Message from the Director

Free trade or fair trade?  This question continues to dominate the globalization process. 

Trade officials from the United States, like those from the European Union and Asia, travel the globe signing bilateral and regional trade pacts with the developed and developing world.  But are these agreements good for people?   Ask the people of a Tijuana shantytown who traveled from Southern Mexico to get a “good job” – one that pays sixty dollars a week.  In the Fair Trade Academy, on the U.S.-Mexico border, we do just that.  With our faculty, and a host of guest instructors, including border activists, academicians, law enforcement officials, and jurists, we expose you to the vagaries of free trade – a truly unique educational experience.  From the migrant about to cross illegally into the U.S., to federal judges deciding difficult cases of human smuggling, this is real life, not just a law school program.

 

Whether it is getting a first hand look at gamma ray detectors looking for dirty bombs in a container of Ecuadorian bananas at the San Diego Port, driving with federal law enforcement officials as they watch the border, or talking with Oaxacan workers in a border factory that manufactures plastic toys for the U.S. marketplace, students in the Fair Trade Academy live and breath international commerce and interact with its protagonists. Go here for a gallery of pictures of last year activities

 

Together, we explore the role that law plays in regulating the global marketplace:

Should international trade be about the free flow of capital or about ensuring that labor and environmental rights are protected? 

Is an ethical supply chain important to our consumption patterns? 

How do we best protect indigenous cultures from global brands? 

The Fair Trade Academy seeks to answer these questions and provide the background to understanding how international trade agreements function.

This is a full contact summer program – one that engages students, places them on the forefront of emerging issues along the U.S.-Mexico border, and forces us to ask what kind of world we are constructing.  Other summer programs may offer exotic locations and glamorous venues, but they will not change your life and transform the way you practice law.  I hope you will join us on the frontline of globalization with the Fair Trade Academy. If you have any questions, please send me an email at jjc@cwsl.edu I look forward to exploring how to build a world of fair trade with you.  Professor James Cooper Director, Fair Trade Academy