the united states and the florence agreement

The United States and the Florence AgreementAuthor(s): Marion JamesSource: The Library Quarterly, Vol. 27, No. 2 (Apr., 1957), pp. 88-94Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4304617 .

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THE UNITED STATES AND THE FLORENCE AGREEMENT

MARION JAMES

INTRODUCTION

- _HE first international UNESCO agreement to become operative

I was the one dealing with the importation of educational, scientific, and cultural materials, which came into force on May 21, 1952, when the tenth country ratified the agreement. Inasmuch as removing barriers to the free flow of information is a stated goal of United States publishers, State Department representatives, librarians, and other agencies dealing with information materials, the absence of any movement for United States adherence to the agreement occa- sioned the curiosity which prompted this paper. Although the findings are not nu- merous, they are sufficient to account for the nonexistence of a pressure group ad- vocating United States adherence.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF

THE AGREEMENT

As soon as the circulation of educational materials began to play a major role in modern society, political and economic controls appeared. In the Western world the invention of printing machines and the subsequent growth of literacy caused European rulers during the fif- teenth and sixteenth centuries to impose stringent controls on the printing trades. By letters patent they granted monopo- lies of the printing or selling of books and limited the number of printers and printing presses. Milton's appeal in the A reo- pagitica was echoed by Voltaire and Rousseau in France and by Franklin in the American colonies,

During the eighteenth century the licensing system was replaced by or re- inforced with heavy taxes on publications. These taxes were to stifle political criticism and succeeded in severely cur- tailing the circulation of newspapers and pamphlets, especially the cheaper ones, whose readers were among the common people. The movement to abolish these restrictions received a setback in Euro- pean countries by the French Revolu- tion, but the concept of freedom of the press continued to grow. As chancellor of the British Exchequer, William Glad- stone heeded the arguments of such leaders as Cobbett, Dickens, and Cobden and took the initiative in lifting the British newspaper taxes in 1855. The Nether- lands, France, and Belgium followed suit. The immediate result of lifting this restriction was the great expansion of existing newspapers and periodicals and the founding of many new ones.

Materials of education, science, and culture became abundant at the same time as developments in communication and transportation made it possible for them to circulate more rapidly and ex- tensively. These materials became a fac- tor in international commerce and controls affecting other commodities in world trade. The shift in control became more economic and less political.

However, during the latter half of the nineteenth century information materials benefited from the movement in favor of free trade. Tariff was at that time the only trade restriction of any significance, and there was a general demand for

88



UNITED STATES AND THE FLORENCE AGREEMENT 89

tariff reform. Inspired by liberal prin- ciples, many nations entered into a number of commercial and cultural treaties. Free trade in educational and cultural materials was the subject of a series of bilateral agreements involving a number of European countries.

In spite of the return to tariffs at the end of the nineteenth century, printed materials and works of art enjoyed im- munity from tariffs. France set the pat- tern of exempting books from tariff regardless of origin. Italy, Russia, Spain, and the United States allowed books in a foreign language to enter freely but imposed a duty on imported books printed in the native language. Up until this time the United States had been classed as an importing nation; the appearance of the tariff indicates the shift to the exporting of printed materials. Mean- while, European countries had developed important export markets in North and South America and in Asia, Africa, and Oceania.'

During World War I tariffs were raised and other restrictions devised. By licensing imports and exports, governments exercised a growing degree of control over foreign trade. The aim was to restrict trade in nonessential war commodities, thus affecting many articles of educational value. The depression of the 1930's led to even more rigid and exten- sive controls.

There were some concerted attempts to alleviate the restrictions. For example, in 1933 the League of Nations adopted the Convention for Facilitating the In- ternational Circulation of Films of an Educational Character, exempting such films from import duties and accessory charges. A number of countries conclud-

ed reciprocal cultural agreements which included tariff and trade dispensations. But these agreements affected only a small fraction of the trade in educational materials and were soon lost sight of in the political preoccupations leading to World War II. Following this war, information materials suffered seriously, especially since international trade was confined to the exchange of essential goods, with many countries facing com- plex currency-exchange difficulties.

Meeting in London during the war, the Conference of Allied Ministers of Educa- tion urged that governments take measures to ease the international circulation of books and that the League of Nations convention in education films be revived and expanded. When UNESCO was es- tablished in 1946, it was the logical inter- governmental agency to work on the problem, to stimulate governments into action, and to provide a framework within which remedial measures might be effected.

In the first article of the UNESCO constitution the importance of this func- tion was recognized in the need to promote the "exchange of publications, ob- jects of artistic and scientific interest and other materials of information"; and it specifically stated that UNESCO would "recommend such international agreements as may be necessary to promote the free flow of ideas by word and image."

Three methods have been used by UNESCO in promoting an active cam- paign to reduce trade barriers affecting the free flow of ideas: the sponsorship of international agreements; co-operation with other international organizations, such as the Universal Postal Union, in formulating measures to ease the flow of information materials; and the publication of studies to focus public attention

I United Nations Educational, Scientific, anid Cultural Organization, Trade Barriers to Knoweledge (Paris, 1951), p. 12.



90 THE LIBRARY QUARTERLY

on the problems. In preparation for the agreement under discussion inl this paper a historical study of the growth of barriers to the free importation of information materials was made by UNESCO.

Among the most formidable obstacles to the international circulation of education materials is the complexity and variety of trade regulations in force in different countries and the inaccessibility of data concerning them. In its two editions of Trade Barriers to Knowledge UINESCO had as its goal the setting- forth of regulations affecting the movement of materials from one country to another. The 1955 revised and enlarged edition of this work, compiled with the assistance of the Intelligence Unit of the London Economist, reveals most of the regulations in operation in ninety-one countries and territories. This listing cor- roborates an earlier statement of David Weber, of Harvard, in his Master's thesis:

[The publication is] a most shocking recital in very general terms of four types of barriers which countries have erected increasingly in recent years: (1) customs duties and other charges (2) sales taxes (3) exchange control or licensing quotas (4) restrictions on exports

The main hindrance is frequently not the [amount of] duty but the bewildering maze of regulations which successfully intimidate most individuals, and all but a few enterprising dealers, from attempting by buy even urgently- needed books....2

Trade Barriers to Knowledge is de- signed as a manual not only to assist dealers who must operate under these restrictions but to help stimulate the cam- paign for the reduction of trade ob-

stacles. "These materials are desperately needed as aids in the cause of enlighten- ment, at a time when more than half the world's population is still illiterate, and vast areas underdeveloped or devastated by war, lack the means to dispel ig- norance."3

Unfortunately, the compilers of the editions of Trade Barriers to Knowledge were unaware that, in the area of exports, information material from the United States is subject to control by a licensing system, for these regulations do not appear in the compilation. Without license of the Department of Commerce no publication, whether or not containing technical data, and no unpublished material containing technical data, may be exported from this country. An elaborate network of regulations for the adminis- tration of this licensing system has grown up under the authority of the Export Control Act.4 Recently an attempt has been made to amend this act to remove unclassified informational materials from the category of technical data.

THE UNESCO AGREEMENT

At its third session, the Beirut Confer- ence in 1948, the UNESCO General Con- ference began work toward an international agreement on importation of educational, scientific, and cultural materials. Such an agreement was, in effect, a tariff and trade instrument. Consequent- ly, the first draft prepared by the UNESCO Secretariat was submitted to the meeting of the Contracting Parties to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) held at Annecy, France, in 1949. A working group considered the draft and concluded that UNESCO's objective could best be furthered through 2 David C. Weber, "Introduction to the Intrica-

cies, Facilities, and Complications in Recent Inter- national Book Trade in the United States" (unpublished Master's thesis, Harvard University, 1953), ). 27.

3United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, op. cit., p. 5.

4 50 (Appendix) U.S. Code 2021-32.




a broad international agreement to facilitate the exchange not only of books and publications but of a wide range of scientific, educational, and cultural materials. With the unanimous approval of the members present, this group submitted a plan for such an agreement to UNESCO.

By decision of its General Conference, UNESCO circulated the draft to governments and then called a meeting of tariff experts to prepare a revised text in the light of the comments from the vari- ous countries. This meeting agreed on a text which was unanimously adopted shortly afterward by the UNESCO Gen- eral Conference at Florence. The docu- ment has since been known as the "Florence Agreement." United States representatives worked on both the draft and the final agreements and voted for its adoption. The Agreement was opened for signature at the United Nations head- quarters and to date has been ratified by twenty-two countries. The United States has neither signed nor ratified it.

The Florence Agreement provides that all books, regardless of the language in which they are written, shall be free from duty; and the same provisions ap- ply to paintings, drawings, sculptures, penodicals, newspapers, and documents produced by duplicating processes other than printing; publishers' catalogs, official government publications, travel posters, and travel literature. It also provides for duties to be lifted, within certain limits, from a wide range of materials consigned to recognized institutions such as libraries, museums, research labora- tories, and schools. These include films, filmstrips, microfilms, slides, sound re- cordings, and scientific apparatus. A sep- arate article provides for duty-free entry of all publications for the blind.

To keep the Agreement as simple as possible, no special formalities are re-

quired for individuals importing any of these items. Institutions and organizations must obtain approval of the competent authorities in their country, but the Agreement leaves to the discretion of each contracting power the criteria to be adopted in granting approval to an insti- tution or organization.

The Agreement is confined to the re- moval of tariff and trade restrictions and does not prevent contracting states from prohibiting or limiting importation on grounds directly relating to national security, public order, or public morals. And it does not affect regulations with respect to copyright, trade marks, or patents.

It is of interest that at one stage in their discussions the experts tackled some thorny problems and argued over such questions as "What is art?" and "Should an object that is bad artistically enjoy duty-free entry as well as a good one?" They finally decided to lower all barriers, on the grounds that neither they nor anyone else was competent to judge what is good or bad in art. They came to the same decision on publications-that an attempt by a customs official, or anyone else, to discriminate between good and bad books would consti- tute a form of censorship. In this connection the fiery English publisher and former president of the International Pub- lishers Congress, Sir Stanley Unwin, re- marked, "Experience has shown that where there is obstruction it is the better type of book that suffers. The cheap and easily saleable book will always leap the barriers more readily than the slow-selling scholarly work.",

The imposition of duties is only one part of the problem; even more impor-

5 "Intercourse in Books; Hindrances to the Free Flow of Literature," Canadian Library Association Buflelin, VII (July, 1950), 26.




tant in certain countries are restrictions on the purchase of foreign currency for payment abroad. In an attempt to im- prove this condition, the Agreement provides for licenses to be given for the purchase of books consigned to public fi- braries and libraries of educational, research, and cultural institutions, for government publications as well as those of the United Nations and its specialized agencies.

To assure the participation of the United States in the Agreement, a sepa- rate protocol was added, commonly called the "escape clause," The important part of this reservation is here given in full:

a) If, as a result of the obligations incurred by a contracting State under this Agreement, any product covered by this Agreement is being imported into the territory of a contracting State in such relatively increased quantities and under such conditions as to cause or threaten serious injury to the domestic industry in that territory producing like or directly competitive products, the contracting State, under the conditions provided for ... shall be free, in respect of such product and to the extent and for such time as may be necessary to prevent or remedy such injury, to suspend, in whole or in part, any obligation under this Agreement with respect to such product.6

This escape clause is similar to that contained in the General Agreement for Tariff and Trades concluded at Geneva in 1947 and to which the United States has resorted on a number of occasions.

As is to be expected, the countries which have ratified the Florence Agree- ment, with several notable exceptions, are those which have no large publishing industries needing protection and which are desirous of receiving information materials. The signatories are: Belgium, Cambodia, Ceylon, Cuba, Egypt, Fin-

land, France, Greece, Haiti, Israel, Laos, Monaco, Pakistan, Philippines, Salva- dor, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thai- land, Viet-Nam, Yugoslavia, and the United Kingdom, which extended the Agreement to some forty overseas territories for whose foreign relations it is responsible.

THE UNITED STATES AND THE

FLORENCE AGREEMENT

An examination of United States import controls reveals that only a small number of items affected by the Agree- ment are dutiable. It is chiefly in the field of tariff that duties appear, and these are limited to books and pamphlets of foreign authorship, some tourist literature of foreign authorship, certain types of newsprint, picture frames, reproductions of hand-printed impressions and sculp- ture, and specific audo-visual materials. It is therefore obvious that income is not the purpose of the tariff but that it is a protection for certain United States industries. In the light of the escape clause and in view of the United States adherence to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade in other products, the question naturally arises, "WAhy has the United States not ratified the Florence Agree- ment?"

In 1950 after the Florence Conference the Department of State Bulletin carried what is a customary notice that "On No- vember 1 the Department of State an- nounced that consultation with interested organizations and individuals is being invited. . . as to the advisability of the United States becoming a signa- tory to an agreement on the importation of educational, scientific, and cultural materials."7 This notice was followed by

6 United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, Agreement on the Importation of Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Materials (Paris, 1952), p. 20-1.

7 "Consideration of UNESCO Agreement," U.S. Department of Stale Bulletin, XXIII (November 13, 1950), 775.




a description of the Agreement and how it had been developed as well as a brief statement of how this would affect Unit- ed States trade in those materials.

United States exports of materials, similar to those covered by the proposed agreement, last year (1950) were estimated to be between 30 and 35 million dollars.

Approximately 25 million dollars worth of materials such as are covered by the agreement were imported into the United States last year. Eightv per cent of these materials came in duty free; of the twenty per cent which were dutiable, books were the largest single group with imports mounting to slightly over 4 million dollars.8

What the reactions were that came to the State Department from this invita- tion to interested organizations and individuals was not revealed but can be in- ferred from a few scraps of information that slipped into the editorial columns of the New York Times in 1950 and 1953. The pages of Publishers' Weekly, the usual champion of proposals for the free flow of information, reveal nothing. The press in the United States maintained a noticeable silence.

That other countries entertained no doubt that the United States would sign the Agreement was evident from an editorial in the London Times of November 27, 1950. "There is every expectation that they [United States] . . . will shortly sign."9 Apparently the New York Times was of this same opinion, although in an editorial on November 26, 1950, the first clue to the problem appears.

. . .Fear of the economic effects of removing the miniscule tariff on books accounts for some of the opposition . . . in this country to signing the pact. And in the printing trade there also seems to be some fear that this may prove to be an opening wedge in liberalization of the present restrictive American copyright law, which imposes a quantitative limitation on the num-

ber of copies of most English-language books brought into the United States.

So far as the tariff goes, however, it should be borne in mind that the pact includes an "escape clause" which should afford ample protection to any industry that is really injured by its provisions.... Even if they are valid (a doubt- ful point), the economic arguments against such a step are in our view outweighed by the desir- able effect the treaty would have in opening a little wider the channels of intellectual communication between peoples.'0

But three years later a New York Times editorial again referred to the re- fusal of the United States to sign the Agreement:

The United States, far from ratifying the agreement, has never signed it and the Depart- ment of State has made no official recommenda- tion concerning it.

. . .The protests of some special interests in the United States have helped to block any American action on this treaty, which has relatively little value without our ratification. This is one field in which it ought to be easy to beat the protectionists. In the first place the United States is a book exporting country, and in the second place the tariff on books is low and has little economic significance anyway. In the publishing world the current effort to obtain Ameri- can adherence to the Universal Copyright Con- vention is considered by some to be a more ur- gent and more important matter."

Here, then, was the dilemma in which authors, publishers, librarians, scientists, scholars, and other interested groups were caught. They were in the precarious position of trying not to lose ground in their long-fought battle to gain United States adherence to the agreement for universal copyright. Unfortunately for the Florence Agreement, this fight to alleviate restrictions in the copyright law occurred in just the years that consideration should have been given to this pact. In previous attempts to remove the

8ibid. 9 "Free Trade in Books," Times (London), No-

vember 27, 1950, p. 7, col. C.

10 "Free Trade in Ideas," New York Times, No- vember 26, 1950, Sec. IV, p. 8, col. 2.

1 "Tariff on Books," New York Times, Novem- ber 11, 1953, p. 30, col. 2.




copyright manufacturing clause, the Book Manufacturers' Institute had voiced vigorous opposition. By means of reciprocal agreements, tariffs on books coming into this country had been re- duced, and now came a fear that any or all agreements stemming from the nego- tiations of GATT would force the elimi- nation of the manufacturing clause in the copyright law.

In the House Foreign Affairs Commit- tee hearings on bills to alter the protec- tionistic portions of the United States copynght law, the State Department representatives and the Librarian of Congress had taken the stand that, if it was necessary to have protection for the book-trade industry, it should come in the form of a tariff and not as a hidden clause in the copyright law.12 In addition, the movement for altering the United States copyright law had become en- tangled in general problems of free trade, and its leaders appeared before the House Foreign Affairs Committee in 1950 at the time the Havana Charter for an International Trade Organization to implement trade agreements on a broad- er basis than existing bilateral agreements was under consideration.

In the book industry the Book Manu- facturers' Institute was lead'ing the opposition to that portion of the Havana Charter that would affect their industries, decrying that the Charter was de- signed ultimately to bring about world- wide free trade.'3 In such an atmosphere

it would have been folly to bring forth the UNESCO Agreement on the Impor- tation of Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Materials for ratification by the United States Congress.

It was not until 1954 that the United States copyright law was altered to per- mit this country to be eligible to ratify the Universal Copyright Convention. Membership in the Convention came early in 1955. Since that date no organized movement to ratify the Florence Agreement has been attempted. In Sep- tember, 1955, the newly organized Na- tional Book Committee paid lip service to the need for United States adherence to the Florence Convention.14 It is doubt- ful that the State Department with its former allies, the publishers and the Li- brarian of Congress, could alone face the wrath of the manufacturers and the groups opposed to free trade in general. The Florence Agreement is in the position of being sacrificed for other gains; especially is this so, since the situation in Congress regarding trade agreements affecting other products is still a touch- and-go matter.

The one hope on the horizon for an organized group to push through the Florence Agreement is the National Book Committee, a society of influential citizens devoted to the use of books. This committee has as its goal the increase of the flow of American books abroad and works toward this end by counseling with interested groups and drawing attention to public policy which may be involved. As they begin to operate, the American press should be able to lift its apparently self-imposed policy of maintaining silence in connection with the Florence Agree- ment.

12 U.S. Congress, House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Membership and Participation by the United States in the International Trade Organization: Hear- ings on H.J. Res. 236 (81st Cong., 2d sess. tWashing- ton, D.C., 1950]), pp. 519-20.

13 "Reciprocal Trade Agreements, To Ratify or Not To Ratify," Publishers' Weekly, CLXI (August 23, 1952), 1676.

14 National Book Committee, American Books Abroad (New York: R. R. Bowker, 1955), p. 15.



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