TRADE AND CULTURE : THE 1970 UNESCO AND THE 1995 UNIDROIT CONVENTIONS AND THEIR RELATIONSHIP WITH THE 2005 CONVENTION ON CULTURAL DIVERSITY AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE LAW

Trade and culture have had and continue to have a highly contentious relationship, as trade has often been perceived as a peril to the protection and promotion of national cultures, and more broadly, as a channel of commodifying and homogenizing culture.1 The political economy of the interfaces between trade and culture has also been complex and led to divergences in approaches across jurisdictions and to various forms of international cooperation developed in different venues. This chapter seeks to map the contestations around trade and culture by looking in particular at the interfaces between the legal framework under the 1970 UNESCO Convention, the 1995 UNIDROIT Convention and the more recent 2005 UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions and the rules of international trade law stemming from the World Trade Organization (WTO)