Wirral Trade Justice

Membership
Membership is open to all those over the age of 16 years who commit themselves to further the objective of Wirral Trade Justice. The fee to join is £2. Group membership, for churches, schools, trades union branches and youth clubs, costs £5. Please make cheques payable to “Wirral Trade Justice“.

Newsletter
Our Newsletter is sent to all our members providing up to date information on:

Forthcoming meetings and events
Reports on current issues
How to get involved
Current campaigns

To read any newsletter just click on the link below.

Wirral Trade Justice (WTJ)

WTJ was formed in 2003 to campaign for trade justice.

Objective
The objective of the organisation is to increase members' knowledge of unjust international trading practices used by rich countries against the interests of the developing world. We do this by

initiating and joining campaigns
sending a regular newsletter to members
holding public meetings to explain the issues
lobbying MPs , MEPs , local councillors, trades union leaders and other opinion formers
using local and national media.

Oh! Yes, they are! - Update!

If you have the patience and knowledge to try to penetrate the opacity of the World Trade Organisation's website, you may be as surprised as your editor was to discover that there has recently been an historic ruling by the WTO Disputes Committee. The collapsing dominoes in the graphic above truly reflect what has happened in the last couple of years to EU sugar and US cotton. The most recent decision has been to find in favour of Brazil in a complaint that the US has been unfairly subsidising its cotton producers. US has had to pay compensation to Brazil and discontinue its unfair trading practice. If the illegal subsidies continue, Brazil will be entitled - under certain conditions - to ignore US intellectual property rights in, for example, pharmaceuticals and IT software. Perhaps they were right who said that the only thing worse than the WTO would be no WTO!

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VULTURE FUNDS

The journalist, Greg Palast, who did a BBC TV documentary on vulture funds a couple of years ago has defined them as:

"Here's how a vulture operation works. The vulture fund buys up the debt of poor nations cheaply when it is about to be written off and then sues for the full value of the debt plus interest -- sometimes more than ten times what they paid for it. Singer, for example, paid just $10 million for Congo Brazzaville's debt and is now suing for over $400 million."

But apparently there is a defence of VFs since they are said to have an important function in oiling the wheels of the international debt market. Read about this in www.felixsalmon.com Would anyone like to research this question for WTJ? Google vulture funds for information.

We had a discussion about vulture funds at the AGM and the meeting passed a resolution for transmission to the government asking them to do something the way the British legal system is being abused by these funds to wring the last drop out of some of the poorest countries in the world. To read this resolution click here

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Newsletters:

2005: July, September

2006: March, September

2007: February, October

2008: April, October

2009: April, November

Useful Link:

Updated on17 November 2009

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

The annual general meeting was held on 13 November 2009, at St Michael's Church Hall in Pensby. 36 members attended and there were about 15 apologies.

The committee was re-elected and the chairman's and treasurer's reports were adopted. The committee are:

Jack Heery, chairman; Alan Vernon, vice-chairman;

John Eardley, secretary; Paula Horton, treasurer;

Jill Loach, minutes secy; Liz Seager, membership secretary;

Glynn Ridge, publicity officer; Ceri Tector and Julie Newman.

The committee does a sterling job and is a constant source of interesting ideas about how we should go about achieving our objective.

After the meeting we played the TRADE RULES GAME which was an enjoyable way to learn about the injustices of the workings of the World Trade Organisation.

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United Nations International Day of Peace

We took our banner to Vale Park, Wallasey on 21 September to spread our message and link up with other groups working in the field of peace and justice.

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"Put People First"

Jack Heery and John Eardley unfurled the banner under the Eye at he demonstration in London on 28 March 2009. To see some more pictures click here

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MEMBERSHIP

There was a fantastic response to our last appeal for new members. If you didn't get anyone to join then, why not give it another try now?

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For information about any of our activities please contact Jack Heery on

Tel: 0151 648 1930 or E-mail : jackheery@phonecoop.coop

WANT TO BECOME A MEMBER?

Download the membership application form and forward it to our treasurer with your £2 membership subscription (LIFE MEMBERSHIP!)

Click here: APPLICATION TO BECOME A MEMBER OF WIRRAL TRADE JUSTICE