Introduction: UNESCO’s “Diversity Convention” — Ten Years on

Abstract

The General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) adopted the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions (UNESCO, 2005a) ten years ago at its 33rd session on 20 October 2005. For the last two decades, cultural diversity has been one of the key driving forces of UNESCO’s work on culture, development, and education. Although stemming from UNESCO’s paradigm of approaching culture and cultural diversity within the relatively wide scope of human activities, the 2005 Convention also restructured UNESCO’s focus on them — the arts, artistic products, and expressions of heritage are now salient:

The Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions is a legally-binding international agreement that ensures artists, cultural professionals, practitioners and citizens worldwide can create, produce, disseminate and enjoy a broad range of cultural goods, services and activities, including their own. It was adopted because the international community signalled the urgency for the implementation of international law that would recognise:

• The distinctive nature of cultural goods, services and activities as vehicles of identity, values and meaning;

• That while cultural goods, services and activities have important economic value, they are not mere commodities or consumer goods that can only be regarded as objects of trade. (UNESCO, n.d.)