Trade justice

Trade justice is a campaign by non-governmental organisations lobbying for changes to the rules and practices of world trade. 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, the advocates of which often also claim pro-poor outcomes. Trade justice advocates 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 try to influence trade negotiation to benefit their individual interests. Advocates of trade justice 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. 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 the United States imposition of steel tariffs in 2001).