Trade versus Culture: The Policy of Cultural Exception and the WTO

Abstract

The intensified flows of goods, services, peoples and ideas across borders intrinsic to globalization have had multiple and multifaceted effects. Those affecting culture have perhaps been the most controversial, and certainly the most politically and even emotionally charged. The ‘trade and culture’ quandary, or, to phrase it perhaps more revealingly, ‘trade versus culture’ quandary, is a discussion that emerged in the forum of the WTO and its institutional predecessor, GATT. As is well documented, GATT came into being after World War II as a provisional agreement that was meant to eliminate trade discrimination and reduce tariffs and other barriers to trade, and over the years it grew into a de facto international organization with a substantial impact on trade-related issues (Jackson, 1997; Matsushita et al., 2006). The way in which the organization advanced its goals of liberalizing trade and opening up domestic markets was through the so-called negotiation rounds, during which the GATT members agreed to make concessions and establish rules to which they subsequently found themselves committed. The ‘trade and culture’ debate became truly conspicuous during one of these rounds of trade negotiations — the Uruguay Round — which was launched in Punta del Este, Uruguay, in 1986 and lasted until 1994. It was during this period that a number of countries, with France and Canada prominently featuring at the forefront, fought the so-called exception culturelle battle.