Volume 42 | Number 1 Fall 2006
The New Cultural Diversity Convention and Its Implications on the WTO International Trade Regime: A Critical Comparative Analysis
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XII. Conclusion
There is a danger that a nation purporting to act under the Convention might not be doing so to protect cultural diversity, but to engage in impermissible protectionism. But I believe that three factors would confine nations acting under the Convention to do so strictly in good faith110 pursuit of cultural diversity. The first factor would be the nature of cultural diversity itself, which requires access as well as plurality. Nations might be required to restrict trade in order to protect domestic cultural product, but they also have to facilitate trade to ensure that diversity exists in their own national marketplace. The second factor would be the equivocal nature of the Convention, which counsels openness and balance111 even as it advocates protection and promotion, and calls for mutual supportiveness with other, possibly conflicting documents. The third and most significant factor would be the chapeau to Article XX, which is meant to prevent disguised restrictions in international trade. These three factors should combine to ensure that restrictions under the Convention are taken as rarely and narrowly as possible, and provide an acceptable balance between the policies of that instrument and the GATT.
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Footnotes
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