Trade: It’s Time To Rewrite The Rules! -Bulletin#2

International trade affects millions of the world’s poorest people every day. It influences the work they can find, the money they can earn, the food they can grow, whether there are schools for their children and hospitals for the sick.

The Hebrew Scriptures see widespread poverty and suffering as indicators of injustice within the whole human community which becomes institutionalized by those who write oppressive statutes to turn aside the needy from justice (Isaiah 10.1-2)

Why Should People of Faith Speak Out on Trade?

International trade rules could be the answer to making trade work for the poor rather than against them but at the moment they often do the opposite. Trade rules destroy livelihoods and create misery for hundreds of poor and vulnerable people all over the world.

Philipines

Since 1994 Onsina Mato and the Subanon indigenous peoples of southern Philippines have been struggling to defend their land from encroachment and destruction by a Canadian mining company. They accuse the company of human rights violations and having a complete disregard for local wishes, but with the imbalance of power there is amost nothing they can do to stop it.

The Subanon people need new trade rules to regulate international companies. The rules should recognize the benefits that companies can bring, but should prevent exploitation and require them to listen to local communities.

Uganda

James Musiele is a coffee farmer in Uganda. Like many coffee growers around the world he is facing a crisis. Over the last three years the world price of coffee has halved. In the past there were agreements to keep the price of coffee stable, but the last such agreement ended in 1989 and as a result the price has fluctuated wildly.

James needs new trade rules to keep the price of coffee stable so he, and other poor farmers like him, are not thrown from one crisis to another.

India

Many poor communities in India rely on local plants and traditional recipes to make their medicines. Mira Shiva says that this is a vital source of health care for people who don’t want, or can’t afford Western medicines. But new international trade rules will increasingly put these practices under threat. Large international companies can now buy worldwide patents that could make the local manufacture and sale of medicines from these plants illegal.

Mira wants new trade rules that protect poort communities’ rights over traditional knowledge and practices.

Haiti

Phillippe Michel works in a rice mill in Haiti. The rice mill was built so that poor rice farmers could process their rice and sell it on local markets. However, because other countries can afford to subsidize their rice, imports from these countries sell more cheaply than Haitian rice, which is making it harder and harder for Phillippe to find a market. With little alternative work the farmers and their families face a desperate situation.

Phillippe needs new trade rules that allow poor countries to protect their poor producers from international traders with whom they cannot hope to compete—especially when these traders are supported by subsidies from their own richer governments.

Ghana

Current trade rules encourage countries to produce export crops, often at the expense of local food production. As a result Lydia Assosou, a poor Ghanaian farmer, lost her land when a local fruit company increased the size of its farm to grow fruit for export to Europe.

Lydia needs new trade rules that balance the benefits of exporting with the need to produce food for local people.

Adopted from materials by Christian Aid (www.christianaid.org.uk)