Globalisation & Development

Some Great Podcasts from the WTO’s 2009 Public Forum

Thursday, November 12th, 2009

At the end of September the WTO ran its annual public forum, this year entitled “Global Problems, Global Solutions: Towards Better Global Governance”.  The forum happens each year, and is a chance for governments, NGOs, academics, business and students to come together to discuss and debate some of the major issues which arise out of [...]

Trade, Labour Mobility and Development in the Pacific – Public meetings in Sydney & Melbourne

Wednesday, November 11th, 2009

I know it’s been a while since there’s been much action on this blog, but there’s lots of posts in the pipeline!
In the meantime, if you’re in Melbourne or Sydney, you may be interested to come along to a special public meeting next week, to be addressed two prominent Pacific Island trade activists:
Trade, labour mobility [...]

Coffee vs Cocaine: An Argument for Fair Trade

Wednesday, August 19th, 2009

The World Fair Trade Organization – the peak body for Fair trade organisations including producer cooperatives and associations, export marketing companies, importers, retailers, national and regional  networks – has recently released this powerful short film/ad which argues that the “drug war” taking place on streets around the world is largely the result of farmers not [...]

FTAs & TRIPs blocking access to life-saving medicines: UN Special Rapporteur on health

Tuesday, June 16th, 2009

Anand Grover is a lawyer who has appeared in several hundred cases in his native India representing and unholding the rights of people suffering from HIV/AIDS.  He established the Lawyers Collective HIV/AIDS in India.
Last year, he was also appointed by the Un to the position of “Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the [...]

Wash-up from the G20 meeting…Finally!

Tuesday, June 16th, 2009

Wow – it’s been almost 2 months since there was any movement on this blog – sorry for the long hiatus, but hopefully you’ll forgive me once you see some of the great new posts that are in the pipeline…
So, to pick up where I left off, I did promise a follow-up on the G20 [...]

G20 Lead-up Round-up

Friday, April 3rd, 2009

The leaders of the G20 group of countries are meeting in London today to try to work out what to do about this global economic crisis thingy. This has been a highly anticipated meeting, and there’s piles and piles of opinion and analysis from all and sundry about what they should or shouldn’t be agreeing [...]

Taking The Credit – New Report on Financial Services Liberalisation

Saturday, March 21st, 2009

The World Development Movement in the UK have just released an excellent report into the impact of financial services liberalisation (which usually occurs through free trade agreements) for the world’s poor.
The report says that
Liberalisation of overseas markets has been pushed aggressively by the industry’s lobbyists via free trade deals, firstly at the World Trade Organisation [...]

Deliciously good Fair Trade news from Cadbury

Thursday, March 12th, 2009

It’s not often that I get to blog about unambiguously good news here, so it’s a pleasure to report that Cadbury in the UK has committed to certifying as Fair Trade all the cocoa used in it’s Dairy Milk chocolate bars:
This groundbreaking move will result in the tripling of sales of cocoa under Fairtrade terms [...]

Melbourne: Public Lecture – “The Doha Round and its implications for developing countries”

Wednesday, March 11th, 2009

Tuesday, 31 March 2009, 6 pm to 7 pm
Professor Frank Garcia from the Law Faculty, Boston College; Director, Law & Justice in the Americas Program will be speaking on “The Doha Round and its implications (success or failure) for developing countries”
The Doha Development Round, the current trade negotiation round of the World Trade Organization Negotiations, [...]