The battle over culture at the WTO

As the 'commodified' cultural products of the US entertainment-industrial complex continue to threaten the rich heritage of other nations, a battle royale looms at the next round of trade talks on this issue. With a US administration determined to ensure that the interests of its biggest export industry are not hurt by protectionist moves, a number of those 'threatened' nations have begun to meet to share strategy for the coming battle.

by Maude Barlow

Introduction

ONE issue likely to emerge in an intensified way at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Millennium Round of trade negotiations is culture. For many countries feeling the deadening and harmonising impacts of economic globalisation, cultural diversity and the right to protect it from the forces of globalisation has become as important a fight as preserving biodiversity. Governments and peoples around the world are increasingly concerned about global cultural homogenisation in which the world is dominated by American values and lifestyles, carried through the massive US entertainment-industrial complex.

Many countries view culture as their richest heritage, without which they have no roots, history or soul. Its value is other than monetary, they assert, and therefore, to commodify it is to destroy it. They say that culture is not just another product like steel or computer parts, and should not be included in trade agreements at all.

The entertainment-industrial complex, on the other hand, sees culture as a business, a very big business, and one that should be fiercely advanced at the WTO. This industry combines giant telecommunications companies, movie studios, television networks, cable companies and the Internet working together in a complex web that includes publishing, films, broadcasting, video, television, cable and satellite systems, mega-theatre productions, music recording and distribution, and theme parks. Mass-produced products of American popular culture are the US's biggest export, and US Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky has said that she will be very aggressive in protecting them at the upcoming talks.

History of culture and trade

In the 1920s, European countries began resorting to screen quotas to protect their film industries from an influx of American movies. The American motion picture industry responded by developing closer ties with the Department of State and American embassies; by the end of the Second World War, most European countries had overturned their laws.

In 1947, compromise language was found at the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) that lasted until the same countries and Canada started to impose protectionist polices regarding television.

In the 1970s, the US complained in the Tokyo Round of negotiations that at least 21 countries were protecting their film and television industries, and the problem surfaced again at the Uruguay Round in the 1980s.

In 1990, a working group was established that dissolved in disagreement over whether member states had the right to subsidise their audiovisual industry. The GATT agreement of 1994, which forms the basis of current WTO trade law, basically subjects culture to all the disciplines of the agreement, including national treatment, most-favoured-nation treatment and the prohibition against quantitative restrictions. There are two small exceptions: a member country can establish or maintain some screen quotas under very limited conditions but this exception is to be subject to negotiations at the 1999 Millennium Round and the US has said it wants it eliminated; and under Article XX, the general exceptions to the GATT, measures can be maintained that protect national treasures of historic or archaeological value.

The current standoff on culture

In spite of the limited nature of GATT protections for culture, European countries have become more, not less, protectionist about their culture in recent years. The European Parliament advocates curbs on foreign television programmes to keep out US sitcoms and game shows. France has recently added local content rules for radio to its many other protections. Ireland, Portugal and Belgium have placed quotas on their airwaves and Great Britain is trying to revive its film industry, as British movies take up only 6% of screen time. There have been seven complaints concerning culture at the WTO between 1995 and 1998; of those resolved, all have had the effect of limiting states' rights to protect their cultural industries.

In 1997, the US successfully forced Canada to abandon protections of its magazine industry, even though American magazines make up 85% of all magazines available at Canadian newsstands. The WTO ruled that magazines are 'a product' subject to trade rules governing other products, and Charlene Barshefsky said the decision would serve as a useful weapon against Canada's protections of its film, book and broadcasting industries. When Canada tried another method to protect its magazines, introducing a law that would fine Canadian advertisers who place ads in 'split-runs' (US magazines like Sports Illustrated whose 'Canadian content' is comprised of Canadian advertising), the US threatened massive retaliation amounting to $4 billion against Canadian steel, wood and clothing under a clause in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) that allows the US to retaliate against any sector if Canada invokes its right to protect its culture.

Christopher Sands of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington says the US is taking such a hard line with Canada for two reasons. The first is that any exemption for Canada will set a negative precedent for other countries, especially in the developing world where cultural protection is just emerging as an issue. Washington is willing to wage an all-out trade war about a sector that is essentially small change because an example must be made of Canada if other cultural protectionists around the world are to be subdued.

Sands says that US negotiators are still angry at the role Canadian citizens and cultural nationalists played in rousing international opposition to the OECD's Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI). 'What further startled US policy-makers was to hear these Canadian arguments echoed in Europe and even Asia. In an increasingly small world, ideas travel fast, and the Canadian concern that the MAI would lead to greater American cultural hegemony touched a chord around the world. The lesson for US trade negotiators: Canada's example matters.'

The other reason is that a huge, well-organised coalition has formed that links the US entertainment, media and information-technology sectors together in a 'common front' to oppose cultural protectionism. Companies like Time-Warner and Disney have powerful friends on Capitol Hill and in the White House and intend to get their way.

The WTO Millennium Round

The WTO Millennium Round is scheduled to launch new negotiations in the telecommunications sector, which includes all the new technology, including the Internet and Digital, so new cultural issues will be on the table. As well, global negotiations on the deregulation of broadcasting are scheduled to begin 1 January 2000, so this sector is likely to be discussed at the Millennium Round as well. WTO documents show that areas for discussion include 'access and reciprocity to domestic and foreign markets,' which could force countries to abandon public broadcasting and relinquish domestic controls, opening up their airwaves to takeovers by global entertainment transnationals. Ironically, although the push for this deregulation is coming from US corporations, the United States government has protected its own broadcasting sector in NAFTA and the WTO as being 'essential to national security.'

Finally, in a US initiative, the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) is being brought under the jurisdiction of the WTO in time for the Seattle Millennium Round. This means that the WTO will now have the authority to rule on patents, trademarks, and, crucially for culture, copyright law. This will allow the US, for example, to make good its threat to go after copyright legislation such as Canada's, that provides compensation to its own artists, writers and musicians for home copying that deprives them of royalties.

A number of countries, wary of the looming issue of culture at the WTO Millennium Round, have begun to meet to share strategy. Canada initiated a meeting in the spring of 1998 that was attended by the culture ministers of dozens of countries, including Greece, France and Mexico, and they agreed to meet again before the Seattle meeting. The US was not invited to the gathering. The issue of culture will provide an opportunity for citizens to influence their own governments to take a strong position at the WTO Millennium Round, an opportunity we must take.

Maude Barlow is the national volunteer chairperson for the Council of Canadians, which now has more than 100,000 members. She is author or co-author of 8 books, including her most recent publications, The MAI: Threat to Canadian Sovereignty and The Big Black Book.