The World Trade Organization and Preferential Trade Agreements: The Case of Cultural Goods and Services

Abstract

Two contrasting perspectives on the treatment of cultural goods and services in international trade law have proved ever more salient since the early 1990s and in light of the digital revolution. For countries such as the United States, cultural goods and services should be considered like any other product, whereas for others, Canada and France in particular, they should be subject to an exception to the principles and rules of economic liberalization. Between these extreme positions, most countries seem favorable to a more or less pronounced form of cultural exception. In view of the difficulties in expanding liberalization commitments on cultural products at the multilateral level and the stalemate in the Doha Round, the main actors in the trade and culture debate, that is, Canada, the European Union (EU), and the United States, have each concluded their own preferential trade agreements (PTAs) with many countries throughout the world.