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Is there a way to ensure fair and ethical international trade practices?

Queenie Richardes

Hey there!

Great question. Fair and ethical international trade practices are definitely a topic of concern in today’s globalized world. While there are no guarantees that every business will operate fairly and ethically, there are a few things that can be done to help ensure that trade practices are more fair, transparent, and responsible.

Firstly, one way to ensure fair trade practices is to prioritize and support businesses that are certified by international organizations such as Fairtrade International, Rainforest Alliance, or the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). These organizations provide third-party certification and ensure that goods, particularly raw commodities such as coffee, cocoa, and wood, are grown and harvested in an environmentally friendly, socially just, and economically viable manner. Supporting these businesses hurts the incentive of businesses with unethical practices, if businesses with ethical practices create more return.

In addition, responsible consumption is another strategy that individuals may adopt in order to support ethical business practices. This means purchasing products from ethically run companies, avoiding products from companies that have a history of unethical practices, such as child labor or environmental destruction, and carefully reading product labels to identify products that are sustainably produced.

However, a more comprehensive approach to ensuring fair and ethical trade practices is to establish policies and regulations at the institutional level. This means encouraging governments to create enforceable policies that restrain unethical businesses and encourages ethical ones. Governments should provide aligned incentives and insurance to small corporations that cannot afford to be more ethically sound. To make it possible to enact this kind of regulation, there must be international cooperation and uniformity that regulates such policies globally, ensuring that no country is acting in a manner that passes unethical practices.

In conclusion, individuals can and should choose to support ethical businesses, but there needs to be change on a bigger level than just the individual. To ensure that global trade is fair and ethical, we need collaborative international efforts to make sure that businesses operate in a socially responsible way. While this task may seem daunting, the increasing public awareness and willingness to fight for fairness makes it more and more feasible.