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Trade justice is a campaign by
non-governmental organisations A non-governmental organization (NGO) is an independent, typically nonprofit organization that operates outside government control, though it may get a significant percentage of its funding from government or corporate sources. NGOs often focus ...
, plus efforts by other actors, to change the rules and practices of world trade in order to promote fairness. These organizations include consumer groups, trade unions, faith groups, aid agencies and environmental groups. The organizations campaigning for trade justice posit this concept in opposition to
free trade Free trade is a trade policy that does not restrict imports or exports. In government, free trade is predominantly advocated by political parties that hold Economic liberalism, economically liberal positions, while economic nationalist politica ...
. Supporters of free trade, typically those in economics, business, lobbying, and the mainstream press, trust in the "
invisible hand The invisible hand is a metaphor inspired by the Scottish economist and moral philosopher Adam Smith that describes the incentives which free markets sometimes create for self-interested people to accidentally act in the public interest, even ...
" of the market to provide on its own for the needs of societies around the world. Fundamental to their beliefs is the value of individual
liberty Liberty is the state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one's way of life, behavior, or political views. The concept of liberty can vary depending on perspective and context. In the Constitutional ...
, believed to be the least infringed upon when the market is used to replace most of the centralized government's responsibilities of allocating resources. They tend to support
neoliberal Neoliberalism is a political and economic ideology that advocates for free-market capitalism, which became dominant in policy-making from the late 20th century onward. The term has multiple, competing definitions, and is most often used pej ...
policies of
privatization Privatization (rendered privatisation in British English) can mean several different things, most commonly referring to moving something from the public sector into the private sector. It is also sometimes used as a synonym for deregulation w ...
,
deregulation Deregulation is the process of removing or reducing state regulations, typically in the economic sphere. It is the repeal of governmental regulation of the economy. It became common in advanced industrial economies in the 1970s and 1980s, as a ...
, and
tax cut A tax cut typically represents a decrease in the amount of money taken from taxpayers to go towards government revenue. This decreases the revenue of the government and increases the disposable income of taxpayers. Tax rate cuts usually refer ...
s, and on the international trade level, policies that loosen restrictions on corporations’ ability to trade and make profits across borders. Rupert argues that because free trade advocates placed themselves on the side of "science," they would label activists as ignorant,
protectionist Protectionism, sometimes referred to as trade protectionism, is the economic policy of restricting imports from other countries through methods such as tariffs on imported goods, import quotas, and a variety of other government regulations. ...
, and selfish. Activists would be designated as "
anti-globalization The anti-globalization movement, or counter-globalization movement, is a social movement critical of economic globalization. The movement is also commonly referred to as the global justice movement, alter-globalization movement, anti-globalist ...
," a term first coined by New York Times columnist
Thomas Friedman Thomas Loren Friedman ( ; born July 20, 1953) is an American political commentator and author. He is a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner who is a weekly columnist for ''The New York Times''. He has written extensively on foreign affairs, global ...
. Trade justice advocates are not anti-globalization, but are instead against corporate-centered trade liberalization which ignores labor, environmental, and human rights. They argue that truly free trade does not and will never exist, and that governmental policies on trade should be in the public interest, rather than the interest of wealthy entities who they argue try to influence trade negotiation to benefit their individual interests. Rupert argues that they are cautious of the spread of neoliberal policies to the point where the power of private corporations will be enhanced to the point of "business totalitarianism". Advocates of trade justice argue that growing inequity and serious gaps in
social justice Social justice is justice in relation to the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society where individuals' rights are recognized and protected. In Western and Asian cultures, the concept of social justice has of ...
, and the global export of
terrorism Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of violence against non-combatants to achieve political or ideological aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violence during peacetime or in the context of war aga ...
, are symptoms of an economic system that permits harms to be exported to other countries, while importing their goods. They point to
extinction Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its Endling, last member. A taxon may become Functional extinction, functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to Reproduction, reproduce and ...
,
deforestation Deforestation or forest clearance is the removal and destruction of a forest or stand of trees from land that is then converted to non-forest use. Deforestation can involve conversion of forest land to farms, ranches, or urban use. Ab ...
,
social unrest Civil disorder, also known as civil disturbance, civil unrest, civil strife, or turmoil, are situations when law enforcement and security forces struggle to Public order policing, maintain public order or tranquility. Causes Any number of thin ...
, as consequences of
globalization Globalization is the process of increasing interdependence and integration among the economies, markets, societies, and cultures of different countries worldwide. This is made possible by the reduction of barriers to international trade, th ...
, and in particular of an "unfair" globalization. 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 Free trade is a trade policy that does not restrict imports or exports. In government, free trade is predominantly advocated by political parties that hold Economic liberalism, economically liberal positions, while economic nationalist politica ...
; imposition of penalties for " dumping" was sometimes motivated by domestic political reasons such as the United States imposition of steel tariffs in 2001. Today, the trade justice movement concentrates more on the abolition of
agricultural subsidies An agricultural subsidy (also called an agricultural incentive) is a government incentive paid to agribusinesses, agricultural organizations and farms to supplement their income, manage the supply of agricultural products, and influence the ...
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 Hypocrisy is the practice of feigning to be what one is not or to believe what one does not. The word "hypocrisy" entered the English language ''c.'' 1200 with the meaning "the sin of pretending to virtue or goodness". Today, "hypocrisy" ofte ...
by
developed countries A developed country, or advanced country, is a sovereign state that has a high quality of life, developed economy, and advanced technological infrastructure relative to other less industrialized nations. Most commonly, the criteria for eval ...
in using
protectionism Protectionism, sometimes referred to as trade protectionism, is the economic policy of restricting imports from other countries through methods such as tariffs on imported goods, import quotas, and a variety of other government regulations ...
against the poorest countries, especially in agricultural products, while requiring them to leave their own producers without protection.


Trade justice movement

The Trade Justice Movement in the UK was the first formal coalition of groups to use the term "trade justice" (partly because in the UK, " fair trade" usually refers to
Fairtrade certification A fair trade certification is a product certification within the market-based social movement, movement of fair trade. The most widely used fair trade certification is FLO International's, the International Fairtrade Certification Mark, used in ...
and is a consumer model of change rather than an overtly political movement calling for government action). The term trade justice has been widely adopted internationally by campaign groups, for example by the over 100 national platforms of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty where it is one of the four main demands. In many countries " fair trade" is used as well as or instead of "trade justice". The global institutions that are most often targeted in trade justice campaigns against the alleged injustices of the current international trade system are the
World Trade Organization The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an intergovernmental organization headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland that regulates and facilitates international trade. Governments use the organization to establish, revise, and enforce the rules that g ...
(WTO), the
International Monetary Fund The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a major financial agency of the United Nations, and an international financial institution funded by 191 member countries, with headquarters in Washington, D.C. It is regarded as the global lender of las ...
(IMF) and the
World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and Grant (money), grants to the governments of Least developed countries, low- and Developing country, middle-income countries for the purposes of economic development ...
(WB). Campaigners also lobby their own governments with the intention of creating pressure on them to prioritise poverty reduction when making international trade rules. In trading blocs such as the
European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...
(EU), the campaigns seek to influence policy across a number of member state governments. "Trade Justice" and "Fair Trade" were originally used by those supporting
social justice Social justice is justice in relation to the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society where individuals' rights are recognized and protected. In Western and Asian cultures, the concept of social justice has of ...
and the alleviation of the intense
poverty Poverty is a state or condition in which an individual lacks the financial resources and essentials for a basic standard of living. Poverty can have diverse Biophysical environmen ...
found in many developing nations. They contrasted "fair trade" with 'unfair'
international trade International trade is the exchange of capital, goods, and services across international borders or territories because there is a need or want of goods or services. (See: World economy.) In most countries, such trade represents a significan ...
practices. It is associated particularly with labour unions and
environmentalists Environmentalism is a broad philosophy, ideology, and social movement about supporting life, habitats, and surroundings. While environmentalism focuses more on the environmental and nature-related aspects of green ideology and politics, ecologi ...
, 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 the major institutions such as the
World Trade Organization The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an intergovernmental organization headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland that regulates and facilitates international trade. Governments use the organization to establish, revise, and enforce the rules that g ...
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
consumer A consumer is a person or a group who intends to order, or use purchased goods, products, or services primarily for personal, social, family, household and similar needs, who is not directly related to entrepreneurial or business activities. ...
s to identify goods especially commodities such as
coffee Coffee is a beverage brewed from roasted, ground coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content, but decaffeinated coffee is also commercially a ...
, that meet certain agreed standards of fairness.


Framing

Ayres argues that generating a clear consensus between different groups in the trade justice movement is straightforward for "diagnostic framing"– identifying the problem and its many identifiable negative effects. They can agree that free trade policies have contributed to the rising debt of developing countries, the widening
wealth gap The distribution of wealth is a comparison of the wealth of various members or groups in a society. It shows one aspect of economic inequality or heterogeneity in economics, economic heterogeneity. The distribution of wealth differs from the i ...
s, economic instability,
environmental degradation Environment most often refers to: __NOTOC__ * Natural environment, referring respectively to all living and non-living things occurring naturally and the physical and biological factors along with their chemical interactions that affect an organism ...
, human rights abuses, and poverty. Organizations have difficulty consolidating a "prognostic framing"– how advocates should go about actually solving the problems they have identified. Some hope to reform the WTO and include rights considerations in trade agreements, while others hope for more extreme measures. When it comes to strategies, some lean more towards collaborating with existing powers through NGOs, while others hope to make change through grassroots organization and protesting.


Issues

Academics such as Thomas Alured Faunce argue that the insertion of a constructive ambiguity such as valuing
innovation Innovation is the practical implementation of ideas that result in the introduction of new goods or service (economics), services or improvement in offering goods or services. ISO TC 279 in the standard ISO 56000:2020 defines innovation as "a n ...
in bilateral trade agreements (and then according
normative Normativity is the phenomenon in human societies of designating some actions or outcomes as good, desirable, or permissible, and others as bad, undesirable, or impermissible. A Norm (philosophy), norm in this sense means a standard for evaluatin ...
and ongoing
lobbying Lobbying is a form of advocacy, which lawfully attempts to directly influence legislators or government officials, such as regulatory agency, regulatory agencies or judiciary. Lobbying involves direct, face-to-face contact and is carried out by va ...
power to such textual negotiating truces by formally linking them with non-violation nullification of benefits provisions) may undermine democratic
sovereignty Sovereignty can generally be defined as supreme authority. Sovereignty entails hierarchy within a state as well as external autonomy for states. In any state, sovereignty is assigned to the person, body or institution that has the ultimate au ...
with regard to construction of domestic policy, particularly in areas such as the environment and public health. This view is strenuously contested by trade law officials and many domestic policy makers. "The mostly widely referred to demand of trade justice campaigners is access to the markets of developed countries or rich countries. When developing countries export to developed country markets, they often face tariff barriers that can be as much as four times higher than those encountered by developed countries. Poverty claims that those barriers cost poor countries $100 billion a year – twice as much as they receive in aid." The term "trade justice" emphasizes that even if the playing field were level, instead of tilted against developing countries, the poorest developing countries in particular would still struggle to gain from trade if forced to trade under
free trade Free trade is a trade policy that does not restrict imports or exports. In government, free trade is predominantly advocated by political parties that hold Economic liberalism, economically liberal positions, while economic nationalist politica ...
terms. This is because of their overwhelming lack of competitiveness – poor countries do not have huge stocks of exports waiting to be shipped to rich countries, instead most small farmers want to be able to sell their goods locally.


Subsidies

Most trade justice campaigners focus in some way on the agricultural subsidies of rich countries that make it difficult for farmers in poor countries to compete. For example, they argue that the European Union's agricultural export subsidies encourage
overproduction In economics, overproduction, oversupply, excess of supply, or glut refers to excess of supply over demand of products being offered to the market. This leads to lower prices and/or unsold goods along with the possibility of unemployment. T ...
of goods such as
tomato The tomato (, ), ''Solanum lycopersicum'', is a plant whose fruit is an edible Berry (botany), berry that is eaten as a vegetable. The tomato is a member of the nightshade family that includes tobacco, potato, and chili peppers. It originate ...
es or
sugar Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose Glucose is a sugar with the Chemical formula#Molecular formula, molecul ...
, which are then sold cheaply or 'dumped' in poor countries. Local farmers cannot sell their goods as cheaply and go out of business. The campaign points to the treatment of agriculture at the WTO, which has institutionalized these injustices. In the few instances where developing countries have used the complex and expensive WTO process to declare subsidies (e.g. US cotton subsidies) excessive, developed countries ignore these rulings, which the WTO itself does not enforce. Recently rich countries have begun to talk about cutting export subsidies, but they often demand greater access to poor country markets in return.


The Impact of Trade on the Environment

According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), there is both a positive and negative impact of trade on the environment. On the one hand, economic growth from trade can negatively affect the environment in two ways. First, economic growth increases pollution due to natural resource extraction. As the world looks to transition towards a more environmentally friendly economy, global demand for lithium-ion batteries – a key component in
electric vehicle An electric vehicle (EV) is a motor vehicle whose propulsion is powered fully or mostly by electricity. EVs encompass a wide range of transportation modes, including road vehicle, road and rail vehicles, electric boats and Submersible, submer ...
s – is expected to reach 2.2 million tonnes by 2030. The extractivism required to mine lithium leads to air, water, and soil pollution due to the toxic chemicals used during the mining process, and the depletion of local water reserves. Second, trade liberalization can lead to specialization in pollution-intensive sectors if environmental regulations are different across countries ( pollution haven hypothesis). Conversely, economic growth stemming from trade increases the capacity of a country to manage the environment more efficiently and stricter environmental regulations in certain countries have a spillover effect that will force suppliers to adapt to environmentally conscious markets. These environmental policies create markets for environmental goods to be exported to countries that follow the same standards.


Challenges for Environmental Protection in Trade

Environmental justice Environmental justice is a social movement that addresses injustice that occurs when poor or marginalized communities are harmed by hazardous waste, resource extraction, and other land uses from which they do not benefit. The movement has gene ...
efforts are a significant component of the trade justice movement. The principle of free trade based on economic opportunity for all ignores the environmental degradation that comes as a result. Moreover, power imbalances within the WTO, the
United Nations The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...
and other international governing bodies have allowed developed countries to control environmental trade regulations. This has led to disagreements regarding whether environmentalism protects the global South and its resources or is an imperialist tool to stunt the economic and industrial growth of developing nations. In particular, the former argument states that "robust environmental regulation" is needed to protect the "natural resource base upon which the South relies for survival." However, others claim that international governing bodies cannot set environmental policy based on equality rather than equity; these policies cannot overlook the fact that the global North's consumption habits are the primary cause of environmental degradation. Environmental burdens must be distributed proportionately for environmentalism to not be used as a neo-imperial tool. This perspective has been enhanced by controversies of the Summers memo and many instances of improper waste disposal in the Global South based on weak political infrastructures that allow large organizations to avoid strict regulation.
"While Southern elites can insulate themselves to some extent from the consequences of the waste trade by moving into more pristine communities with better access to clean air and water and uncontaminated land, it is the poor who must suffer the consequences of environmental degradation. Far from being a luxury, environmental protection is necessary to preserve the health, safety and well-being of the Southern poor."
Despite a push by the OECD to increase demand for environmental products and technology, thereby complementing trade with environmental policy, examples as recent as fall 2021 show nations disregarding these considerations. A leaked document from the UK's Department for International Trade says that trade negotiators should prioritize economic growth over the environment in trade deals. This document comes after it was found that the UK dropped climate related promises to finalize a trade deal with Australia. Ultimately, the debate continues as environmentalists prioritize environmental protection over economic growth and governing bodies and organizations stall to implement binding policy. Many researchers and environmental groups demand increased transparency and participation from non-governmental stakeholders in policy adjudication.


The Future of Environmental Trade

The challenge for the Trade Justice movement, particularly from an environmental perspective, is embedding principles of environmental stewardship that inspires a new generation of trade agreements. Previous free trade deals have favoured investor rights that disregard environmental concerns. Professors from Saint Mary's University in Halifax argue that future treaties must have rules with enforceable commitments and dispute settling bodies, such as those found at the WTO, and not the voluntary actions undertaken in treaties like The Paris Agreement. The authors assert that multilateral forums found in the UN are perceived as places where progressive agendas go to die as they are hindered by opposition or disinterest from powerful states who prioritize their national interests over the common good. A solution is to strengthen the language surrounding environmental regulations in treaties to match those found in the investment rights sections of trade deals.


See also

*
Corporate development Corporate development refers to the planning and execution of strategies to meet organizational objectives, primarily through mergers and acquisitions or divestitures. The kinds of activities falling under corporate development may include strateg ...
*
Dumping (pricing policy) Dumping, in economics, is a form of predatory pricing, especially in the context of international trade. It occurs when manufacturers export a product to another country at a price below the normal price with an injuring effect. The objective of ...
*
Economic development In economics, economic development (or economic and social development) is the process by which the economic well-being and quality of life of a nation, region, local community, or an individual are improved according to targeted goals and object ...
* Fair trade *
International development International development or global development is a broad concept denoting the idea that societies and countries have differing levels of economic development, economic or human development (economics), human development on an international sca ...
* Social development *
Sociocultural evolution Sociocultural evolution, sociocultural evolutionism or social evolution are theories of sociobiology and cultural evolution that describe how Society, societies and culture change over time. Whereas sociocultural development traces processes t ...
* Trade and development


References


External links

{{Portal bar, Business and economics International development Economic ideologies Environmental justice Fair trade Social justice World economy