Global Call to Action against Poverty and Trade Justice
GCAP believes that developing countries must have the right to determine their own trade and investment policies, putting their peoples' interests first. International trade rules and national trade policies should support sustainable livelihoods, promote the rights of women, children and indigenous people, and lead to poverty eradication.
However trade rules and policies, and the imposition of harmful economic policy conditions, have become the vehicle for the indiscriminate liberalization of developing country economies undermining sustainable development, increasing poverty and inequality.
Therefore, we remind national governments of their international human rights obligations, and call upon them to use their influence with the World Trade Organization, International Financial Institutions and in regional and bilateral trade agreements to:
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Ensure developing countries are not forced to open their markets and have the flexibility to use tariffs for sustainable economic development.
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Protect public services from enforced liberalization and privatisation.
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Ensure a fair price for commodities, particularly for poor producers.
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Support the right to food and equitable access to land and natural resources.
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Secure affordable access to essential drugs.
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Reject harmful regional and bilateral free trade agreements.
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Immediately end subsidies that lead to the dumping of cheap produce on international markets.
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Increase transparency and accountability to grassroots constituencies in the formulation of international trade rules and national trade policies, while ensuring consistency with respect for workers' rights and human rights more broadly.
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Ensure developing countries have the flexibility to regulate foreign investment in the interests of their own development priorities.
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Regulate corporations to make them accountable to people and governments for their social, environmental and development impacts.
GCAP Strategic Directions: Trade
GCAP has developed its strategic thinking for the years 2009-11, read the whole document, or the extract focusing on Trade Justice Objectives and Outcomes.
Trade Justice - GCAP Works!
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Trade Justice Content
- I am Standing up in Bangladesh this weekend....
- I am Abdul Awal and I am taking action against poverty in my native Bangladesh this weekend.
- GCAP Netherlands - Learning Brief
- Lament for G20 Failure to Help People Worst Hit by Crisis
- The G20 has failed to consider the plight of the people who have been least responsible for this global financial crisis but who are suffering the most, men, women and children in developing countries.
- Liberal Trade Regime: Result card of gains and losses
- Globalisation has become a dominant form of pursuing goals of human development in the new world order. Some of the more euphoric admirers of globalisation describe it as a unique phenomenon, which has decoupled space and time and made cultural, economic and social barriers almost redundant. Others consider globalisation as primarily an economic occurrence, which implies the increasing interaction, or integration, of national economic systems through the growth in international trade, investment and capital flows. The process also implies a much broader process of restructuring political economies and diverse cultures into a monolithic entity.
- Will GCAP Make Poverty History?
- GCAP did not make poverty history yet, but GCAP is truly based on the amazing efforts done by all the existing anti-poverty campaigns of the world. GCAP might make history by connecting CSOs and supporting their engagement with decision-makers at all level. If one should recognize that GCAP remains a fragile alliance, we see CSOs getting together and developing common actions and demands. Some are using GCAP outreach to showcase their specific and unique experience and knowledge.
