UNESCO is currently working on the Convention on the Protection of the Diversity of Cultural Contents and Artistic Expressions, a document originally designed to let individual countries decide on measures to – in a world where media conglomerates expand globally – make certain culture is not reduced to a commodity.

However, due to recent changes to the Convention suggested by “certain countries”, Communication Rights in the Information Society (CRIS) released some opinions of the draft. For example, that the Convention must not be made subordinate to existing or future trade agreements and that it must balance any references to the protection of intellectual property rights with reference to protection of the cultural commons.

CRIS’s suggested changes to the Convention