The UNESCO Convention exists to protect each nation’s cultural sovereignty. It allows states to implement measures necessary to support a thriving diversity of local creative works and dissemination regardless of pressures from the global market. The products of our cultural institutions, the assets of our audio-visual sector, our public service broadcasting system and our legislative sovereignty to support cultural diversity could all be exposed to trade-offs in any future bi-lateral or multi-lateral trade agreements. This exposure has increased for the UK post Brexit.

The UKCCD will campaign for the exclusion of cultural and audio-visual sectors from trade agreements both inside and outside the European Union. Analysis of on-going trade agreements can be found in our resources under IFCCD reports

The ECCD has cited the Convention when lobbying the EU to observe its commitments to cultural diversity and to keep the principle of the cultural exception, particularly in the audio-visual sectors.  At present the audio-visual sector is excluded from all EU trade agreements. It will also be excluded from any future trade agreement with the UK. The UKCCD is monitoring the situation and advocating that the 2018 revised AVMS directive is transposed into UK law – please refer to our report on audio-visual sector after Brexit to learn more and our trade briefing on the cultural and audio-visual sectors.