How fair is Fairtrade?

Fairtrade has experienced tremendous growth in the past years, but a lot of voices also criticize the initiative. Amartya Sen argues in his book “The Idea of Justice” (2009) that justice should be understood as existing to a matter of degree, it should be evaluated along a continuum. Rather than looking for principles, which define the perfectly just society, one should compare unjust situations and choose the less unjust. His theory is a hands-on approach. This book is linking Sen´s justice theory and Fairtrade. It is concerned with the question, in how far Fairtrade contributes to more (global) justice. The data, consisting of a substantial literature research and two expert interviews, has been analyzed by a thematic analysis. Amartya Sen ́s most important concepts of Comparing, Plural Grounding, Objective Public Reasoning and Justice on a Global Scale are linked with Fairtrade critique and used to discuss some challenges Fairtrade faces.