The Florence Agreement on the importation of educational, scientific, and cultural materials

FEB 01, 1960

Should bona fide educational institutions pay duties when they import scientific apparatus that is not manufactured by domestic industry? They do not in countries adhering to the Florence Agreement, an international convention that provides for the duty‐free entry of scientific apparatus, books, art objects, and similar educational and cultural materials. Ratification and implementation of the Florence Agreement by the United States has been recommended by the President and is now under consideration by the United States Senate.

DOI: 10.1063/1.3056816

Robert W. Frase

Sanborn C. Brown

After several years of delay, the United States seems about to join thirty‐one other countries which have ratified the Agreement on the Importation of Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Materials, the so‐called “Florence Agreement”. This agreement is one of several international conventions drawn up under the auspices of UNESCO and designed primarily to facilitate the freest possible international movement of persons, ideas, and materials in the fields of education, culture, and science. Some of the other conventions in this series are the Universal Copyright Convention (1952), the convention on audio‐visual materials (1948), and the convention on the protection of cultural property in wartime (1954).

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More about the authors

Robert W. Frase, American Book Publishers Council.

Sanborn C. Brown, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.