“可持续发展”:建立《文化表现多样性公约》与WTO的重要关联点

Sustainable Development:The Building of Important Link Points between the Convention on the Diversity of Cultural Expressions and the WTO

文化与贸易,似乎是永无休止的争议。历时近三年的中美出版物和视听产品案以我国败诉并承诺修改相关文化贸易措施而告终,但此案所涉及的《文化表现多样性公约》与WTO规则之间的关系却值得进一步思考。大多数学者对以《文化表现多样性公约》解释WTO相关条款持积极态度,进而强调须寻求公约与WTO协定间的"文本联系"。缺乏文本联系被认为是阻碍在WTO框架下更加有效地适用《文化表现多样性公约》的核心原因。文章立足于演化解释的视角,认为设立WTO的马拉喀什协定序言中的"可持续发展"这一概念本身是演化性的,其源于经济与环境范畴,但逐渐扩展至包括社会和文化的范畴。"可持续发展"作为WTO协定与《文化表现多样性公约》共通的文本联系,可赋予文化在WTO中的合适地位,成为一种尚未尝试的可行性方案,为我国在今后涉及与此相关的WTO案件提供了另一种抗辩的可能。

Culture and trade seem to be an eternal struggle. The moderate view, which attracts more support, stresses the need in finding an appropriate textual anchor between the Convention on the Diversity of Cultural Expressions and the WTO. From a perspective of evolutionary interpretation, this paper argues that the textual link in the WTO agreements could be sustainable development, which may have been a concept only dealing with economic and environmental aspects of development but has recently received a much broader conceptualization to also include cultural aspects. This could be a possible approach that has not been attempted yet, to fortify the need to interpret several terminologies in the WTO agreements in a culturally friendly way or to expand the meaning of other terminologies so as to reflect the newly accepted understanding of culture among the contemporary community of nations.