roundtable: Re: Visions of the GII

roundtable: Re: Visions of the GII

Re: Visions of the GII

William Drake (wdrake@weber.ucsd.edu)
Fri, 17 Mar 1995 09:54:15 -0800 

Date: Fri, 17 Mar 1995 09:54:15 -0800
From: William Drake <wdrake@weber.ucsd.edu>
Message-Id: <199503171754.JAA25541@weber.ucsd.edu>
To: roundtable@cni.org
Subject: Re: Visions of the GII


Marc Rotenberg wrote,

>The EC/G-7 process added three principles to the US agenda that we
>should endorse: promoting equality of opportunity to the citizen;
>promoting diversity of content, including cultural and linguistic
>diversity; recognising the necessity of worldwide cooperation with
>particular attention to less developed countries.

I'm afraid I think this is an overly optimistic assessment of what
was *really* agreed to at G-7, as opposed to what nice words were
inserted in the final declaration for public consumption.  I've 
spoken with several people in the US government who say that 
the French/EU Commission effort to win acknowledgement of the 
legitimacy of barriers to cultural info flows was decisively
rejected by the rest of the G-7, with the Germans and British
in particular supporting the American position.  It seems the
discussion on this issue was rather murky, too, insofar as the
differences between US domination of movies in theatres and
broadcast television programming, on the one hand, and the
accessibility of such fare via broaband pipes was not really
thought through too carefully.  Maybe the USG folks on this
list have a different take on what happened?  In any event,
my understanding that US efforts to bring audio-visual information
under trade agreement, either bilaterally or multilaterally in
the GATS, will continue.

The language on developing countries is also pretty meaningless,
insofar as there will not be any increase in intergovernmental
lending and technical assistance through the World Bank or ITU---
at least not a big one.  The ITU is however, organizing a new
private-sector led group called WORLDTEL that will focus on
promoting corporate investments in developing countries' telecom
sectors.  One would imagine that this will concentrate on the
comparatively well off countries where return on investment
can be assured, rather than on the least developed countries
like Bangladesh, most of Africa, etc.

Ringing declarations of good intentions are a staple of all
G-7 meetings since the 1970s.  Doesn't necessarily herald some
big new collective agreement to really do anything in particular.
At best, one could say that having such language keeps certain
normative presumptions on the table that can then be invoked in
future bargaining.

Bill


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William Drake
Department of Communication              Tel: 619 534 6327
University of California,                Fax: 619 534 7315
  San Diego                              E-mail: wdrake@ucsd.edu
La Jolla, CA  92093-0503
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