by regional and bilateral trade agreements.
However, some governments have proposed revisions that would transform the draft Convention into an instrument that would actually do the opposite. In response, the changes supported by Free Press call for civil society organizations to take the following stand on the new Convention:
• First, the Convention must not be made subordinate to existing or future trade agreements. To do so would defeat its purpose.
• Second, the Convention should be designed not only to protect diversity of national and regional cultural industries, but to protect the cultural diversity and the communication rights of all peoples.
• Third, the Convention must balance the protection of intellectual property rights with protection of the cultural commons. Otherwise, any references to intellectual property rights should be removed altogether.
“The proposed Convention could turn out to be one of the most important reforms of the global media governance system ever seen,” said Josh Silver, executive director of Free Press. “The WTO, FTAA, CAFTA, and other trade agreements put our recent victories against media consolidation at risk, even here in the United States. This Convention is a vital step toward ensuring that media policy worldwide is driven by governments, not by the interests of a number of global media giants.”
Signatories to the CRIS campaign presently include Electronic Frontier Foundation, Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, and the Association for Progressive Communications. The CRIS comments and the full list of present signatories can be found at http://www.mediatrademonitor.org/cris-unesco.php.
Free Press (www.freepress.net) is a national non-partisan organization that seeks to increase informed public participation in media policy and to promote a more competitive, public interest-oriented media system. It was founded by University of Illinois professor, media scholar and author Robert W. McChesney.
UNESCO is the body within the United Nations system responsible for promoting educational, scientific, and cultural progress. This new Convention is designed to allow countries to protect their public service media, local content requirements, and other media and cultural policies (such as media ownership limits) from being undermined by the World Trade Organization (WTO) or by regional and bilateral trade agreements.
However, some governments have proposed revisions that would transform the draft Convention into an instrument that would actually do the opposite. In response, the changes supported by Free Press call for civil society organizations to take the following stand on the new Convention:
• First, the Convention must not be made subordinate to existing or future trade agreements. To do so would defeat its purpose.
• Second, the Convention should be designed not only to protect diversity of national and regional cultural industries, but to protect the cultural diversity and the communication rights of all peoples.
• Third, the Convention must balance the protection of intellectual property rights with protection of the cultural commons. Otherwise, any references to intellectual property rights should be removed altogether.
“The proposed Convention could turn out to be one of the most important reforms of the global media governance system ever seen,” said Josh Silver, executive director of Free Press. “The WTO, FTAA, CAFTA, and other trade agreements put our recent victories against media consolidation at risk, even here in the United States. This Convention is a vital step toward ensuring that media policy worldwide is driven by governments, not by the interests of a number of global media giants.”
Signatories to the CRIS campaign presently include Electronic Frontier Foundation, Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, and the Association for Progressive Communications. The CRIS comments and the full list of present signatories can be found at http://www.mediatrademonitor.org/cris-unesco.php.
Free Press (www.freepress.net) is a national non-partisan organization that seeks to increase informed public participation in media policy and to promote a more competitive, public interest-oriented media system. It was founded by University of Illinois professor, media scholar and author Robert W. McChesney.
