About the Book

Trade, along with the free movement of capital, is at the heart of today‘s international economy. But international trade is an intensely political and contested subject. The book traces the history of global trade, the impact of current global trading arrangements on poverty, inequality and the environment, its hugely differential consequences for high-income and low income countries, and the future options for revised trading arrangements. It argues that factors like future fossil fuel costs, global warming, and the economic imbalances between North and South are likely to impel a radical reshaping of the WTO and the principles enshrined in its agreements. It outlines the diverse proposals advocated by the global justice movement to make global trade more sustainable.

Commendations

"An interesting new approach to global trade issues - part textbook, part critique of mainstream policies and part alternative perspective on where we might go from here. All of these angles are desperately needed and they rarely come together in mainstream texts. Here they do, updated for the main debates both in the corridors of power, the halls of academia and the meeting rooms of NGOs. This makes the book extremely valuable." - Graham Dunkley, author of The Free Trade Adventure: The WTO, the Uruguay Round and Globalism: A Critique (2000) and Free Trade: Myth, Reality and Alternatives (2004)

Contents

Introduction
1. A history of global trade
2. Global Trade Negotiations
3. High-income countries and trade
4. Low-income countries and trade
5. Trade, poverty and inequality
6. Trade and the environment
7. The future of oil
8. The future of global balance of payments problems
9. The policies of the global justice movement
10. Global Trade: Lessons for the Future

About the Author

Greg Buckman is former national finance manager for the Wilderness Society of Australia and is currently treasurer of the Australian Greens. He is also a past co-editor of their magazine, Green. He has undertaken extensive economic research, particularly on issues concerning globalization, forestry and energy. His long involvement with the environment movement goes back to the successful international fight to save the Franklin River in Tasmania in the early 1980s. He is also the author of Globalization: Tame it or Scrap it? published by Zed Books in 2004.

Academic Adoption Information

This book is used for teaching at the following institutions:

London South Bank University

University of Southampton