Cultural exception

Cultural exception (French: l'exception culturelle) is a political concept introduced by France in General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) negotiations in 1993 to treat culture differently from other commercial products.

In other words, its purpose is to consider cultural goods and services as exceptions in international treaties and agreements especially with the World Trade Organization (WTO). Its goals are to point out that States are sovereign as far as limitation of culture free trade is concerned in order to protect and promote their artists and other elements of their culture. Concretely, it can be seen through protectionist measures limiting the diffusion of foreign artistic work (quotas) or through subsidies distributed according to the country's cultural policy.

GATT negotiations (1993)

In 1992, some countries had voiced their concerns during the final negotiations of the Uruguay Round that implementation of the GATT principles on cultural goods and services "would undermine their cultural specificity (and unique status), in favour of their commercial aspects".

The purpose of Cultural exception is to treat cultural goods and services differently from other traded goods and services because of the intrinsic differences of such goods and services. Many countries defended the fact that cultural goods and services "encompass values, identity and meanings that go beyond their strictly commercial value".

It notably allowed France to maintain quotas and subsidies to protect its cultural market from other nation's cultural products, most notably American, on television and radio. South Korean policy in favor of its movie industry is another example of how cultural exception is used to protect the audiovisual market.

First the debate concerned mainly audiovisual products.