2 Jan 2010    Journal Articles
Burri, Mira


Trade and Culture in International Law: Paths to (Re)conciliation

A new piece on the trade and culture dilemma discussing access to content as the more appropriately defined policy objective in the digital age. Published in Journal of World Trade 44:1 (2010).

The UNESCO Convention on cultural diversity marks a wilful separation between the issues of trade and culture on the international level. The present article explores this intensified institutional, policy- and decision-making disconnect and exposes its flaws and the considerable drawbacks it brings with it. These drawbacks, the article argues, become particularly pronounced in the digital media environment that has impacted upon both the conditions of trade with cultural products and services and upon the diversity of cultural expressions in local and global contexts. Criticising the strong and now increasingly meaningless path dependencies of the analogue age, the article sketches some possible ways to reconciling trade and culture, most of which lead back to the WTO, rather than to UNESCO.

Trade and Culture in International Law: Paths to (Re)conciliation