ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the political and analytical attention accorded to the adoption of the Convention has over-emphasised the significance of the new fracture at UNESCO over trade and culture while missing what is arguably the more significant development over the previous quarter of a century. It examines how the principle of the dual nature of culture that had been elaborated by the World Commission on Culture and Development (WCCD) has been given political and legal content following the Stockholm conference of 1998 as it became articulated in the intensified debates over trade and culture. The chapter demonstrates the broader relevance of these developments at UNESCO by considering the case of contemporary cultural policy reform in China. The Canadian trade lawyer, Ivan Bernier, has been one of the foremost experts working on the Convention since his involvement in the first drafts of an international instrument on cultural diversity that began to circulate in Canada in 2002.
