Trade Justice Movement

Trade Justice Mass Action 2007

Trade Justice Mass Action. Thursday 19th April 2007 saw a mass action by the Trade Justice Movement in London which was a part of a wider global day of action by campaigners across Europe as well as in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific – the ‘APC’ countries.

The protest was particularly about the agreements between the APC countries and the EU, and the unfair trade deals (economic partnership agreements or EPAs) that the EU was negotiating. The African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States organisation was founded in 1975 and the 71 countries then involved came to an trade agreement with the European Economic Community (EEC) in Lomé, Togo, the Lomé Convention.

This “provided for most ACP agricultural and mineral exports to enter the EEC free of duty. Preferential access based on a quota system was agreed for products, such as sugar and beef, in competition with EEC agriculture” from the 71 countries in the ACP and it also provided funds for aid and investment.

The Lomé Convention was twice updated but in 1995 the United States complained to the World Trade Organisation that it was unfair to them and the WTO Dispute Settlement Body ruled in their favour. Many argue that the WTO prioritizes the interests of wealthy nations and multinational companies and undermines national sovereignty, and hinders efforts to address global issues like poverty and climate change.

Negotiations between the European Union and the 78 ACP countries held in Coutonou, Benin in 2000 led to a new agreement, the Cotonou Agreement, signed by all except Cuba, which came into force in 2003 – and was later revised in 2005 and 2010.

According to Wikipedia, “The Cotonou Agreement is aimed at the reduction and eventual eradication of poverty while contributing to sustainable development and to the gradual integration of ACP countries into the world economy. The revised Cotonou Agreement is also concerned with the fight against impunity and promotion of criminal justice through the International Criminal Court.”

The ACP, now renamed the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States, came to a new agreement, the Samoa Agreement, to replace this which entered into force provisionally in January 2024 but has proved more controversial, particularly because of its support for gender equality.

The Mass Action in 2007 was organised by the Trade Justice Movement, which included 78 UK-based organisations including aid organisations such as Action Aid, Cafod, Christian Aid, Oxfam, Tearfund, War On Want and the World Development Movement, trade unions, churches, fair trade groups and more.

It began with a rally in Belgrave Square, a square containing many empbassies. The rally was outside the German (and Austrian) embassies, with speakers from a number of the groups including Frances O’Grady from the Trade Union Congress, Tony Juniper of Friends of the Earth and speakers from some APC countries.

*Setting off for the Department of Trade and Industry*

At the end of the rally groups left to deliver a letter and a large key to every EU country’s embassy with a letter and a key, demanding that the EU stops negotiating unfair trade deals (economic partnership agreements or EPAs) with developing countries. One group went to the Department of Trade and Industry to deliver to the UK. I could not go with all the groups going to all 27 locations to deliver these, but did manage to take photographs of the groups outside the Finnish, Spanish and Austrian embassies.

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Trade Justice Not Free Trade Overnight Vigil – 2005

Trade Justice Not Free Trade Overnight Vigil – 2005: Twenty years ago on the night of 15th April 2005 and the following morning I was one of around 25,000 people protesting in Westminster for Trade Justice rather than Free Trade. The week of action was a part of the Make Poverty History campaign and it was a long cold night for me.

Trump has put world trade very much into the headlines in recent weeks with his assault on free trade, raising tariffs to silly levels and creating chaos in international trading systems that were largely set up to favour the United States and to a lesser extent the industrial west through organisations including the World Trade Organization (WTO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB) at the cost of the poorer countries of the world.

The Trade Justice Movement calls for policies “designed to deliver a sustainable economic system that tackles poverty and protects the environment.” It calls on the UK Government to:

“Ensure trade rules allow governments, particularly in poor countries, to choose the best solutions to end poverty and protect the environment;
Prevent trade rules that allow big businesses to profit at the expense of people and the environment;
Ensure decisions about trade rules are made transparently and democratically.”

Free Trade which simply relies on market forces ignores human rights, environmental considerations and democratic decision-making and leads to exploitation, environmental degradation and inequality – we need a more just system.

Here with some of the pictures (and the usual minor corrections) is what I wrote about the overnight vigil in which a surprisingly large number of people – probably around 25,000 took part, overwhelming the expectations of the organisers.

Wake Up to Trade Justice – Westminster

15-16 April, 2005

The UK climax of the global Week of Action on Trade Justice was an overnight vigil in Westminster on Friday-Saturday 15-16th April. Along with many thousands of others I travelled to the opening event at Westminster Abbey, only to find it was already full. Fortunately we were able to hear the relay sitting in the seats marked ‘Members of Parliament’ in St Margaret’s Church next to the abbey, but there were many more people in Parliament Square and around the area.

At 11pm we moved off into whitehall, where it soon became obvious there were far too many to fit behind the crush barriers and we took over the road, leaving just a single lane for northbound traffic. People lit their candles and made a fair bit of noise, before leaving either for home or to try to attend one of the various events that had been organised through the night. I went to the Vue cinema in Leicester Square to see a preview of ‘The Fever’ starring Vanessa Redgrave (she had talked earlier in Westminster Abbey.)

When that finished I’d hoped to do something else, but all the venues were full, with long queues, so I went for a walk by the Thames. The organisers had expected a couple of thousand people, hoped and planned for five thousand but altogether estimate that some twentyfive thousand turned up for all or part of the event.

From 4am to 4.30am we crushed into Whitehall again for a mass vigil opposite Downing St. Millions of people around the world suffer from unjust trade, and this was chosen as the time when the largest number of them are awake. I was rather less so, but still managed to blow my whistle and take a few pictures, though I messed things up rather more than usual.

I’d dressed up in warm clothes (the forecast had told me 4 degrees at 6 am), but even so, sitting on a bench in Parliament Square after this was a mistake. I fell asleep and was woken up shivering at around half-past five by a smell of burning. Someone sleeping on the ground nearby had set some of their clothing on fire with their candle. Fortunately it was quickly extinguished, with a bottle of Lucozade serving as a fire extinguisher.

Soon after the dawn procession began to assemble and I managed to drag myself up to photograph it.

People were remarkably wide-awake and cheerful as the ten thousand or so who had stayed the night over made a short walk through Westminster as the sun rose over the buildings. By half past seven it was all over, and I walked back to Waterloo Station taking a few more pictures in the morning light.

Many more pictures on My London Diary.

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All photographs on this page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
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Trade Justice At Brighton 2004

Trade Justice At Brighton: Twenty years ago on Sunday 26th September 2004 I spent the day in Brighton, not with my bucket and spade on the beach but with my Nikon D100 camera, and both a wide-angle and telephoto zoom lenses.

I was there with around 6000 other people at an event organised by the Trade Justice Movement going to lobby at the Labour Party conference – who at that time were in government with Tony Blair as prime minister.

According to its web site, “The Trade Justice Movement is a UK coalition of nearly sixty civil society organisations, with millions of individual members, calling for trade rules that work for people and planet.“

They want not free trade but fair trade “with the rules weighted to ensure sustainable outcomes for ordinary people and the environment. We believe that everyone has the right to feed their families, make a decent living and protect their environment. But the rich and powerful are pursuing trade policies that put profits before the needs of people and planet.”

And of course the rich and powerful are still in charge, still driving headlong towards global catastrophe while concentrating on amassing global power and vast fortunes, amounts far beyond what anyone can actually spend or benefit from. Certainly the world does not need – and cannot afford – billionaires.

We need a fairer system to share the world’s resources, and fair trade has a large part to play in this. Back in 2004 the Trade Justice Movement tried to get our government to change its policies but with little effect – and it is still trying to do so.

On the web site they list that they are calling on the UK government to:

Ensure that trade rules allow governments, particularly in poor countries, can choose the best solutions to end poverty and protect the environment;
Ensure that trade rules do not allow big business to profit at the expense of people and the environment.
Ensure that decisions about trade rules are made in a way that is fully transparent and democratic.

My description of the day in Brighton in 2004 was that it began with a rally on the promenade and “continued with a march along the seafront to the centre where the Labour party annual conference was in session. With around 6000 on the march, it straddled about a quarter-mile of seafront. “

“Outside the conference centre there was a two-minute silence before a further several minutes of deafening cacophony from whistles, banging on drums and saucepans and anything else that could make a noise.”

“Then ballot papers calling for trade justice were collected in and put into large ballot boxes along the seafront. Many people had brought cards completed by friends and a good start was made towards collecting the million signatures aimed at.“

On My London Diary I divided the pictures into four groups, General, Speakers, Performers and pictures from the March. This now seems rather confusing, but this was a time when few of those accessing the site were then on broadband. So there were pages of large postage-stamp sized thumbnails which would load reasonably rapidly, with the instruction “Click on any image to load these; they will be slow to download unless you are on broadband.“

The links on the September My London Diary page still go to the pages of thumbnails, but you can go directly to the larger images now on the links below.

General
Speakers
Performers
March & Ballot

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