What is Fair Trade?

Andrew Walton

Third World Quarterly, 2010, vol. 31, issue 3, 431-447

Abstract: This article categorises the emerging conceptualisations of Fair Trade and explores which of them offers the best characterisation of the project. It introduces Fair Trade and establishes a set of desiderata to guide the process of conceptualisation. It is argued that the practices and rhetoric of the project suggest it is best characterised as an attempt to establish a form of interim global market justice in a non-ideal world. Three alternative conceptualisations are explored, some including sub-categories. In each section a description of the view is outlined and it is argued that each such alternative is either an unpersuasive account of Fair Trade or cannot better the one already defended. In the final section the normative debate surrounding Fair Trade conceptualised as an attempt to establish interim global market justice in a non-ideal world is introduced. The article suggests that there are avenues for the project's ethical defence but concludes that this can be settled only with further research.

Date: 2010
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DOI: 10.1080/01436597.2010.488474

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