CULTURE: UNESCO Unified over Diversity (fwd)

[Phil CashCash]

CULTURE: UNESCO Unified over Diversity

Julio Godoy
http://www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=20767

UNESCO director-general Koïchiro Matsuura will go  ahead with preparing
a binding convention to defend cultural diversity despite  initial U.S.
opposition.

PARIS, Oct 23 (IPS) -    This mandatory set of rules would give all
countries the right to set policy to  preserve and promote national
production of cultural goods such as films, music  recordings, and
books, the international group agreed at a conference.

    Matsuura has two years to prepare a draft. He will do so after
consulting  international organisations ruling on international trade
such as the World Trade  Organisation, the United Nations Conference on
Trade and Development, and  the World Intellectual Property
Organisation.

    A compulsory convention to protect cultural diversity is a long
cherished  project at UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific,
and Cultural  Organisation). UNESCO members had unanimously adopted a
non-binding  resolution over this in 2001.

    That declaration described cultural diversity as a ”common heritage
of  humanity” and considered its safeguarding a concrete and ethical
imperative,  inseparable from respect for human dignity.

    The convention became controversial after the United States rejoined
 UNESCO this year and announced at first that it would reject a binding
 convention. The United States returned to UNESCO last month after
quitting the  organisation in 1984.

    Members agreed to draft a binding convention at the 32nd UNESCO 
conference held in Paris Sep. 29 to Oct. 17. This conference brings
members  together every two years. With the return of the United States
and East Timor  joining, UNESCO now has 190 members.

    A record 3,580 delegates, including five heads of state and close to
300  ministers attended the conference in Paris.

    A mandatory convention to preserve cultural diversity was widely
supported at  the discussions.

    ”The world needs a convention to give every state the right to adopt
or  maintain the necessary public policies to preserve and develop its
cultural and  linguistic patrimony,” French President Chirac said in a
speech ahead of the  conference. ”Such a convention would support the
uniqueness of cultural  creation.”

    Chirac rejected the U.S. argument that a binding convention would
restrain  free circulation of cultural goods. ”Freedom flourishes
within laws and rules, and  gets strangled in anarchy,” he said.

    Several diplomats privately criticised U.S. opposition to the
convention.. ”In the  eyes of the U.S. government, culture is just
another merchandise, and therefore  there cannot be a cultural policy,”
a Latin American diplomat told IPS earlier.

    Another diplomat said: ”It's obvious that the big film studios in
Hollywood are  behind this U.S. attitude.”

    Delegates, including the U.S. delegates, finally approved a
resolution that  ”cultural diversity, as regards the protection of the
diversity of cultural contents  and artistic expressions shall be the
subject of an international convention.”

    The resolution calls on the director-general to submit a first draft
convention to  the next general conference in 2005.

    At this session delegates adopted several conventions on protection
of  cultural heritage, on human genetic data, and against doping in
sport.

    UNESCO adopted the International Convention on the Preservation of
the  Intangible Cultural Heritage as a complement to the 1972
Convention  Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural
Heritage, which  concerns monuments and natural sites.

    This new convention aims to preserve oral traditions and
expressions,  including languages as vehicles of cultural heritage, as
well as the performing  arts, social practices, rituals and festive
events, knowledge and practices  concerning nature and the universe,
and traditional craftsmanship.

    The convention needs to be approved by at least 30 states to take
effect.. It  provides for the drawing up of national inventories of
cultural property, and the  establishment of an Intergovernmental
Committee for the Safeguarding of  Intangible Cultural Heritage.

    The convention proposes in addition the creation of two lists: a
Representative  List of the Intangible Heritage of Humanity and a List
of Intangible Cultural  Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding.

    The first list has been drawn up partially after the last conference
listed 19  Masterpieces of Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.

    These include the Garifuna language, dance and music practised by 
communities of African origin in Belize, Honduras, and Nicaragua, the
Oruro  carnival in Bolivia, the Chinese Kunqu opera, Georgian
polyphonic singing, the  Indian Kutiyattam Sanskrit theatre, the
Japanese Nogaku theatre, and the  Sicilian opera puppet theatre.

    The conference also adopted a Declaration Concerning the Intentional
 Destruction of Cultural Heritage.

    This declaration recalls ”the tragic destruction of the Buddhas of
Bamiyan” and  expresses ”serious concern about the growing number of
acts of intentional  destruction of cultural heritage.”

    The declaration says countries should ”take all appropriate measures
to  prevent, avoid, stop and suppress acts of intentional destruction
of cultural  heritage, wherever such heritage is located.”

    The International Declaration on Human Genetic Data approved at the 
conference lays down ethical principles that should govern collection, 
processing, storage and use of genetic data. These principles include 
confidentiality and free consent.

    ”The privacy of an individual participating in a study using human
genetic  data, proteomic data or biological samples should be protected
and the data  should be treated as confidential,” the declaration says.

    UNESCO is also preparing to take on doping in sport. The conference 
 approved a proposal made by a round table of ministers and senior
officials in  Paris in January this year to prepare an international
convention against doping  in sport. (END/2003)