Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions — core principles summary

The Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions was adopted by UNESCO at Paris on 20 October 2005 and entered into force on 18 March 2007. It was a direct response to concerns that unregulated global trade in media and cultural products was flattening local and minority cultures.

Its founding claim is that cultural goods, services and activities carry identity, values and meaning, and should not be treated as having solely commercial value. Diversity here is something to promote actively rather than merely tolerate, which is a stronger position than non-interference and one that requires states to spend money and make policy rather than simply refrain from harm.

The Convention therefore reaffirms the sovereign right of states to formulate and implement cultural policies, including protective and promotional measures for their own cultural industries, without those measures being treated as trade barriers to be dismantled. That is the provision the whole instrument turns on, because it places cultural policy outside the ordinary logic of trade liberalisation.

It also declines to treat equal treatment as sufficient. The Convention carries dedicated provisions on cooperation for development, preferential treatment for developing countries, and an International Fund for Cultural Diversity, on the recognition that free cultural exchange without support tends to flow in one direction, outward from resource-rich cultural industries. Civil society is given a defined role in implementation through the Convention's operational guidelines rather than a consultative afterthought.

Two further commitments connect it outward. One dedicated article addresses the integration of culture into sustainable development frameworks, which places this Convention in direct dialogue with the sustainability instruments held beside it in this bank. And transparency is binding: parties commit to sharing information on the measures they take, with guidelines revised in 2023 to reflect the growing role of the digital environment in cultural expression and the risks that come with it. The complete text runs to seven chapters, including Objectives and Guiding Principles and the Rights and Obligations of Parties, and is published with its Operational Guidelines by UNESCO.