[WSIS CS-Plenary] PRESS RELEASE: CRIS calls for international mobilisation on the UNESCO Draft Convention on Cultural Diversity

[Myriam Horngren]

CRIS calls for international mobilisation on the UNESCO Draft Convention
on Cultural Diversity (www.crisinfo.org) 
 
The Communication Rights in the Information Society Campaign, an
international network of organisations and individuals working to ensure
that Communication Rights are central to any vision of an information
society, is mobilising around the forthcoming negotiations on the UNESCO
Draft Convention on Cultural Diversity. 

The stated aim of the draft convention is to allow each country to
implement cultural, media, and communications policies that foster
cultural diversity. 

Sasha Constanza-Schock, of Free Press and an active CRIS members says:
"This Convention was originally designed to ensure that culture, in the
age of globalised culture industries, is not reduced to a commodity.
However, some governments have proposed dangerous revisions that would
transform the draft Convention into an instrument that expands corporate
ownership of culture." 

In response the CRIS campaign will submit concrete suggestions to UNESCO
for changes to the draft Convention on 15th November 2004 based on the
following: 

* First, the Convention must not be made subordinate to existing or
future trade agreements. To do so would defeat its purpose. 

* Second, it should be designed to not only protect diversity of
national and regional cultural industries, but to protect the cultural
diversity and the communication rights of all peoples. 

* Third, it must balance any references to the protection of
intellectual property rights with reference to protection of the
cultural commons. Otherwise, references to intellectual property rights
should be removed altogether. 

CRIS is now calling on civil society organizations to join the campaign
to support its efforts and add their signatures on: 
http://www.mediatrademonitor.org/cris-unesco.php

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Notes for Editors: 

The UNESCO Draft Convention on Cultural Diversity is available on:
http://portal.unesco.org/culture/en/ev.php-URL_ID=21972&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&
URL_SECTION=201.html 

Detailed comments from the CRIS Campaign on the convention are available
on:
http://www.mediatrademonitor.org/cris-suggestions.php 

More details on the CRIS Campaign are available on:
http://www.crisinfo.org 

Media Trade Monitor is a resource pool for information about the impact
of global, regional, and bilateral trade agreements on media, culture,
and communication. It is meant to help place media, culture, and
communication squarely on the agenda of the global justice movement, and
to help activists and progressive policymakers successfully fight to
keep these sectors out of so-called 'free trade' deals, be they global
(WTO), regional (FTAA, CAFTA), or bilateral.
More info on: http://www.mediatrademonitor.org

Contacts:
Sasha Constanza-Schock, Free Press and Media Trade Monitor, 
Email: schock at riseup.net phone: (+)1 510 655 7971 (English/Spanish) 

Myriam Horngren, WACC and CRIS Campaign Advocacy and Network
Coordinator, email: mh at wacc.org.uk, phone: (+)44 207 582 9139
(French/English/Spanish)

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Myriam Horngren
WACC/CRIS Network and Advocacy Coordinator
357 Kennington Lane
London SE11 5QY
United Kingdom
Tel: 44 (0) 207 582 9139
Fax: 44 (0) 207 735 0340
web: www.crisinfo.org/www.wacc.org.uk
email: mh at wacc.org.uk