The Fair Trade System
Handbook of Transnational Governance Innovation, edited by David Held and Thomas Hale, Polity Press, Cambridge (2011): pp.252-258
6 Pages Posted: 6 Dec 2016
Date Written: May 1, 2011
Abstract
The contemporary fair trade system has a distinctive, hybrid character as a production and trading network, a social governance arrangement, and a transnational social movement. From the perspective of global governance innovation, it can perhaps be best conceptualised as an ‘alternative’ normative and institutional system to both organise and govern production and trade. Its central purpose is to operate an alternative market through which commodities can be produced and traded on terms that promote sustainable social development among marginalized workers and producers, particularly those in the global South. The institutional core of the fair trade system is built around its trading activities, which create alternative supply chain systems linking producers to participating fair trade buyers in countries where the products are consumed. This core institutional structure has loose links with a broad collection of organizations and networks with wider ‘social movement’ characteristics. An increasingly formalised governance system has been built to facilitate and regulate these core activities. Although the core activities of the system are market oriented, the principles orienting the governance system are overtly political, based on principles of economic justice and democratic governance.
Keywords: international development, human rights, ngos, governance, global governance
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