There is a phrase about to get wider currency. It is "cultural exception". What is cultural exception? Free trade agreements are in increasing use. Australia, in the last year or two, has negotiated a free trade agreement with the USA and is involved in trying to establish one with China. Despite free trade being the name of the game in the contemporary international economy, many members of the World Trade Organization assert a right to limit cross-border trade in the interest of national cultural sovereignty. Unfortunately, there is virtually no evidence of interest by Australia in asserting its national cultural sovereignty. It would rather put lamb chops on the table of American citizens than go into bat for its own culture or intellectual property. On the basis of cultural exception, Canada has tried to regulate the sale of American periodicals. France has tried to limit the dominance of American films and protect its French film industry. Reflecting contending interpretations of intellectual property rights, some developing states have opposed as cultural appropriation the commercialization of local botanical knowledge by foreign pharmaceutical firms ("bioprospecting"). Some nations - well, let's be blunt, it's mainly the USA - view cultural exception as a thinly disguised form of protectionism.
France has struggled to get cultural exception recognised and accepted on the international trade agenda. It got a boost when joined in the struggle by Canada. Is it only a co-incidence that Canada has a significant Francophone population? As of the last week, France and Canada have just got a heap of friends and they have got them together with the assistance of UNESCO (the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation). See here for UNESCO's definition of the application of cultural exception.
Last weekend, the nations of the world voted on cultural exception. More than 150 of the 191 member states of UNESCO voted to approve The Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions to protect cultural diversity. The USA and Israel - who have only recently rejoined UNESCO after lengthy absences - voted against the convention. Gutless Australia who won't stand up for itself and certainly won't go against the USA in the form of the Bush Administration abstained along with poor Kiribati - whose main interest is to seek a place for itself in the world as increasing sea-levels (caused by the global warming which Bush and Howard & Co. deny/ignore) threaten to swamp their island nation.
The US is feeling quite frustrated about this. No links here but search the net and you will find the outpouring there by the bucketload. How dare someone not want open slather for US movies! The hypocrisy of the United States is endless. It protects its own and wants open slather for themselves. But Aussies remember. They remember well how Rupert Murdoch had to take out US citizenship in 1985 to comply with that country's media ownership laws.!
