| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立政治大學 === 法學院碩士在職專班 === 99 === Culture is the embodiment of a national spirit, social values, people’s worldview and life style, while creativity in all its manifestations presents an essential constitution of human culture. By way of industrialization and global distribution, the two are allowed to copy repeatedly and promote worldwide. Cultural and creative industries are “those industries that combine the creation, production and commercialization of contents that are intangible and cultural in nature”, which involve not only abstract culture and creativities but also material economic value and commercial operations of cultural goods and services derived from human ingenuity and originality.
To make sure the policy and measures implemented in Taiwan to promote and flourish cultural and creative industries are legally based, the Ministry of Economic Affairs had invited the relevant ministries, scholars and experts in the field to deliberate and prepare the Cultural and Creative Industry Development Act (hereinafter referred to as "the Act") since mid-‘90s, and finally submitted the draft Act to the Executive Yuan for review and approval on September 24, 2003. After years of promotion and negotiations, the Act was passed its third reading in the Legislative Yuan on January 7, 2010 and promulgated on February 3 by Presidential Decree Hwa Zong Yi Zi No. 09900022451. The related rules and regulations were also proclaimed in effect one after another ever since.
However, as a WTO (World Trade Organization) member, it is our duty to keep the deliberately constructed measures set in the Act in line with the WTO-related disciplines. WTO, acting as an international forum calling for free trade, vows to eliminate tariff and non-tariff trade barriers, facilitate further market opening by multiple rounds of trade negotiations, and increase the predictability of market dynamics through the establishment of binding tariff rates, subsidy disciplines, specific commitments and various requirements such as most-favored-nation treatment, market access and national treatment. The same principles and obligations mentioned above apply to goods and services with culture in nature equally with no exception. In this regard, the paper will examine how the Cultural and Creative Industry Development Act, especially its subsidy and tax preference measures legally interact with the articles related including Article 15 Subsidy, Article 17 National Treatment, Article 6.1 Domestic Regulation and Article 23.3 Non-violation complaints (in view of the measures adopted in the Act are industry-supportive oriented and most industries categorized in the same act are belonging to service sector) in General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) for reference of law enforcement and further amendments in the future.
But it is worth noting that, while WTO (the organization and covered agreements) are dedicated to exterminate trade barriers, promote trade liberalization and ignore cultural goods and services have both an economic and a cultural nature, the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Cultural Expressions (hereinafter referred to “the UNESCO Convention”) adopted by the General Conference of the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESC) on October 20, 2005 recognizes member countries have their sovereign right to formulate and implement their cultural policies and to adopt measures to protect and promote the diversity of cultural expressions when necessary. If the rules and principles of the UNESCO Convention apply to the Cultural and Creative Industry Development Act, then is it possible for the Convention to justify the measures we adopt to nourish the cultural industries, but somehow in violation of WTO principles and obligations? And if the answer is “Yes”, all the interpretation and obligations derived from the Act will not be the same as those covered by GATS only. Therefore, the potential conflicts and the harmonization between the UNESCO Convention and WTO covered agreements (GATS in particular) will be explored before the legal relationship between the Act and GATS is examined.
Keywords: Cultural and Creative Industry Development Act, World Trade Organization, UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Cultural Expressions, National Treatment, Domestic Regulation, Non-violation complaints
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