Diversity of Cultural Expression Convention

My thanks to Rick for his recent posting on the UNESCO adoption of the text for the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Protection. We live in interesting times. I still need to study the voting record more carefully, but I would like to know which of the 37 Members of the General Conference were not present to vote. So far, this information has not been posted by UNESCO. It is possible these Members were out for a coffee during the vote. This happens when an important vote takes place in an international organization on a text for a proposed juridical instrument. It is always important to know who did not vote. There were 148 yes votes, there were two no votes (US and Israel), and there were four abstentions (this information is still not available). This means that thirty-seven members of the conference did not register their views. This is important to know. It is also important to recall that some countries have recently taken steps over the past several years to restrict various kinds of transmissions that their citizens can receive from the Internet and satellite communications, etc. It is also relevant to note that the number of States needed for ratification is rather low, 30. The normal practice when a controversial and important treaty is at stake is that it requires 60 ratifications, about one-third of the UN membership, before it goes into force. This number is half that. Should the instrument go into force with 30 Parties, what does that say about its universality as the jus gentium? There are a number of recent treaties which only required 30 ratifications, but they have still not gone into force because of the failure to reach the 30 ratifications. Lots of countries voted for the text, but they did not ratify the instrument. I would suggest that this treaty needs more careful study which would include who didn't vote; who will vote for ratification; and when will they vote for ratification. I think most folks are generally supportive of protecting the wide variety of world cultures, but there seems to be something still to be learned that was not reported in the Washington Post article to which Rick referred. As the news people are fond of saying, "more at eleven...."   RJA sj