“And you thought that slavery was a thing of the past…”

From the luxury of our homes and through our prestigious legal education we have been taught that protection from slavery and forced labour is not only a right that we may claim from society as human beings; it is a FUNDAMENTAL human right, that NO ONE may infringe. Some creatures, however, claiming they are “humans”, seem to believe that they have the right to trade with human flesh, for a number of appalling reasons and mainly prostitution.

Whilst the good intentions of the Human Rights Act 1998 (Article 4), the European Convention on Human Rights (Article 4), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Article 8), the Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade and Institutions Similar to Slavery*, should, by no means be doubted, the harsh truth remains that humans are still being sold, exploited and treated like objects – or worse. Funnily enough, we tend to take excellent care of our expensive belongings, adore them and worship them, as if they add to our value as humans. However, some of us tend to forget to care for suffering individuals – but that is not the worse part of our nature. Human nature is capable of committing horrific acts that the most malevolent beast in the universe would be incapable to commit.

Otherwise, WHY would one kidnap or sell a 7-year-old girl for the purposes of prostitution? WHY would one sell his 17-year-old wife to a brothel for $200? WHY would an aunt sell her 13-year-old nice – twice – to a brothel for $150? WHY would one buy a 12-year-old’s virginity for $300 because she is so desperate to pay for her mom’s mental illness, caused by her husband’s violence? WHY would you fire gunshots and threaten a teenage girl that is refusing to satisfy 17 men at the same time? Most importantly, WHY should these creatures be allowed to sleep peacefully at nights, just because they have killed their conscience? WHY?

These “people” should feel the agonising pain when someone puts off a cigarette on someone else’s skin, just like they do on children, teenagers and women, when they try to escape the humiliation they never had the choice to avoid. They should learn what it is like to be slowly dying of AIDS at the age of 24, because you have been forced to be a prostitute for the past 11 years. They should feel the pain of a parent whose baby has been abducted and forced to watch pornographic films in order to learn what to do. They should experience the rejection of a family towards their daughter when, violated and a human wreck, she escapes from a brothel and seeks protection, but she finds it nowhere. And worse… They deserve worse, because they forgot to be humans; they forgot to see the pain in those children’s eyes.

Someone has just told me that I sound brutal and I am not any better than these “people”, since I want them to experience the pain that they have caused. Perhaps he is right. I am just not sure whether I believe in the rehabilitation of someone who humiliates and violates other humans, shuttering every dream and hope, on an every day basis, for… what else? Money! Should I believe in them becoming humans again? Something has to trigger my faith, but it has not happened yet…

What I am giving to you now, is only a dot in the vast picture of what is actually happening in the world. A slightly bigger dot is the following video:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7MJVQJnHcM> 

What made me realise how I forgot to be informed about this inhumanity was a documentary that I decided to watch by chance a few weeks ago on BBC iPlayer. It was unfortunately removed a few days ago, before I had the chance to urge you all to watch it. It was about sex trafficking in Cambodia, a case study of Stacey Dooley, who travelled there and investigated the situation in person. She talked to young prostitutes, how they ended up living like that and what kinds of humiliation they were forced to experience. She also attempted to close down some of the brothels, which seemed impossible, since the authorities were obviously incapable of dealing with the case or – as they appeared – unwilling, perhaps due to corruption. It made me wonder, is there some kind of exchange going on between the brothel owners and the policemen? Are the policemen using those services themselves? Is it their laziness that prevents them from acting? More likely than not, we will never know…

Don’t be fooled into thinking that this situation is only a problem in developing and least developed countries. Even worse corruption exists in the so-called developed world, the governments of which are presumed to be in better control of the happenings within their territories; Eastern Europe and Latin America are the predominant “suppliers” of sex workers into the “developed” westernised world, of Europe and America.

I wish I could apologise to you all, if you have been shocked by the images or the information that this post has given to you. But I can’t: my purpose was a wake-up call to all of us who think we know all about exploitation. Illegal trade of humans occurs every day in every single country of the world and all of us have to be shocked in order to understand its true dimensions. I will, however, apologise if you have been insulted by some of my inappropriate reference.

Take care x

*for more interesting legislation, start off by checking out <http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/slavery/modern/law.shtml>

Fairtrade: The Vision and its Catches

Mission accomplished! This is the nutshell of the essay that led to the creation of my blog. A summary of my polemic on Fairtrade, the result of my tedious research:

Is Fairtrade Fair?

The FLO is made up of 21 Fairtrade Organisations, including the UK Fairtrade Foundation. The main aims of the work of the FLO are set out in two main sets of standards:

(i)            Ensure that small co-operatives function in a democratic setting

(ii)          Protect the workers’ rights, e.g. fair payment, trade unions, good working conditions

The Fairtrade initiatives have been both praised and criticised. For example, Fairtrade helps individual producers to stay in the market at times of economic crisis. Theoretically, the producers should follow the Free Trade model: when prices fall, production should fall in order for demand, therefore prices, to rise. In practice, however, the producers produce more to cover for their lost income. Secondly, the demand and consumption in the developed world do not fluctuate proportionally with price changes.  Without Fairtrade to buy the produce at a non-fluctuating price, these minor producers would starve.

Fairtrade also helps the producers produce a higher profit, since the intermediaries involved when trading and their profit, are eliminated. Also, when buying a Fairtrade product, the consumer pays for a premium. This is the slightly higher price that the consumer pays on top of the market price of the product. Even though the producers do not receive the whole value of the premium, they will still make 10-40% more profit, which is significant for them in their poverty.

According to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) 1994, the long-term prosperity of the nations should be the target, by preventing the excessive dependence of a nation on exporting. Collins has contested that Fairtrade does not allow the minor producers to escape their property and try to create a new, improved life. Rather, it helps them to the extent that they barely survive in their poverty. Dhillon-Penner disagrees, suggesting that the global need for a product is not covered completely by the major producers. The minor producers are needed to cover the remaining needs.

Fairtrade critics also suggest that Fairtrade producers receive a higher payment for their goods compared to non-Fairtrade producers, which is unfair. This is true, only if market prices are low: buyers cannot afford to give high prices.  When market prices are high, however, other buyers will have to offer higher wages to compete with those offered by Fairtrade.

Fairtrade can also be said to be illegitimate, since the Fairtrade City Program constitutes a breach to GATT 1994. The five policies that UK cities have to adopt in order to be designated Fairtrade Cities violate WTO’s Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures (ASCM), since they provide free advertisement for Fairtrade goods.

Fairtrade is not flawless, since it breaches certain regulations. Nevertheless, the harm caused to trade is so negligible, that it cannot overshadow the number of people it helps!

This essay could, very easily, have been a very long piece of work. The debate is endless, so please feel free to comment on anything!

I will be posting a more relevant topic to Illegal Trade very very soon, so behold!

Take care x

My journey (continued)

"...I had done a respectable amount of research on the databases..." 


Obviously not enough. So I went back and started searching the databases I had never searched before. HeinOnline was my saviour this time. My search produced an endless amount of articles. And each article with lots of references to online books and articles which I was able to find, read and reference in my own work. Everything seemed relevant and, suddenly, 1000 words were not enough! Hence, I was able to produce a satisfactory piece of work, with viable arguments for both sides of the coin, which had seemed impossible at the beginning!

Therefore, dear all, I advice you to be stubborn and cynical where needed, because you NEED as many arguments as you can get. You have to have the luxury to discard the ones you don't like, so never give up on your research when writing a piece of work. Even if you have enough information continue researching, because the more you learn about the topic you are writing about, the more ideas you will get as to where to research.

Now, why "Illegal Trade"?

The assignment on Fairtrade made me realise how much I enjoy these socio-legal topics. They fit into everyday life and they are essential social knowledge. No harm will come upon you if you don't know anything about them, but a lot of good will come for you and others if you are socially aware.

Of course, there is the practical side as well: I linked it to trade because I wanted it to link to my Commercial Law LLM, even if not directly, at least somehow.

Trade is everywhere in our lives, it regulates everything we do: whether we eat what we like or not, whether we wear what we like or not, whether we live in a healthy social and natural environment or not, and every other aspect of our lives.

So here it is, my blog on Illegal Trade, in an attempt to learn more myself and share it with you all.

Beware of the first topic coming up, Fairtrade!

Take care x

Because it's the journey that matters, not the destination..!

So this is how my work for my first assignment on Legal Research started…

For days I was sitting in front of my little laptop, gazing at the Fairtrade official website and the "Trade and Human Rights" chapter of 'The Oxford Handbook of International Trade Law', trying to figure out why there was absolutely nothing on the - possible - unfairness of Fairtrade initiatives or on fair trading in general, for that matter. It was impossible!

Humanitarian organisations always seem honest; no catch involved, we just feel obliged to believe in them and their cause. However, after a certain period of time, could be months, years, or even decades, some kind of scandal will break out and the public are left speechless. They realise that they should have kept in mind that wherever there is bureaucracy, more often than not, there exists some kind of corruption. Undoubtedly, the founder(s) of that specific organisation meant to do pure good to the society, aid helpless individuals, had selfless intentions. And, as the number of people getting involved with this pure cause augments, the possibility of corruption within grows as well. Hence, for instance, the financial and mismanagement scandal that broke out a few years back with UNICEF. Remembering the shock of the world that such a well-known, long-standing, benevolent foundation could ever be associated with corruption, I wondered how it was possible that Fairtrade Labelling Organization International (FLO) had nothing negative associated with its name. Impossible!

After finding no cases or legal articles related to Fairtrade from all the databases of the kind of Westlaw and Lexis Library, the academic spectrum of which is massive, I felt utterly disheartened. What was I supposed to write on my assignment? That, after all my intensive research, all I could come up with was copying and pasting from <www.fairtrade.org.uk>, notably that Fairtrade is one of the very few foundations that practically benefit the world, that there is no exploitation, no corruption, no scandal? That it responds successfully to its aim to reduce world poverty and helps people lead a life of happiness and dignity? I felt dismayed at the thought.

This will sound very cynical, but my logic could not accept it! So I turned to the - much detested by the academics - search engines, such as my beloved Google. It has the answers to practically anything in the world. It has saved me at times of utter despair, it had to save me this time. But it let me down... All that it was coming up with was the Fairtrade Foundation and FLO websites. I searched the New York Times; I found very few articles on how benevolent the action of Fairtrade is, e.g. by saving Afghanis by giving them permission to sell their raisins as Fairtrade products. Was that all? 

I felt like I had completed my circle of research: I had been to the Library, I had done a respectable amount of research on the databases, I had read the relevant websites, I had searched the Internet and the online press in particular, and I had nothing negative...  Some of you might call me cynical, some of you will understand that I am just desperately stubborn, but I refused to believe I had next to nothing…

What happened next? We shall all find out on Wednesday's class! Look out for the continuation of this post, which will eventually explain why “Illegal Trade” and not something else.

Take care x