Dancing with the Devil: Fair Trade’s Expansion as a Regulatory Standard-Setter

Abstract

Fair Trade is now a common occurrence of the average consumer’s shopping basket. From coffee to rice, it has become a standard over the last few years. The more ‘conscious’ the consumer the more ‘Fair Trade’ labelled products in his shopping basket.Hence ‘Fair Trade’ has expanded from a grassroots, alternative and exceptional form of consumption to becoming commonplace and sold by the largest corporations in the coffee sector. This paper argues that in expanding its role as a regulatory standard-setter, Fair Trade has had no other choice but to “dance with the devil” and collaborate with the largest multinationals in the world. In so doing, we question whether by adopting the traditional attributes of private regulatory standard-setters, the Fair Trade Label has been able to remain true to the cause it originally purported to defend.We shall first examine contemporary legal aspects of standard-setting and the differences between traditional ‘Hard Law’ and ‘Soft Law’ before reviewing the Fair Trade system and the way it operates. This will be followed by the analysis of ISEAL Alliance Codes of Conduct and their compliance with WTO law. Finally, we shall scrutinise the Fair Trade certification process, its costs and impacts on coffee producers before further questioning the phenomena of collaborating with corporate giants and how this has resulted in ‘astroturfing’. Far from using an alternative system to the liberal economic order, Fair Trade’s success is entirely owed to it. It is even more twisted in its use of the you-do-good-when-you-buy-Fair-Trade marketing scheme as it makes producers pay to be allowed to be help. MNCs have found their new Eldorado in this ideal, as it enables consumers to buy their way out of guilt without changing their own lifestyle.