The aim of this paper is to review the trade environment for cultural goods and services and to outline the potential barriers. It illustrates that the trade and regulatory environment has a particular relationship to cultural goods and services, one that is different to other goods and services and therefore argues that the creative economy is different to the rest of the economy. This argument holds true not only for world trade, but also for intra-EU trade, despite that it is a trade block with apparently no internal tariff barriers. The paper is not intended to be a legal commentary or critique of Trade Policy, nor an exhaustive description of every measure. Its main aim is enhancing our understanding of the institutional framework and its core assumptions, capacities and capabilities, and how they impact the production, distribution and consumption, and archiving of cultural goods and services both within and outside of the EU. Specifically, it seeks to understand how the trade rules based on nation states as sovereign bodies (and inter alia industrial policies based upon individual firms) interacts with and affects the operation of both trans-national and trans-EU cultural production constituted by chains and networks.