Just Certification

Through the justice principles –equality, time, status, need, efficiency and worth– developed by Jon Elster, we show in this article how fair trade certification for producers is legitimatised by stakeholders. Based on a field investigation with coffee growers in Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia and with fair trade organisations in the North (Max Havelaar/FLO, Andines and Artisans du Monde), the analysis firstly reviews just certification according to the impersonal criteria of “mechanical” justice, such as equality, time and efficiency. The second section looks at more individualised criteria such as the status, need and worth of the beneficiaries. Finally, it determines in what way fair trade is really a mixed bag, one which calls upon different principles of justice to justify what it is out to accomplish. The main result of the analysis is that fair certification granted to producer organisations is not being distributed according to a unique system of justice based on just one criterion. On the contrary, fair trade is a complex and hybrid bag that uses different components from each distribution procedure.