When people protest or demonstrate in favour of global justice, a key element of their concerns, judging from the placards they hold, is often the justice (or injustice) of international trade. Each time the leaders of the most powerful countries meet to discuss trade issues – whether it be under the auspices of the G8 group of the largest economies, or the G20, or the World Trade Organization – the protestors give voice to profound concerns. International trade is held to be, in various ways, unjust – with the implication that we ought to redesign the rules, or allow developing countries a more equal chance to compete on global markets. Often the language used changes a little, so that instead of demanding distributive justice, activists and NGOs talk about fairness, perhaps alongside the need to avoid exploitation or a position where more powerful countries can abuse their superior bargaining power to set the terms of international trade to suit their own interests. This chapter examines just what international trade justice – or fairness in trade – might mean, and what the theories we examined in part I of this book can contribute to thinking about these issues.

Why, though, do we need a theory of justice in international trade? International trade is meant to be beneficial. The argument for ‘free trade’ suggests that some countries will enjoy a comparative advantage in the production of particular goods. One country may be able to produce computers cheaply and easily, but not dairy products; another might be better at producing dairy products, and less good at producing computers. Britons might have a great taste for bananas, but be unable to grow them without very expensive greenhouses. Caribbean countries might be happy to sell them to Britain, allowing them to buy the Japanese motorbikes their citizens crave. Japanese people in turn might buy Scottish whisky. If they traded with each other, each country could get what they needed more efficiently. They could enjoy the benefits of economic specialisation. International trade is also said to encourage the spread of technology, and allow countries to take advantage of economies of scale. Trade, in sum, is usually held to increase the total amount of goods that can be produced, and to avoid a situation where countries have to toil over producing goods which they are ill-suited to make. This argument has been widely accepted since the English political economist David Ricardo advanced it in the early nineteenth century. A world without any international trade, or so the theory goes, would have less specialisation, would be much less efficient and would see much slower economic growth.