ABSTRACT
The Fair Trade movement has grown rapidly in the past ten years. Yet despite its success, the movement faces fundamental challenges if it is to become a real alternative for sustainable development in the South. The challenges arise from the demands of Southern actors regarding the movement’s adaptation to specific national contexts and the goals of sustainable local development (Cotera and Ortiz 2004). Key Southern demands revolve around the development of Southern Fair Trade markets, greater participation in Northern markets, and adaptations of Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International (FLO) policies in the multilateral trade context (Asia Fair Trade 2005; Declaración 2005). Whether these demands lead to a reshaping of Fair Trade and strengthening of its global legitimacy or to a fragmentation of the movement and greater divisions between Northern and Southern conceptions of Fair Trade is as yet unclear (Elsen 2005; Wills 2005).
