Starbucks, Ethiopia and Oxfam

Following Mallen Baker's column in December, the International Policy Network's Alec van Gelder says that Oxfam needs to reassess its strategy regarding Starbucks and Ethiopian coffee trade marking
Mallen Baker is absolutely right to criticise Oxfam for going after Starbucks - an action bound to be newsworthy - instead of trying to use more appropriate facts and address the real situation ['Subtleties masked by anti-brand brew', December 2006]. The end result, if Oxfam was to have its way, might indeed be a withdrawal by Starbucks from that particular region, and thus a dramatically worse situation than now.

Given Oxfam's general opposition to improving the protection of intellectual property in poorer countries, it is ironic that it is now supporting the Ethiopian government in its bid to obtain a trademark in rich countries on a certain type of Ethiopian coffee. This is opportunism at its worst and only serves to reinforce the perception that there should be one rule for the poor and another for the rich.

If Oxfam were truly concerned about the welfare of the people of Ethiopia, it would focus its energies on the government's dire human rights record, which in addition to the more egregious violence includes the maintenance of many barriers to the conduct of mutually beneficial economic activities - such as restrictions on owning and exchanging property.

Ethiopians desperately need the rule of law, not the rule of Oxfam.