The author does well to compare the relative strength of trade law, and the weakness of cultural law. The UNESCO Convention includes provision ensuring cultural considerations on a variety of legal contexts, including trade practices. The text of the convention has the “objective to protect and promote the diversity of cultural expressions.” In practice, this allows individual nations to have sovereign right to create policies that protect the cultural interests of each nation. Understandably, there will be certain disagreements amongst the cultural concerns of the various nations, putting international mediators at the center of many disputes stemming from the cultural considerations. The contrarian would say that cultural considerations are often just well crafted political ideas. Yet the author presents a convincing argument of the staying power of cultural considerations as an important and equal legal consideration amongst other important factors. Going further, the author gives a case that cultural considerations can be an important tool for promoting ideas across national boundaries, especially in territories that wouldn’t foster progressive ideas on their own. Even if there are notable case of cultural ideals pushing through as a promoting factor in legal scenarios, the weight and increasing body of jurisprudence on trade law tend to far outweigh the cultural considerations when placed head to head. Ultimately, this may prove to be the undoing of many rights and heritages of peoples across the globe. Unfortunately, this is a scenario that will only be discovered when the practice has completed.
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