The Oxfam fair trade report

trade > justice
Oxfam's recent report on trade focuses, among other things, on the injustice of EU & US farm subsidies and the disadvantage they put poorer nations in.
This has triggered the opening of some very interesting discussions among the "Global Justice" movement and beyond.
One such debate is with Dr. Vandana Shiva, founder of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology.
Another is with Colin Hines former head of Greenpeace's international economics unit and a proponent of localism. Watkins' response to Hines ( Watkins is a senior policy advisor of Oxfam). George Monbiot chimes in his disagreement with localism - the proposal that everything which can be produced locally should be produced locally. This is the second article in a series of three (the last one is still pending the first one can be found here).

Of note also, are Oxfam's exchanges with the European Commission and the discussion between Kevin Watkins and Jean-Pierre Lehmann.

The Guardian however, is running today an article titled: Why poor people would prefer to be protected from free trade. Things are seldom as simple as they seem...