Trade Justice Movement (TJM)
Formed at the end of 2000, the TJM is campaigning for unfair international trade rules and institutions to be reformed to benefit poor people and the planet. The aims stated below were agreed by coalition members in 2003.
- World leaders must:
- stop forcing poor countries to open their markets, and champion their right to manage their own economies;
- regulate big business and their investments to ensure that people and the environment come before profits;
- stop rich countries promoting the interest of big business through trade interventions that harm the poor and the environment;
- ensure trade policy is made in a fair, transparent and democratic way.
ActionAid, Baby Milk Action, CAFOD, Campaign Against the Arms Trade, CARE International UK, Catholic Inst. for Int. Relations, Christian Aid, Fairtrade Foundation, Friends of the Earth, Greenbelt Festival, Harvest Help, Methodist Relief & Dev Fund, National Fed. Women's Institutes, National Justice and Peace Network, National Union of Students, Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign, One World Action, Oxfam, Peace Child International, People & Planet, Save the Children, SPEAK, Student Christian Movement, Tearfund, Tools for Self Reliance, Traidcraft, TUC, UNISON, Unitarian Office of Social Responsibility, United Reformed Church, VSO, War on Want, Women's Environmental Network, Women's Int. League for Peace and Freedom, the World Development Movement.
In 2005 the Trade Justice campaign was subsumed into MAKE POVERTY HISTORY and enjoyed wider public exposure, though limited actual progress at the G7, G8 or the World Trade Organisation. The campaign will continue.
This is one of the key preoccupations shared by many members of the Chester World Development Forum, and was adopted by the Forum as a direct campaigning issue in 2002, and carried forward into 2003 - 2006.
See the Response by Chester World Development Forum to TRADE JUSTICE: The British Government Briefing Paper of November 2nd 2005.
Trade Justice campaigns predate the formation of the TJM coalition, e.g. during the protests against globalisation in Seattle, 1999 (eloquently reported by a witness, in a Chester meeting). One early achievement was to scotch (but not kill) the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI).
In 2000, campaigning organisations decided to emulate the Debt Campaign and form a Trade Justice coalition; the two campaigns have continued in parallel ever since, closely connected, just as the World Trade Organisation(WTO), World Bank and the IMF are connected.
Chester supporters have taken part in several campaign actions, including the Mass Lobby of Parliament 19 June 2002, and many locally-centred events and actions: "days", exhibitions, and postcard and letter campaigns. One such was the postcard and letter campaign about the WTO meeting in Mexico, 2003, when the Trade Justice Movement said: The World Trade Organisation's remit should not be expanded to include new issues such as investment and government purchasing.
In 2004 and 2005 several events and actions followed, ranging from a "travelling show" to campaign nights at Alexander's Jazz Theatre.
- It meant that Magdalena, a Maya woman from Mexico, in 2002 got 12 pence a kilo for maize, instead of 20p; that Emmanuel Mubiru of Uganda got 6p a kilo for coffee instead of 11p.
- It meant that the dumping of subsidised US cotton ruined Mali villages. It destroyed the dairy industry in Jamaica.
- It means the over-production of cash crops, depressing global prices and reducing the cultivation of staple foods;
- It means that governments are forbidden to rescue their own farmers and industries during crises;
- It means that patent law and genetic engineering are used to dominate agriculture and enslave farmers;
- It means that the World Bank, IMF and the World Trade Organisation can force poor countries to "open their public services to competition" so that even their own water is controlled by foreigners.
