The Treaty Behind Film Quotas and Cultural Subsidies Refuses to Rank Below Any Other Treaty — Then, in the Next Paragraph of Article 20, Says It Modifies None of Them

by Amara Diallo · September 11, 2026

Culture & Entertainment Writer, The Globe Ledger

Screen quotas, dubbing rules, public film funds, levies that pay for local drama, language requirements on broadcasters: the body of national policy that keeps domestically made culture in circulation has one multilateral instrument standing behind it, the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, adopted on 20 October 2005. It is routinely described as the treaty that shields culture from trade law. Read its Article 20 — headed "Relationship to other treaties: mutual supportiveness, complementarity and non-subordination" — and that description falls apart in the space of two paragraphs.

Paragraph 1 opens with a proposition no one disputes and a clause that has been argued about ever since. It reads in full: "Parties recognize that they shall perform in good faith their obligations under this Convention and all other treaties to which they are parties. Accordingly, without subordinating this Convention to any other treaty, (a) they shall foster mutual supportiveness between this Convention and the other treaties to which they are parties; and (b) when interpreting and applying the other treaties to which they are parties or when entering into other international obligations, Parties shall take into account the relevant provisions of this Convention." The non-subordination language is a clause inside that sentence, not a free-standing shield: what it governs is the two duties that follow it.

Then comes paragraph 2, which is one sentence long: "Nothing in this Convention shall be interpreted as modifying rights and obligations of the Parties under any other treaties to which they are parties." The two paragraphs have to be read as the single article they are. The Convention declines to rank itself below any other agreement, imposes a duty of mutual supportiveness and a duty to take its provisions into account when other treaties are interpreted, applied or newly entered into — and, in the next breath, declines to change the content of any other agreement. It creates a duty about how other treaties are read. It creates no exemption from what they require.

That is a meaningful distinction for anyone trying to work out what the Convention does for a contested cultural measure. Where a quota or a subsidy is alleged to breach a commitment made elsewhere, Article 20, paragraph 2 forecloses the argument that this Convention displaced the commitment. What survives is paragraph 1's interpretive instruction — that the other treaty be read with the Convention's provisions taken into account, and that parties negotiating new obligations do the same. Whether an interpretive instruction of that kind carries real weight, or is neutralised by the sentence immediately following it, is unsettled among international lawyers and among the states that negotiated the text, and nothing in the Convention resolves it.

What the instrument does state plainly is the authority it reaffirms, and the conditions attached to it. Article 5, paragraph 1 provides that "The Parties, in conformity with the Charter of the United Nations, the principles of international law and universally recognized human rights instruments, reaffirm their sovereign right to formulate and implement their cultural policies and to adopt measures to protect and promote the diversity of cultural expressions and to strengthen international cooperation to achieve the purposes of this Convention." The qualifier at the front of that sentence does work: the right is reaffirmed in conformity with international law, not in derogation from it. Paragraph 2 adds a second discipline that is easy to overlook: "When a Party implements policies and takes measures to protect and promote the diversity of cultural expressions within its territory, its policies and measures shall be consistent with the provisions of this Convention." The right is reaffirmed rather than granted, and it is bounded at both ends.

Article 6 then lists what those measures may look like, and it too is framed rather than open. Paragraph 1 provides that "Within the framework of its cultural policies and measures as defined in Article 4.6 and taking into account its own particular circumstances and needs, each Party may adopt measures aimed at protecting and promoting the diversity of cultural expressions within its territory." The enumerated examples in paragraph 2 include regulatory measures; measures providing opportunities for domestic cultural activities, goods and services, "including provisions relating to the language used for such activities, goods and services"; measures giving domestic independent cultural industries effective access to the means of production, dissemination and distribution; public financial assistance; support for non-profit organisations, public and private institutions and artists; support for those involved in the creation of cultural expressions; and measures aimed at enhancing diversity of the media, including through public service broadcasting. It is an agreed catalogue of cultural policy instruments — a catalogue, not a licence, and the verb governing it is "may".

The catalogue and Article 20 have to be read together, and the result is less than the Convention's reputation. Nothing in Article 6 states that a listed measure is lawful under any other agreement a country has signed, and Article 20, paragraph 2 expressly denies that the Convention altered those agreements. A measure's compatibility with a trade commitment is decided under the instrument containing that commitment. The Convention supplies the vocabulary and the political standing for the measure; it does not supply immunity.

Nor does it supply a court. Article 25 routes disputes about the Convention's interpretation or application first to negotiation; then, if the Parties cannot reach agreement, to the good offices of or mediation by a third party, jointly sought; and then, where good offices or mediation are not undertaken or produce no settlement, a Party "may have recourse to conciliation in accordance with the procedure laid down in the Annex of this Convention", after which "The Parties shall consider in good faith the proposal made by the Conciliation Commission for the resolution of the dispute." Paragraph 4 goes further and lets each Party, "at the time of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession, declare that it does not recognize the conciliation procedure provided for above", a declaration it may withdraw at any time by notifying UNESCO's Director-General. A treaty whose ceiling is a proposal a party need only consider in good faith, and which a party may opt out of receiving, is not built to override anything.

Where the Convention was built to operate is visible in Article 21, headed "International consultation and coordination", which is short and, in practice, load-bearing: "Parties undertake to promote the objectives and principles of this Convention in other international forums. For this purpose, Parties shall consult each other, as appropriate, bearing in mind these objectives and principles." Taken with Article 20, paragraph 1(b)'s instruction about interpreting, applying and entering into other international obligations, the design becomes legible. The instrument's intended force is exercised while other agreements are being written and read, not after they have been breached.

One obligation in the text is drafted in stronger terms than the rest and directed at a different problem. Article 16 provides that "Developed countries shall facilitate cultural exchanges with developing countries by granting, through the appropriate institutional and legal frameworks, preferential treatment to artists and other cultural professionals and practitioners, as well as cultural goods and services from developing countries." The verb is mandatory; the delivery mechanism — "the appropriate institutional and legal frameworks" — is left entirely to the granting state. The Convention provides no complaint procedure through which that obligation could be tested. What it provides instead is Article 9(a), under which Parties shall "provide appropriate information in their reports to UNESCO every four years on measures taken to protect and promote the diversity of cultural expressions within their territory and at the international level".

The Convention's political origins are recorded in its adoption. UNESCO's own account of the drafting sets out a process running from Resolution 32C/34 of the 32nd General Conference in October 2003, through three meetings of independent experts and three sessions of intergovernmental experts between September 2004 and June 2005, to adoption on 20 October 2005 at the Organization's 33rd General Conference, where "148 States voted in favour, 2 voted against and 4 abstained". Article 29 then sets entry into force at three months after the deposit of the thirtieth instrument of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession, and only for the States that had deposited by that date.

Two decades of argument have not produced an agreed answer to the central question, and it is worth stating the disagreement rather than resolving it. On one reading, Article 20 was the price of getting a near-consensus text: a genuine interpretive obligation that gives cultural policy a recognised legal footing in negotiations where it previously had none. On another, it is an article that asserts non-subordination in its first paragraph while conceding in its second that no other treaty obligation is touched, leaving governments roughly the room they had before. Both readings are held by serious lawyers, and both can point at the same two paragraphs. This article does not pick between them.

What is not in doubt is what the text says. The Convention catalogues the measures a state may use to keep its own storytelling in circulation, obliges parties to promote its objectives in other international forums and to take its provisions into account when they interpret, apply and negotiate other treaties, declines to be ranked below any of them — and then, in one sentence, declines to change a single obligation any of them has taken on elsewhere. A country defending a film quota can cite it. It cannot hide behind it.