Fair trade
April 28 2003
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It was the sunny afternoon of 19 June 2002 and people had come to Westminster in London from all over England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Many of them were Catholic, particularly supporters of CAFOD, the British Caritas agency. Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor spoke to campaigners as they queued, and later at Westminster Cathedral where he celebrated the evening Mass, telling them that, our prayers, our commitment, our work through this kind of initiative is crucial to fulfilling the Lord's purpose. Two other Catholic bishops also took part in the event, plus some clergy and religious. More than 300 MPs were lobbied, including Prime Minister Tony Blair, and many of them were ferried to appointments with their constituents on rickshaws, which attracted significant television coverage.
So, what was it all about? The Trade Justice Movement in Britain is an umbrella organisation which includes aid agencies, environment and human rights campaigns, fair trade organisations, faith and consumer groups. It urges the government to support a new global approach to food and farming to protect poor farmers' livelihoods and the environment. It also calls for reconsideration of plans to liberalise vital services, such as water, and for support of new international laws to regulate the activities of transnational corporations which currently control nearly three-quarters of world trade. These three points were highlighted in detail by the campaigners at Westminster.
Food and farming
They focused first on food and farming. Over half the world's extremely poor people depend on farming or farm labour for their livelihoods. Yet, very often, cheap, subsidised imports destroy the livelihoods of farmers in developing countries, and there is little their governments are allowed to do about it, according to CAFOD and its third world partners. Rich countries support their wealthiest farmers and most environmentally destructive farming. Large international companies are also increasingly taking out patents on seeds and monopolising poor farmers' markets. The Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights Agreement (TRIPs) of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) allows international companies to secure patents on staple crops that have been used by farmers in developing countries for generations. This poses a threat to poor farmers who may be forced to buy their seeds from large companies and pay them royalties for doing so. Monopolies over seeds are reducing bio-diversity and enabling companies to introduce genetically modified crops.
Clean drinking water
Another area of concern highlighted was clean drinking water. Many countries in the southern hemisphere have already come under intense pressure from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) to privatise their water supplies. This has often raised prices above the level that poor families are able to afford, forcing them to collect water from untreated sources such as rivers. There have been riots over this issue in the city of Cochabamba in Bolivia and in other places. Rights to water are being traded away through an international agreement called the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). Foreign companies can take over water supplies once government regulations are removed. Added to this, government policies designed to regulate corporate power or to ensure universal access to basic services irrespective of people's ability to pay are overruled. By 31 March 2003, countries will have to state which of their services they will allow to be covered by GATS rules. These could include rubbish collection, education provision, local transport, health services, as well as water provision. The Trade Justice Movement is campaigning for trade rules such as GATS to put the interests of poor people and the environment ahead of new rights for already powerful companies.
World trade regulations
The third area of concern, according to campaigners, is that increased trade and investment internationally has meant that crucial decisions on local production, jobs and employment conditions are increasingly made in far-off places by transnational companies that have little allegiance to the communities most affected. A change of direction is required, according to campaigners, to regulate companies, not governments; to give priority to removing barriers to development, not barriers to trade; and to add enforceable responsibilities on companies, not enforceable rights. The Trade Justice Movement is campaigning for new global rules to regulate and re-direct the activities of international business towards pro-poor and sustainable development.
The June lobby in London was part of an international move towards fairer trade in which Catholics have been closely involved. Some international church networks, particularly those which focus on Justice and Peace, have been key in disseminating information. The Church's social teaching has been a key imperative for this justice work on the trade issue. Wealthier nations have an obligation towards Òthe rectification of trade relations between strong and weak nations, according to Pope Paul VI in Populorum Progressio. Those responsible for business enterprises are responsible to society for the economic and ecological effects of their operations, says the Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church. The current direction of trade policy and international economic governance violates many of the fundamental beliefs and commitments of Judeo-Christian social traditions in giving priority to the powerful over the poor and weak, and in justifying economic efficiency over the common good, says James Hug S.J., Director of the Center of Concern in Washington, in the latest issue of their newsletter. Pope John Paul II, in his World Peace Day message for 2001, called for a change of models of production and consumption and of the established structures of power, which today govern societies.
Church support
In practical terms, Church organisations internationally, have given support to fair trade initiatives. Catholic Relief Services in the U.S., for example, supports the local Catholic Church in Cameroon and Chad which is monitoring the construction of the Chad-Cameroon oil pipeline in an attempt to lessen the impact of the project on the local population and the environment and to ensure that promises regarding compensation and revenue management are kept. In the U.S., CRS has supported efforts to control the trade in conflict diamonds and promoted the idea that trade in oil between Africa and the U.S. should respect human rights and promote transparent and accountable management of this lucrative resource. Policy changes by international financial institutions, such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, Northern governments and multinational corporations are closely monitored, to try to bring about a situation where Africans generally can start benefitting from the enormous natural wealth of their continent.
At a more local level, in Olongapo in the Philippines, Fr. Shay Cullen has a project running to export dried fruits Ð pineapple, tamarind, guava and mango Ð from the country, based on fair-trading practices. The Preda Foundation, founded by the Irish Columban missionary, provides mango saplings to farmers, free of charge, and interest-free loans are granted that alleviate a family's hardship between planting and harvest time. Preda also promises to buy each entire crop and pay a premium price for it. Fair trade,says Fr. Cullen, is about trade, not aid. It is not about handouts Ð of course, donations are important for emergency relief, but fair trade alleviates rural poverty and gives the gift of dignity to its recipients.
Protection of poorer states
Concerns about the fairness of international trade have reached the highest levels. The World Trade Organisation must make further efforts to ensure the full participation of developing nations, said its Director-General Designate of the World Trade Organisation on 8 June. Speaking at a conference in London, Dr. Supachai Panitchpakdi, who took the helm of the global trade body three months later, said that many less developed members lacked the resources to establish missions in Geneva, severely curbing their ability to participate in WTO negotiations. We may need to set up representative offices elsewhere, in some key locations. I intend to discuss this with members, he said. One area I'm thinking of is Africa.Ó Dr. Supachai said he was aware that the failure of past trade discussions or rounds to sufficiently address issues essential to poorer countries, such as the liberalisation of agricultural and textile markets, risked alienating much of the developing world. The WTO must boost its credibility and become more accountable to the public, he said. He also agreed that corporate control of world trade should be more carefully regulated to protect the poorer nation states.
In the hours before the 19 June lobby, CAFOD's Director, Julian Filochowski, told a packed rally in the Methodist Central Hall that, we continue to give Prime Minister Tony Blair a people's mandate to demand change. He urged the UK government to take a lead in forming new trade rules which place as their highest priorities the fight against poverty and sustaining the environment. He shared a platform with Indian trade campaigner Vandana Shiva who summed up the impact that unfair trading has on the world by saying: The division used to be between the haves and have-nots, now it is between the lives and the live-nots.
Updated on October 06 2016