Just Trade. Berta Esperanza Hernández-Truyol

in the undermining of the voice of the individual citizen in the social, economic, and political system to which he or she belongs. Thus, the economic interests of the larger corporate actors trump the popular vote; the basis of public decision-making is the corporate interest rather than the desires of individual citizens as expressed at the ballot box. (See, however, section 13.4(A), examining the idea of voting.)

      In sum, the new corporate actors that have emerged, as a result of existing globalization and the world economic systems, have put pressure on, if not effectively changed, the traditional concept of citizenship. Powerful private economic actors have supplanted the individual vote by gaining access to and having the ability to influence the government’s decision-making. Governments thus implement policies favorable to corporate interests; hence, corporate enjoyment of a somewhat innovative citizenship status—Sassen’s “twist” on the traditional notion of economic citizenship, which concerns individuals’ economic rights.60

      Globalization has centralized market economies and marginalized, indeed rendered invisible, human economies. In a peculiar turn, hegemonic globalization forces, because of their emphasis on financial markets and their marginalization of human lives, currently equate the existence of a market economy with democracy (see section 13.4(A)), a notion that effectively excises pluralistic participation from democracy.

5.6 Final Thoughts

      Bringing together the discourses on trade and human rights can offer a balance to this morphing of the citizenship idea. While trade depends on the economic actors, it also largely depends on human capabilities to realize the trade goals of economic well-being for all. Reinforcing individual citizenship in its social and economic sense—access to a job that enables human thriving; access to food, health, shelter—would enhance, not detract from global actors’ economic goals. A human rights lens on globalization can recapture personhood from the edges or perimeters to the center of a globalization project. It can reconstruct the concept of citizenship as one that includes the relocalizations, multiplications, and recreations of cultures, people, communities, and languages61—events that occur because of the ubiquity of global actors and the opportunities created across increasingly porous borders.

      As we already are seeing in the travel of goods and peoples across myriad borderlands, globalization has blurred the characteristics of citizenship. We see much exportation and importation of language, culture, dress, food, and religion. It explains the travel of music, musicians, food, and dress from Peru to Capitol Square in Madison, Wisconsin, every Sunday during the Farmers’ Market. On the other hand, one travels to Peru and sees Levis and Burger King.

      A human rights perspective on globalization and citizenship will return value to human economies; it will relocate people from the margins to the center.62 This new geography, centrally mapping human rights, reconstitutes sovereignty, redefines legitimacy of states under the rule of law and the concept of territoriality, and revaluates humanity irrespective of borders or boundaries.