On 20 October 2005, the General Conference of UNESCO adopted the Convention on the Protection and the Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions. It is designed to give states the possibility to take those measures they deem necessary for the protection and the promotion of the flourishing of the diversity of artistic expressions. One of the purposes of the Convention is to prevent cultural life from being dominated by only a few players and to give consumers the possibility to choose from the wide range of expressions that artists create and perform. This international legally binding instrument cannot remove all threats to cultural diversity; the future will bring new challenges, both in the old media and the new digital world. Therefore, one will see described in the different chapters some of the huge pitfalls that lie ahead. However, the Convention and the struggle for cultural diversity – on the theoretical level and in daily practice – are extraordinarily valuable for those who do not want to live in a world where state censorship is supplanted by monopoly control of the media and cultural industries. This book provides the history behind the adoption of the Convention, analyses its legal value and potential impact, and tries to envisage the most appropriate strategies for its effective implementation. Description from Culturelink (www.culturelink.org).

http://www.culturelink.org/publics/joint/diversity01/diversity01announce.html