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