Fair trade

The fair trade movement, also known as the trade justice movement, promotes international labour, environment and social standards for the production of traded goods and services. The movement focuses in particular on exports from the Third and Second Worlds to the First World. Standards may be voluntarily adhered to by importing firms, or enforced by governments through a combination of employment and commercial law. Proposed and practiced fair trade policies vary widely, ranging from the commonly adhered to prohibition of goods made using slave labour to minimum price support schemes such as those for coffee in the 1980s. Non-governmental organizations also play a role in promoting fair trade standards by serving as independent monitors of compliance with fairtrade labelling requirements.

Overview

"Fair trade" was originally used by those supporting social justice and the alleviation of the intense poverty found in many developing nations. They contrasted "fair trade" with 'unfair' international trade practices. It is associated particularly with labour unions and environmentalists, in their criticism of disparities between the protections for capital versus those for labour and the environment. The use of the term has expanded beyond campaigns to reform current trading practices (and major institutions such as the World Trade Organization which embody them). Now it has become a movement to allow consumers to choose not to participate in these practices. Fairtrade labelling (or Fairtrade certification) allows consumers to identify goods (especially commodities such as coffee) that meet certain agreed standards of fairness.

Related Topics:
Social justice - International trade - Labour unions - Environmentalists - Capital - World Trade Organization - Fairtrade labelling - Consumer - Coffee

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Advocates of fair trade argue that growing inequity and serious gaps in social justice, and the global export of terrorism, are symptoms of an economic system that permits harms to be exported to other countries, while importing their goods. They point to extinction, deforestation, social unrest, as consequences of globalisation, and in particular of an unfair globalisation. The international trade system, critics say, not only pits David against Goliath - as free trade inevitably will - but blindfolds David.

Related Topics:
Social justice - Terrorism - Extinction - Deforestation - Social unrest - Globalisation - Free trade

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In the past, the responses sought by critics of the international trade system included various penalties on "unfair" goods. This argument generally made little headway against the long-term movement towards free trade; imposition of penalties for "dumping" was sometimes motivated by domestic political reasons (such as U.S. imposition of steel tariffs in 2001).

Related Topics:
Free trade - Steel tariffs

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Today, the fair trade movement concentrates more on the abolition of agricultural subsidies and dumping, and to a much lesser extent on offsetting penalties on "unfair" goods. Indeed, although there are many who are still critical of free trade in general, there is a trend towards campaigning against what is seen as hypocrisy by developed countries in using protectionism against the poorest countries (especially in agricultural products), whilst requiring them to leave their own producers without protection.

Related Topics:
Agricultural subsidies - Developed countries

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In addition, the fair trade movement has built on long-standing attempts to allow consumers the choice of giving producers in poor countries a better deal, and has developed the fairtrade labelling system. This uses the market to help achieve the principles of social justice.

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